How A Funeral Home Director Can Help With Your Advance Arrangements
Many people today are choosing to make their funeral arrangements in advance. This strategy provides multiple benefits, including the ability to pay for those arrangements now and ensure that your loved ones have one less thing to deal with at a time when they are likely to not be in the most objective frame of mind. The good news is that the director of the funeral home Wheaton IL that you want to use can help bring some structure and focus to that planning.
Burial or Cremation?
One of the first points you will want to settle is what will happy with your body once you pass away. After the body is released to the funeral home, what would you prefer to happen? If you like the director can provide you with details related to cremation. An alternative is to work with you to select the right type of coffin and also secure a burial plot if you don’t already own one.
If you have not really made a decision either way, it is important to consider the pros and cons of each approach. This includes the cost of each option, and how your family is likely to react. Once you have all the data in front of you, it will be easier to make a decision that you think is best for everyone concerned.
Timing and Place for the Memorial Service
The director of the funeral home Wheaton IL can also help you work out the particulars of when and where to hold the memorial service. Perhaps you want your body cremated immediately, and the service to be held once the cremains are sealed in an urn. On the other hand, you may want to delay the cremation until the service has been held. With the latter approach, the director can arrange for a temporary coffin, complete with a liner. Once the service is completed, the body is transported to a crematorium and your final wishes are carried out.
Keep in mind that the director of a place like Hultgren Funeral Home & Cremation Services can also make sure that the right venue is selected for the memorial service. If you are active in a specific house of worship, the director can ensure the body or the cremains are taken to that location for the service. From there, the urn and its contents can be presented to the person of your choice, or the body can be transported to the burial plot.
The director can help will all sorts of other tasks, such as preparing the obituary for use online and in local newspapers, contacting clergy, and arranging for a visitation to take place before the funeral service. The great thing about all this support is you can decide exactly what you want, make arrangements to pay for the services in advance, and ensure that your loved ones have more time to grieve without the distraction of attempting to determine what you would have wanted.
Funeral Service Music: Guidance On How To Choose The Right Songs
Music is a way for us to share both our immense joy and our grieving sorrow. When you are grieving a loved one, music will bring tears to your eyes or a smile to your face, and many times can fill you with comfort. By choosing the right music to play at your loved one’s funeral, it allows everyone in attendance to remember the deceased by bringing back their best memories.
Purpose of Music
Funeral music is usually selected to fulfill one of a few purposes:
Express our religious beliefs about death and everlasting life
To commemorate the personality and the life of the person who has passed on
To convey feelings for the deceased
Selecting the Music
If the deceased had a favorite song that would be appropriate for a funeral service, that would certainly be appropriate. If there are special hymns that have meaning to your family, you could choose to play those as well.
Remember that it’s not necessary to fill every moment of the service with music. You’ll want to choose music for guests coming into the ceremony, and depending on the type of service you have, some religious music may be played throughout the service. As the guests are leaving the funeral, you may choose to play an appropriate song at that time as well.
When you choose music for a funeral that incorporates a religious service, you should speak to a clergy member about rules regarding certain selections. Some religions don’t allow popular music at any religious service. If you must play popular music, perhaps you can do so at the wake or while people are taking their seats.
Funeral Music Resources
A live performance by someone who was close to the deceased lends a personal touch to the service. Church choir members and musicians may also sing at the service.
Most funeral homes and churches will have their own sound system, but check ahead of time to make certain. This way, you can bring along your own CD to play if they do not have any way to accommodate a live musician or singer.
If you are truly at a loss for the type of music you can select, or the songs you’ll want to play, ask your funeral director or clergy person for assistance. There are certainly many appropriate songs available that are played at funerals again and again, so having some guidance may help you in selecting the songs that will speak when words can’t, helping everyone through this most difficult time. If you have additional questions or are seeking advice on music selection for a funeral service, a funeral home like Schmutzler-Vick Funeral Home & Cremation Service can be of assistance.
The death of a loved one is one of the top 10 most stressful times for a family. A good, reputable funeral home can make this time easier by helping you organize the arrangements. Funeral home hunterdon county nj is an example of a quality funeral home.
