Generation M

A teacher of mine once referred to my generation (I was born in 1988) and younger as the Generation M. When asked what he meant by that he said M is short for millennium, as in the New Millennium. Two recent birthday parties that I attended made me not only remember but also think about that particular neologism. Generation M need not necessarily be Generation Millennium. How about Generation Modernity, Menace, Movement (due to globalization) but the most fitting alternative, in my opinion, would be Generation Mix. At the two house parties that I attended within a space of a month I managed to meet:an English-Iraqi, a German-Indonesian, a Uruguayan-Swede and a Scottish-Ghanaian. Even in my mother's reception class 4/12 of the children are intercontinental with English fathers and Turkish, Egyptian, Syrian and Zambian mothers respectively. Apart from leaving me feeling bland, bleached and boring in this ultra colorful city it also made me wonder whether this trend would have a positive or a negative impact on world metropolas as a whole. The first thought was that it cannot be anything other than positive. With 90% of the future generation coming from four continents who's going to fight who? In case most are taught both of their parents' language plus the one of their home country everyone will understand everyone and there would be no need for translators (wait, that's bad because I'd be put of business and might need to get a real degree [mock shudder]). At first glance the only negative effect would be on artificial tan and hiar product companies with all the losses that's they would make. However, jokes aside, there may be negative outcomes., the first one being, the rise of extreme parties due to a feeling of threat in the older, more mono ethnic generation coupled with the ever deepening economic crisis and large-scale migration.

Having read this week's edition of the London Student my suspicions are becoming more founded in fact after having read that five USA states have banned Hispanic Studies (my degree grrr)from their universities because it is a national securicty threat [rolleyes]due to the existance of some extreme factions of the Mexican population working on joining Alamo and other parts of the USA to Mexico. Having attended a few courses with a sizable elderly population I have heard the "we are disappearing, no point being English any more" discourse many times. Not wanting to enter in a philosophical discourse of what they actually mean by English (since technically it would be a MIX of Roman, Viking, Celt and Anglo-Saxon) I found myself nodding weakly and thinking "silly oldies". What I didn't do however is trying to put myseld in their shoes. I treid really hard to imagine being a 65 year old lady whose all three sons managed to marry Japanese ladies (I know a person in this situation). My age group wouldn't even bat an eyelid but to the old lady it most probably means dinner table clash and unrecognizable grand-children.

The second issue may be the children of those rainbow unions feeling like a suspended bridge belonging neither here nor there. However, this will be a rare case since most of those children come from stable partnerships where they identify as both rather than neither. But what about quite a few pleasure babies (my PC neologism for a one night stand/donor offspring) that I also know. It must be devastatingly hard being a mono-ethnic pleasure baby let alone otherwise. Around half a dozen that I do know, admitted having identity issues throughout their entire childhood and adolescence and always ending up identifying with the absent father's side (human psychology=fascinating). One my two patrilinealy Spanish friends admitted that' she'd only teach her children Spanish even thought her grammar is "rubbish"(her words) and her Danish perfect and the other one seems to always try and somehow "get" flamenco but never quite manages to do so.

On the final note, one wonders if this whole mix and match trend is actually just fashion. You know, trying something new. Maybe the next measure of old fashioness will be having a partner from the same continent lol.

Disclaimer: This was meant to be a curious, humorous blog. Hopefully nobody was offended :-)