Editorial January 13, 1986 Issue

"Love thy neighbour"—yes, but so many neighbors?

ALLISON W. PHINNEY, JR.

Cascading into the United States like a rainbow-hued waterfall have come Cubans, Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Guatemalans following on Cape Verdeans, Mexicans, and Puerto Ricans following on Hungarians, Poles, and Russian Jews. In other countries the influx may be Indian, Pakistani, Japanese, or Arab.

There's little question in the eighties that we are rapidly fulfilling a prediction of the sixties—the world as a "global village."

But can I really love my neighbor when it's increasingly clear I have so many? Most of us are not even as consistent as we should be in loving brothers, sisters, and uncles, let alone neighbors and races and cultures that seem strange to us.

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