When you are deciding on a service for your loved one, the funeral home will ask if you want a traditional funeral with a casket. Otherwise, if you prefer cremation services, a viewing of your loved one is optional.
A traditional service includes an evening for visitation. People come to the funeral home to pay their last respects to your loved one and offer condolences to your family. Family and loved ones can order flowers to be delivered to the funeral home. It is comforting to see flowers, plants, angels, garden stones and other memorials given by thoughtful people in your family’s lives.
After visitation, a traditional service includes a service where loved ones share memories. Often a spiritual reading is included in this service. Once the family has had their last viewing, the casket is loaded into a hearse. The hearse will drive the casket, followed by a funeral procession of cars, to the burial site. More comforting words are shared before the casket is lowered in the ground for burial.
Conversely, when family opts for cremation a memorial service can still be held. Some family members like to have a viewing of the body before cremation. The funeral home can help arrange this. Otherwise, a memorial service usually involves displays photos of your loved one’s life. Pictures from different times in their life can be displayed, along with scrapbooks, awards, diploma, or any mementos that tell the story of their life.
A funeral home helps to coordinate an obituary that is printed in the local newspaper. They also help family to think about details such as a spray of roses to display over the casket. A ribbon indicating ‘Grandmother”, “Mother”, “Grandfather”, “Father”, or other relation, is a nice touch for the memorial service. When families are under stress, they often don’t think about these details. The funeral home will help you to remember and include this in the service.
Funerals take a lot of coordination and planning. Funeral homes can help families with all the details of visitation, funeral services, cremation, memorial services and everything in between. A quality funeral home will take the burden off you and help you plan a service to honor your loved one. A well planned service offers comfort, and helps family to share and honor a life well lived.
11 REASONS I HAVE 40K+ LOVING FOLLOWERS ON INSTAGRAM AND 10K+ ON TWITTER
How did I end up with so many followers on Twitter and Instagram when I wasn’t even trying to get any? That was apparently the exact reason. Read on.
f you’re trying to build presence on social media but don’t know how, you’re at the right place. Read on. Those of you with 100K followers could be nodding your head as you read.
I say “loving followers” in the title as I almost always receive kind and thoughtful replies, and there have only been 3 or 4 haters that I can recall during my years using SNS.
Lots of people wonder how ordinary people like us get Instafamous or have Twitter followers in the 5 or 6 digit figures and then are called “social influencers.” Having over 40K followers on Instagram and 10K followers on Twitter myself, I wondered why my account was getting so popular for a person who never had much interest in gaining followers. I think that was 90% of the reason I ended up with so many followers. I never really wanted followers.
That sounds ironic. I know.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I didn’t want people to follow me (because otherwise, why would I be posting contents to the public in the first place?), but I never really cared about the number of people that followed me or how many “likes” I had per post.
Instead, I pay attention to who follows me or likes my content and try to have conversations with all sorts of people while appreciating their contents. That’s what social media is here for in the first place, right?
When you add all sorts of “follow4follow” or “like4like” types of hashtags and lines to your posts, you might get some followers and likes but only from the people who want their content seen and couldn’t care any less about yours. Doing so also makes you seem desperate to get engagement. Posts with worthy contents will get likes without your adding all sorts of irrelevant hashtags and advertisements. Likewise, people will follow pages that they find meaningful, and the number of followers increase as you keep on posting.
Using hashtags is a great way that lets others discover you, but keep them relevant or you may be flagged as a spam account on top of the tactic being ineffective. And no, using #hashtag every few #words within your #main #content does #NOT make it #easier to #READ
You don’t want to be known as that annoying person who just obviously wants attention with unoriginal content. Make a page of contents that you’re really interested in. Find people with similar interests and simply enjoy the conversations as others chime in.
With that in mind, there are a few things I do on social media that may have made people follow me with a high retention rate. Here we go.
