My personal experience on living the American Culture for 7 years.

One of the most important lessons in life that living immerse in a different country is the understanding of what a culture means and how to respect that culture even though my thoughts and beliefs could be the opposite. 

I lived in the USA for 7 years, when I arrived there I could not speak a word in English, nor eat any of their food nor understand the way they deal with germs and education either. 

Understanding and respecting their culture was a process, a process in which I not only learned about the american culture but also, South African culture and Mexican culture because we were cultural exchange visitors and we had to share our journey with them. 

What people normally do is criticized the other  people's beliefs and ways of do different things, then they compared those behaviors and styles with their own and finally, after many years of immersion they can learn to respect and many times adapt many of those behaviors and ways to their own.

One major aspect learnt through the years is that we cannot generalized a country's culture by one member or a few. In order to mention an aspect as cultural it needs to be predominant on  different groups of people there and be recognized for many.

Life when on a immersion changes a lot, you change your own perspective of the world and learn to take from each learning moment what may apply to you and  your ones. You get use to having lots of resources for teaching, to having all you need in your hand and to find answers when you have questions. 

You also get used to people looking at you differently, like you don't belong there because in order for understanding other peoples culture you need to be open minded and free of prejudice and the people in the USA is very conservative and don't allow racial differences that easy. The truth is many other Americans, the educated ones, learn also to respect your culture and seek knowledge from you even when sometimes what you do, eat or believe can be very different from what they do, eat or believe. 

It is very important to teach our students the differences among people from every where, including our own country. Kids need to grow up with an understanding of been unique in the world and face life without the barriers of race or culture.