Seth & Joe or: How I Learned to Stop Being So White and Love the Baba Ganoush

Wisconsin. A land flowing with milk and beer, where "hey der" is the typical morning greeting, and where it is more fashionable to be pasty white than it is to be tan. The home state of Bernie Brewer, Bucky the Badger, and Scoopie (Culver's reference) also happens to be my own stomping grounds, but what's so great about the state is also one of it's flaws. The culture is so enveloping, it makes it difficult to learn about anyone else's!

When I stepped foot on campus at Bradley University, way back in 2008, I was just another pale-skinned, "O"-hanging Cheesehead, with no great sense of the world beyond the Stateline. I needed to learn, and that's exactly what I started doing. I met more people of ethnically diverse backgrounds in one week at school than I probably had previously in my entire life. Jewish. Chinese. Puerto Rican. Indian. These are just some of the cultures and ethnicities I started getting exposed to.

It wasn't until my sophomore year, though, that I was introduced to another, less-known cultural background: Lebanese American. With a fairly large population in Peoria, people of Lebanese nationality and descent have come to play a significant role in the community, and their way of life can be witnessed through many area businesses and institutions. Luckily, however, I have received a deeper induction than most people, through the help of a couple of great friends, Seth and Joe Alwan.

Seth and Joe are cousins whose immediate families are residents of Peoria but also have many relatives living in Lebanon, Brazil, and other parts of the world. Both Seth and Joe are members of the same fraternity as me, Pi Kappa Phi, and both have been more than eager to share their family's broad and fascinating culture with me over the past few years. Through the connection I have with them I have eaten a dish made with raw meat, watched anise-flavored liquor be made (and helped sample), brushed up on my Arabic, and met many incredible people!

Pictured left to right: Seth, Joe and me in Galesburg, IL, at a family gathering, Fall 2011.

For the rest of my time at Bradley (1 semester) I will be logging some of my experiences with my two friends and their families, which have proved to be some of the most memorable I have had in college. I will refer to them (as I have already done many times) as "guides," while I try to communicate to my readers my growing knowledge of Lebanese culture. While it is Joe's mother's goal to introduce me to a nice Lebanese woman (fingers crossed because a lot of them are extremely attractive), it is my goal to simply go back to Wisconsin with an understanding of something other than how cheese is made!