1. Choose the Right Platform
Different social media platforms have different vibes. If you are all about writing, trying to write an essay on Instagram would not work. Since Instagram’s main content is always the photo, having a high quality or unique photo is what grabs the attention of its users. A lot of Instagrammers barely even read the caption as they scroll through their timelines, so it wouldn’t be the best platform to express what you want to say if you have an argument. If you want to create a gallery of photos in which your followers can view a lot of your photos at once, then Instagram would be the right platform for you. Instagram would also work if you take a lot of selfies or food pictures and want to share the album with your friends and fans.
Choose the right social media platform to begin with.
For people who focus on words, Twitter may be the place to go. While there are photography accounts including plenty of professional ones on Twitter, it may not be the right platform for you if you are just starting out and want your followers to see your gallery as a whole. Tweets get pushed down the moment you post another, so your followers will most likely only see a couple of your most current contents at most. Unlike on Instagram, Twitter is all about sharing or “Retweets” as Twitter calls it. If you want to spread information, there is no better social network platform than Twitter.
Facebook is used mainly to connect with real friends. Most Facebook users post their face photo for their profile picture and use their real first and last names. A lot of its users may not accept friend requests from strangers especially if there are no mutual friends. At least in my experience, it’s not really a place where random strangers of similar interests connect although there are exceptions. People may engage in a conversation on certain pages on Facebook and then decide to connect as friends. Certain accounts like news pages may have a live broadcast on Facebook, and the people who commented may send friend requests. These are not the main ways of using Facebook to most of us though, and it would be much easier to make new friends on Instagram or Twitter if that’s what you are looking for.
When trying a new social media platform for the first time, whatever that worked on one platform may not necessarily work for the other. Once getting used to the new platform, you will understand what your audience wants to see and what types of accounts get engagement on such platform.
2. Create a Profile to Show Who You Are
On my Instagram profile, I list the other photography pages I own and briefly describe what I do. instagram.com/chara_stagram_
If you’re already a public figure, then not having a profile at all wouldn’t matter. Fans will find you by searching your name. If you’re not a celebrity, write a profile that might appeal to the types of audience you wish to connect with.
On my Twitter profile, I write both in English and Japanese as most of my followers on my Twitter are Japanese. twitter.com/CharaoEnglish
Tell people what you do or what your interests are. Share some unique facts about you. While most people will only read your profile the first time they visit your page, if they don’t understand who you are, they might feel timid to establish a relationship with you. On one hand, having a face photo could be a good idea as we usually feel comfortable talking to people who we know how they look. That’s perhaps why we get curious of how faceless people look like at times. Even if you don’t have confidence in your looks, if you walk around in public without hiding your face everyday, I really can’t find the benefits as for that matter of doing otherwise online. (Now, as a believer that everyone is beautiful for who they are, I will tell you that you look gorgeous as you are right now if you lack self-confidence).
On the other hand, some people get concerned about privacy issues. I personally didn’t see too much of an issue, but I always keep my profile photos at an odd angle (like from the side) in case facial recognition advances and some stalkers find out my address by associating the photo to where my address is listed — which will most likely be a source for government issued ID with my face photo taken from the front. Is it realistically likely for something like that to happen? I wouldn’t think so. Everyone’s case is different though, so do the research and decide for yourself.
At the very least, have a unique photo or icon that allows others to associate you with.
3. Pick a Theme
Whether you’re a photographer, a big time foodie, a medical professional, or a housekeeping expert, have a theme for your page.
Pick one or two main themes your page will be based on. For my Twitter, I chose English and photography while my Instagram is solely on photography. Once in a while, I’ll throw in something extra that I’ve found, but I try my best not to go all over the place.
If you have plenty of interests, that’s absolutely fantastic. I do too. But posting everything on your SNS can make your page messy, and it’ll be hard for your audience to tell what you’re page is about. Sticking to one or two topics can be difficult especially in the beginning when you don’t yet know what it is that your fellow SNS users want to see, but it’ll come to you as you get used to posting on your page.
4. Have Original Content
Make sure that your content is original to some extent. Picking up other people’s tweets from all over the place and rewriting them won’t do much except for plagiarizing their work in exchange for something subpar. You might as well just hit the share or retweet button and tell the original poster how wonderful their post was.
