Part 1: Welcome to Atlanta - please park your spaceship at the door

I’m a newcomer here and a foreigner in this place. In fact, according to the CBP, the DHS and any other official acronyms concerned with such things, I’m considered an “alien”.

Just so you know - where I come from, that is a term reserved exclusively for folks who hail from another planet. Yet I’ve been so warmly received in Atlanta that I tend to forget about my presumed extra-terrestrial origins.

Indeed, there seems to be something very special about Atlanta. Sure, the weather is warm here, as everybody will tell you before you even finish saying hello. Yet it’s the people here who demonstrate a level of warmth that may be unparalleled in my own experience.

So, here’s the thing - although people in America are very diverse, it may just be that Atlanta typifies what makes your country great.

No, seriously.

Yes, I know … now you want to ask, “Why would you say that?”

It’s a valid enough question, given that Atlanta is in the South and thus tends to be associated elsewhere with stereotypes that are typical of this region. Well, guess what - there’s nothing stereotypical about Atlanta. 

Apparently nobody is actually from here

People who live here are quick to tell you that “nobody is actually from Atlanta”. Okay, granted that may come as somewhat of a surprise (especially to those of you who were born here), but you get the idea - it’s a city that is largely populated by people who came from elsewhere.

That, in fact, may be the key to what has transformed this city from a sleepy stereotype into a dynamic and robust archetype.

You see, I grew up in Montreal, the child of immigrants from Europe. Most second generation Montrealers of that era learned to speak both French and English, in addition to the language of their parents. It was a remarkable environment, which bred mutual understanding and tolerance.

Eventually I moved to Toronto for a few years, where I raised my own family. Did you know that it is now the most cosmopolitan city in the world? Like Atlanta, until the seventies it was quite homogenous - but then it was hit by a wave of immigrants that transformed it forever.

People came from everywhere and created cultural pockets, much like the storied boroughs of New York. And yet … while Toronto remained relatively clean and crime free (in that nice, uniquely Canadian way), it never acquired the warmth and charm for which Montreal has become famous.

Since it had been a city with a rather cold demeanour to begin with, it would seem that transforming it into a cosmopolitan Mecca did not succeed in changing this fundamental aspect of its character.

Mixing southern hospitality with an influx of immigrants

Enter Atlanta.

What happens when you mix traditional southern hospitality with an influx of new blood from around the world? Something very special, apparently - and that is the point of this article.

Perhaps more than anything else, Atlanta is a city of worshippers. The sheer number of churches lining the streets is incredible. Methodist, Baptist, Catholic - you name it, they are all represented.

Of course, there are other faiths as well and one gets the impression that everyone is welcome in Atlanta - as long as they respect their neighbours. Actually, Canadians generally live that way, too. We’re polite as hell and fiercely defend everyone’s right to self determination … but just don’t get us annoyed.

Yet it seems clear that Christianity is the backbone of Atlanta. As a foreigner, when you visit a church here you begin to get a sense of what makes America great. You start to understand why Americans have historically sent their youth to fight foreign wars, even if they were sometimes dragged into them reluctantly.

Bearing witness to your faith

So, perhaps the secret to your strength is something that the people of Atlanta do without even thinking about - you bear witness to your faith, in the way that you live your everyday lives (and take your daily bread). While many other Americans certainly do this also, it seems to be a way of life here.

At work, at play, at home, in the church - regardless of whether people succeed or fail, it’s the norm here to at least try to walk in the path of righteousness. Apparently this is not an exception - it’s the rule.  

That doesn’t necessarily mean living like a monk or abstaining from any kind of fun. Neither does it mean frowning upon others who are different. It doesn’t even mean mingling only with your own kind, as some cultures tend to do (including my own native Quebec, which unlike the days of my youth, has become somewhat xenophobic lately).

Humility and tolerance

What it does seem to mean is learning to humbly walk in the path of God, whatever that may entail. Different creeds may have different interpretations of that maxim, but usually it involves living by some version of the Ten Commandments … and that’s a pretty good starting point for anyone, right?

To my surprise, race no longer seems to be the elephant in the room here. I heard it put very nicely in a recent Sunday school class for adults (who else does that, anyway?) - when it comes to their slave-owning ancestors, the people of Atlanta seem to have understood “the error of their ways”. That kind of humility may be a key to uncovering the clues to this remarkable society.

In my own case, for a long time I was married to a lovely Canadian woman of Haitian descent, with coffee coloured skin. We travelled extensively and sometimes encountered racism, but not in Atlanta.

Here it is common to see ethnically mixed couples and nobody even seems to notice. Not so in New York, by the way - the only place in our travels where I actually felt uncomfortable about the antagonism towards us.       

This great city once rose up like a Phoenix from the ashes and grew again to achieve prosperity. Now you can show your brothers and sisters across the nation how this noble country can rise up and once more become a beacon of light, to show the way for the rest of the world.