Member Article

Diversity and Inclusion: A Healing or A Recipe For Division?

Leila Aboohamad, LMFT

I grew up in a totally different time and space. Toledo, Ohio, a midwestern city of around 300,00 people, was my birthplace. My parents’ families had emigrated to Detroit and Toledo from Lebanon in the early 1900’s. I wondered why men and women who had grown up in the land of milk and honey would choose two cities in the midwest so far removed from what they knew. A visit to Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan in 2010 gave me some of the answers I had been looking for.

Henry Ford had created this most magical village on the site of the farm on which he had grown up, but chose not to join the family farm business. In 1891, he became an engineer with the Edison Illuminating company of Detroit. After his promotion to chief Engineer in 1893, he began his experiments with gasoline engines which culminated in 1896 with the completion of a self-propelled automobile. The end result was the Ford Motor company, the Model T and the assembly line which brought affordable motor cars to the middle class.

When I visited the Ford Museum and Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan, I saw the beautiful results of ingenuity, hard work, willingness to trust the small seed of an idea and the many minds of people like Thomas Edison, the Wright brothers, Abraham Lincoln who brought us innovations which have made our lives so much easier. I saw Abraham Lincoln’s Springfield, Illinois courthouse where he had practiced for 8 years, Thomas Edison’s lab where so many experiments were conducted some of which culminated in the phonograph, the motion picture camera and early versions of the light bulb. 

Why am I writing about this?  Why did my grandparents leave their beautiful homeland to come to America? Because it was and is the Land of Opportunity!

So many talented people have come to our country where anything is possible if you are willing to work for it.

When I visited the Ford farmhouse, a guide dressed in a mid-19th century costume answered my question. Henry Ford loved the work ethic of the Lebanese people. 

So, my Dad and his brothers left their homeland after their parents starved to death after the war, settled in Detroit, opened a restaurant and worked in the Ford factories. And… they were legal immigrants who entered at Ellis Island.

I grew up in Toledo, Ohio in a multi-cultural neighborhood of barely middle class families. There was no welfare, no participation trophies in elementary and high school. In fact, Scott High School was evenly divided between blacks and whites, with all the same courses and trades education. You earned your grades through hard work, being responsible for your behavior and interacting with friends from so many different cultures and ethnicities. We were grateful to be living in America, the land of opportunity.

All of my closest friends were in college prep courses, planning where we would attend college and keeping up with excellent grades so we could earn scholarships. I was treated with respect from all my teachers from kindergarten through 12th grade and beyond. It didn’t matter that I was a female with a middle eastern name. It was a beautiful time to grow up in an America which was praised in our schools, where we saluted the flag every morning with our Pledge of Allegiance and there were no “diversity and inclusion” clubs which have sprung up in our country in the 21st century.

Why have we separated ourselves from one another? One of my best friends is Chinese American, one of 10 children of immigrants who escaped Communist China with the help of missionaries. I met John in high school when we were 14. He was the only Chinese person in our high school which was a feeder school for several elementary schools in the area. John was uneasy as he knew no one at Scott High. Well, Ted said hi to him in Orientation class, welcomed him into the school and we formed a great group of friends who still keep in touch after 50 years. Incidentally, John was elected president of his sophomore and junior class, has three degrees: an engineering degree from UT, an MBA from Pitt and a law degree from LMU. He had grown up with 10 siblings in a one bathroom home. All of his siblings have advanced degrees and John just endowed a $1.1 million scholarship to LMU.

No diversity, no inclusion, no welfare, no division. Just proud Americans who were and are grateful for the wonderful life here if we want to work for it!!

Let’s rethink this divisive mind set which has caused so many problems. Why can’t we talk calmly with one another? Why do some people not talk to me if they know for whom I voted? We are all the same. We are all spiritual beings in a material world which is a schoolroom for spiritual growth. We need to honor and respect one another no matter what color, ethnicity or religion we practice, or none at all. I am not privileged because I am white. I am privileged to be alive, living in a free country with so many opportunities for success. I put myself through graduate school working 6 nights a week as a waitress. In 1988, as an intern, I had $40 to my name after paying my bills. By 1995, I had a full psychotherapy practice and bought a beautiful condo in Brentwood. I succeeded because of faith, hard work and using my gifts from my Higher Power to become an excellent psychotherapist.

Leila Aboohamad, LMFT, helps gifted, talented and creative adult individuals and couples heal the trauma experienced in childhood in order to create successful, rewarding personal and business relationships. She has been in private practice in Brentwood for 30 years. Website: www.leilalmft.com