Getting inspired by someone else is one thing, but taking their contents to make it your own is another. You could be inspired by this blog article and decide to write your own article based on factors you thought built your SNS page, but it’s plagiarism if you decide to copy and paste a few sections from this article and a few lines from other articles. Restating what I wrote to make it your own is equally as bad.
It’s the same thing on SNS. Be inspired by what you see, but don’t just mimic viral posts.
You should also never upload any photos or videos that you don’t own. A simple footnote indicating the source would NOT clear copyright infringement, so if you’ve ever had thoughts on posting others’ media, make sure to read our article “Copyright 101 on Photos and Videos” to avoid legal troubles.
It’s not a problem if you don’t have enough knowledge or skills to create an informative or a professional page. Just share things out of life that you found pleasant which others may want to see as well until you get the gist, and consider it to be a lifestyle account for the time being.
5. Let Others Decide What to Like, Share, and Whom to Follow
People will follow you without your requesting to do so if they are interested in what you do. It’s usually just an annoyance to others if you’re constantly asking them to. Likewise, people will like and share posts that they find beneficial or pleasing. Telling others to like, share, and follow suggests that you’re lacking quality content. A “please share” from time to time to get the most important and urgent of the messages spread might be fine, but that’s definitely not the photo of a burger you had for lunch an hour ago or breaking news that you had a haircut. An exception we can see is on YouTube where it seems to be the tradition for even the most popular of its creators to say “please like and subscribe.”
6. Follow Others Because You’re Interested
A lot of people hate it when you “follow to unfollow.” I personally couldn’t care any less if someone did, but if they follow random accounts that they don’t have any interest in just to get a followback, it tells me that they don’t have sufficient content to attract people to their pages. Follow people because you’re purely interested and like what you see. Then, move onto…
7. Connect With People
Go talk with people because that’s what social networking is all about. If you want to get on social media just to keep yourself updated on what’s going on in the world or simply enjoy looking at other people’s contents, then that’s fine. You go do you. Still, there’s no need to shy away from wishing someone a happy birthday, congratulating someone’s memorable events, or sending words of encouragement though.
If you intend to connect with others on social media though, liking 50 posts on someone’s page expecting them to say hi to you might not work. Don’t be afraid to start up a conversation that’s related to the post.
Having conversations with many people is how I may have ended up with so many followers. It’s probably my personality in the real world as well. I would go visit a hotel that I stayed at a few years ago and front desk agents would often come to greet me with a hug and a huge smile. I would go to the local grocery store or a cafe and the employees will know me by name although I live in a decently big city. It’s no different on social media. Engage in conversations, and stay connected with those people. Try to find and remember something nice about them.
8. Talk About What You Like and Not What You Don’t
Sounds easy enough? Probably not so for a lot of you out there. It’s one of those things that are easily said than done, but honestly, who do you think is interested in listening to the endless list of things you hate? Celebrities you can’t stand, food that tasted horrible, rude people you saw on the train, annoying spouse… the list could go on forever, but with so much of the focus on negativity, it makes me wonder if the same people would go to Disneyland on a hot summer day just to focus on random strangers’ sweaty body odor or open up a trash can to find some rotten food to post on their Instagram. Yuck. Who does that? Yeah, I really don’t know why you’d want to do that anywhere outside of Disneyland either.
Addressing social problems may be one thing, but simply SHOUTING ALL THE THINGS YOU HATE IN ALL CAPS LIKE YOU’RE ANGRY ALL THE TIME WITH UGLY EMOJIS IS ANOTHER!!!!!!!!!! Get the picture? Yes, I agree that social awareness is important as is making a change. When was the last time you actually made some stranger stop their habits for good by yelling straight at their face though? Thought so. It really isn’t any different on social media. The people you’re trying to target will block you, mute you, or YELL BACK AT YOU IN CAPS.
How about inviting people to join you by sharing a few facts along with possible strategies, or show how you are making action for a cause. An educational conversation doesn’t mean yelling slurs and profanities at random strangers.
9. Respect What Others Like
Kevin “I love Disney!”
Thomas “You do? I don’t. It’s boring.”
