Okay, quick name three types of Chinese food. Easy, right? You got your egg rolls, your crab rangoon and your chow mein. No problem.

Okay, now name three Mexican holidays.

A little tougher, but still not too bad. Cinco de Mayo, la Dia de los Enamorados and la Noche de la Navidad.

Okay now for the big question. Name three customs of people native to Kenya.

Stumped? If you’re the average Iowan, you probably are.

Well, you may soon have a chance to find out the answers to questions like that, if Iowa State follows through on talk of building a new multicultural center.

There has been much discussion over the necessity of such a building. Do we really need a place where differences are encouraged? Do we need another bastion for minorities? Won’t this center actually encourage racism?

These arguments are, of course, ridiculous. A multicultural center would not be just for minorities (emphasis on multi), and it certainly wouldn’t promote racism. How many times must we learn that ignorance, not knowledge, causes racism and discrimination?

The multicultural center is a wonderful idea. It would give us a chance to explore other cultures and gain practical knowledge about other people.

But I fear that it will fail, for a different reason.

I fear that no one at ISU will become more diverse and knowledgeable, except the people that already are.

If you are the average student at ISU, you don’t care about other people’s cultures. You don’t want to know about the traditional dances of Brazil, the religions in Nairobi or the food in Kuwait. (Actually, you probably do care about the food. You are hungry, after all.)

The real problem isn’t that you don’t know the answers to questions about Kenya and its culture. The problem is that you don’t want to know.

Why is this? Why are folks out here in the Midwest simply apathetic about everyone else?

The reason is quite simple. You don’t care about anything that doesn’t directly impact you. (Which is why you know questions about food and nothing else.)

You think that those in the world around you don’t affect you. You believe that others’ lives have nothing to do with yours. Therefore, you don’t need to be bothered by them.

You are wrong.

People across the world are affecting you more everyday. Even if you don’t believe in learning about others just for the sake of enhancing your world view (which, by the way, is a good idea), they touch your life.

If the economy collapses in Bulgaria, the U.S. will definitely feel it, either in our economic status or in the aid we give them. If there is a drought in Russia, the U.S. will feel it, because it will alter our trade balance. And if there is a war in the Middle East, you can be absolutely sure that it will affect us, because we need the oil produced there.

However, there is a much better reason for learning about other cultures than just protecting our pocketbooks.

In these days of the “global village,” we work side-by-side with people from all over. We learn in the same classrooms, live in the same dorms, play in the same gyms. The only way to eliminate discrimination from our practices and theirs is to learn about the people we deal with. We owe it to ourselves and to them to try to understand them.

And if that’s not a good enough reason, our children will be even more affected by surrounding cultures. Our children will grow up interlinked with children from across the world. We owe it to them to be able to teach them and answer their questions about people different from us.

If ISU does construct a multicultural center, don’t let it fail because of you. Go there and find out about people you never knew existed.

Learn about their cultural idiosyncrasies. Find out why some students wear traditional dress to classes. Discover why some students always walk on the left side of the sidewalk. Determine why some students have left their own countries and families and joined ours.

In doing so, you might find out that we have more in common than you ever knew. And you might get something really good to eat.

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Sara Ziegler is a sophomore in journalism and mass communication from Sioux Falls, S.D. She is the opinion editor of the Daily.