Kevin “…..”
You want to engage in conversations that will make the person on the other end smile — just as you would want them to when talking face to face.
See where this conversation is going? Straight down to hell. Okay, it’s not that bad. Still, you’re killing the conversation by telling someone else that you don’t have any interest in what they are about to say. If the topic is not something that you absolutely can’t stand listening to, let them take the stage for a few seconds.
Having conversations on social media platform just to say you don’t like what others like, or even worse, finding posts just to mention you don’t like it isn’t going to do you or others any good. The same could probably be said outside the social media world as well.
By expressing negative feelings toward what someone likes, others who see your conversation may also step away when they could have had other common interests with you. If you’re not really interested in the subject, a simple “awesome,” “cool,” or “interesting” should close off the conversation without making others feel bad which leads us to…
10. What You Like Isn’t Necessarily What Others Like
When a person constantly replies with a very short response like “awesome,” “cool,” or “interesting,” they probably don’t share the same interest with you for that particular field. That’s okay. There are no two individuals that have the exact same interests. Finish up what you have to say, and introduce another topic that may interest your listener. That’s so much easier to do on social media where people of similar interests gather.
11. Questions Can Start Conversations, but Don’t Ask Too Much
Asking questions related to the post is a wonderful way to begin a conversation. It shows that you’re interested in the topics the person is talking about and can lead to meaningful discussions. You still need to draw a line between having a social conversation and using professionals as free resources.
You haven’t seen how much effort and time people have put in to becoming who they are today, but you bet it wasn’t a simple path.
This is something I try to be very careful with when having conversations on social media. When I am connected to so many professionals on social media (as all of you are too since most of us have some sort of an occupation), I would never ask questions that a person should usually charge to answer. There is a significant difference between being interested and taking advantage of the people you follow.
You could perhaps ask a professional photographer to see if they know the name of the flower they’ve posted because it’s really beautiful. When you start asking for the camera settings, techniques used to edit, and ask them to help you out with your own photography, then you’ve probably gone too far. Especially if that’s how you start off conversations all the time, people may feel pressured to answer your questions and would want to step away. When you want to ask a question, ask yourself if you’re solely trying to have a conversation and spend some time that will benefit both you and the other — or if you’re intention is to get some free advice. Respect others’ professions just as you should be respected for yours.
Notice what you’re camouflaging in the words you type. Your followers can tell whether you’re hiding requests within what you pretend to be for others, and likewise, at the times you make it seem as if you’re writing for your benefit when it was actually meant to benefit others.
To Sum It Up
You might gain followers quicker if you always aim to post contents that tend to go viral or are based on controversial issues. That strategy would work only if you care about the numbers, but a lot of those followers could be your haters. If a post naturally goes viral, then let it be so, but if you’re intentionally making contents that could cause controversy only for the purpose of grabbing attention, then prepare to see some replies you probably would never want to.
Start with a social network platform you feel that relates to you the most.
I mainly focus on who I connect with rather than how many I connect with. The number of followers happened to add up over the course of time just as the number of friends I have outside the social media world would add up as long as I keep on living. There’s no rush. There will always be someone that wants to chime in on what you have to say, and that’s how the network grows.
Every person will find different approaches when building their page on SNS platforms, but what’s mentioned in this article is what allowed me to connect with my followers after carefully reviewing my accounts. Have you made different approaches to increase your presence on social media? Let us know in the comments.
ide a train and you can engage in a conversation with a complete stranger sitting next to you while commuting. You might dine at a restaurant and your servers can talk with you about topics that are completely unrelated to your food. Americans aren’t known for our friendliness for no reason. We aren’t afraid to have small talks with random people we run into on the street or joke around with our baristas when picking up our venti cup of coffee on the go at a Starbucks. Maybe not every single American is talkative, but most of us are pretty social. We like to think so at least.
That doesn’t mean that you can ask and talk about anything you want to without boundaries. Not that you can never talk about any of the things on this list, but it’s probably wise if you avoid these topics until you stay here for some time and develop a sense of with whom and when it’s acceptable to talk about these issues.
1. Politics
It’s not very difficult to find a guy who will be delighted to have a 3-hour coffee session talking about how the Trump administration is destroying the nation or the lady who will never close her mouth on how Obama was the greatest national embarrassment. Good for them that they care for their own country. You should probably leave it at that too.
The White House in Washington, D.C.
As politically divided as the United States is today, arguing or disagreeing with someone’s political views can easily turn your best friend into your worst nightmare. You could be in a heavily Democratic state talking with a friend who is a registered Democrat and a lot of people could be nodding their heads as they listen into your conversation, but don’t be alarmed if there are a few Republicans in the room who could be very upset having heard what you two have been talking about – or vice versa.
If you really want to know about how people feel on political issues, go look at the replies that people write on CNN and Fox News’s Twitter accounts that discuss a lot on politics. You’ll hear opinions from people from the both extremes of the political spectrum and everyone else in between.
2. Money Matters
The Physical Price
We’ve all heard it. How much do you make? How much do you pay for rent? How much did you pay for this car, bag, jacket, [insert whatever object you feel like here]?
We get it that humans are curious creatures and these questions are perfectly acceptable to ask in some cultures, but we tend to avoid these conversations in the U.S. because they are too personal and sensitive.
Avoid asking about money matters- period.
If you want to know about prices in general for your information like how much renting an apartment costs in a given location, ask for the general information and not how much the specific person pays. Then, some people will be willing to share how much they pay for rent or how much they bought their house for, but that’s totally up to them and should never be something you ask the answer for.
You think something is cheap? Your friends may not. If you bought yourself a flashy designer brand watch for $8,000 and thought it was a great deal because the same watch would cost you double the price in your home country, good for you. Wear it and enjoy it. Even if you thought that you made a great purchase and refrain from mentioning its price tag, the friend you’re talking to may be struggling to pay the bills. It’s probably better for you and your friend if you say nothing about the price at all – both the sticker price and in perspective.
What if you think something is ridiculously expensive? By talking endlessly about how you can’t afford something, all you’re really doing is complaining, and nobody really enjoys listening to people’s complaints. If the matters are as serious as needing desperate help to make ends meet, seek financial help from the appropriate people. Your friends or the Joe you met a few days ago are probably not one of them.
The only exception we can find to this rule is that when you’re looking for the same item as your friend is – say a textbook for class – then it’s perfectly acceptable to mention that you found a great deal at a such and such store. The general rule of thumb on money matters though is that it’s probably smart to say nothing at all.
3. Race/Ethnicity
Everyone is beautiful for who they are.
With people joining us from different backgrounds, asking questions or making judgments based on race or skin color is usually a no-no. Many people are very open to speak about their identity, where they came from, discuss the beauties and challenges of being a particular race, but a lot of people would rather say nothing about it and just be seen for who they are beneath their physical appearances.
Accept people for who they say they are with no buts and ifs. Say that you start a conversation with a girl you met on a bus and you think she looks Southeast Asian. If she tells you she is from Hartford, CT, then she is from Hartford, CT. It’s not really any of your business where her parents, grandparents, or ancestors may have come from. Same thing if who you thought was African-American identifies himself as part Scandinavian and part German, that’s who he is, and the list could continue forever. Unless the person you are talking to is a Native-American, we all root back to somewhere that’s outside the United States.
Also, it’s always wiser to ask “are you local?” or “are you from [insert the city that you are currently in here]?” than to ask “where are you from?” so that your new friends can share as much (or as little) information they feel comfortable sharing with you.
4. Age
While in some cultures it may be perfectly acceptable to abruptly ask for someone’s age, it’s not really so here in the U.S., and some people frown upon the question. Just as pretty much everything else on this list, if they want to share the information with you, they will do so on their own. It’s simply inconsiderate and ill-mannered to ask someone else for their age, so lose it with the “how old are you,” “in what year did you graduate from college,” and every other question that may pressure people into disclosing information that could suggest their age.
5. Physical Appearance
“I love the way you do your hair!” “Those rings are so pretty!” are both great compliments to give.
What you may think is a compliment could be taken as an insult by someone else. Facial features, body size, anything the person can’t control is better off unmentioned no matter how lovely and beautiful you think it is.
If you want to compliment someone for his or her appearance, comment on things they chose themselves like their accessories, clothes, or hairstyles.
6. “Disabilities”
We wrote it as “disabilities” in quotation marks only so that it is easy for our English learners to understand what we are talking about. In general, we try to avoid the word as a whole and replace it with challenges or conditions if we absolutely must talk about it. The times you are curious to find out what conditions a person have are definitely not that times you need to talk about it.
Unless you’re someone’s counselor, doctor, or special education teacher, there’s not really a reason to discuss whatever challenges someone else faces either with that person or someone else.
If you find a lady on a wheelchair at a grocery aisle that is obviously struggling to reach an item that’s placed high, it’s nice gesture to reach for the item and hand it to her, but do it in the same manner you would to anyone else that’s shorter than you struggling to reach for an item that you could. Regardless of your intentions, it’s not your place to say “it must be difficult for you with blah blah blah” or offer additional help without being asked.
7. Gender Roles
Whatever assumptions you make on how men or women are supposed to act in your home country, leave them in your home country. Being one of the countries that lead gender equity, we guarantee that you’ll become the weirdest person on the block by mentioning how men or women are supposed to blah blah blah or trying to persuade your rhetoric that promotes gender inequity. We will say the same about sexual orientation. If you’re not writing a college thesis on human rights, you’d probably be better off not mentioning these things at all.
8. Comments Disrespecting the U.S.
When you invite guests to your home and they talk about how ugly your home is, your having poor interior design skills, and point out all the problems they could imagine, you’d probably want to kick them out. It’s one thing for the homeowners to complain about their own houses, and it’s another for their guests to do so.
American flags proudly displayed at the Boston Public Library. See more photos by @chara_stagram_
The same applies to “home country.” While neither ICE nor CBP will be knocking on your door for only pointing out the ugly parts of the United States, no American would want to hear how ugly or inconvenient their home country is. Try to focus on what’s beautiful and wonderful about the U.S. and mention those things instead.
9. Visa/Immigration
As we speak about DHS (US Department of Homeland Security), we’ll add on one more topic that some people in the United States could feel uncomfortable sharing.
Everyone knows how complex and difficult it could be to obtain a visa status in the United States once they have gone through the process. The procedure is time consuming, some may reach undesirable results, and many will find the entire process frustrating.
According to a report by MPI, an estimated 44.5 million immigrants were in the United States as of 2017 who reside on whatever visa statuses they were granted. Many of them could be in the process of adjusting their status which takes plenty of effort and time. As we don’t really need to remind them of how difficult the process is or was, we throw immigration issues into our batch of things that are better left unmentioned.
Moreover, 11 million is the common estimate of the undocumented population in the United States, but a Yale and M.I.T. research conducted in September of 2018 suggested that there are as many as 22.1 million undocumented immigrants residing in the nation. An article by the Hill discusses on this report in details. The issue of undocumented immigrants goes much further than “why don’t they just get a visa?” with every immigrant having a story of their own. If you are a novice to the topic, you may want to do some research before jumping onto assumptions.
Visa status would be an issue some would feel absolutely comfortable talking about, but there are also those who cannot even visit their home countries easily while they wait for their Green Cards. There are the others who are approaching the end of their visa terms and reluctantly need to leave the United States. The topic is usually better avoided as a whole and wouldn’t necessarily constitute an ideal small talk.
American Lifestyle highly advises you to consult an immigration attorney shall you have any issues or questions regarding your personal visa or other immigration related matters.
Opinions on immigration policies become part of politics which throws us back up to #1 on our list today.
To Sum it Up
Our list consists of just the few basics that we came up with. Some Americans will be willing to talk about any of the topics mentioned above on your first meet while others will never want to discuss these things in their lifetime. Stay in the U.S. for a while, and you’ll be able to figure out on your own when, to whom, and how it is acceptable to bring up these topics.
Have we missed anything on the list? Feel free to let us know in the comments.
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