Almost two years ago to the day, I was at my hometown’s “Ethnic Expo”, a celebration of culture, food, and music that takes place each fall, overtaking the few blocks surrounding City Hall. Every October, for one weekend, my very suburban little town of Columbus, Indiana comes alive with people from all over the world; vendors from Africa teaching kids to play hand drums, musicians from India entrancing crowds from a side-stage, Germans serving up some tasty beers, hula dancers, authentic Japanese food, Chinese dragons, and those delicious roasted nuts that get covered in sugar and sold in cone-shaped bags. Without getting too sentimental, you could understand why this annual event is special to the people of Southern Indiana.

That particular evening I had arranged to meet up with my good buddy Tim, a very intellectual German who had moved to “the States” when he was in middle school (and who, I might add, has impeccably untainted diction.) As Tim and I scavenged for free food and giveaways just minutes before the festival was to end, we came upon another friend of mine, skateboarding and wandering aimlessly, it seemed, doing the exact same thing we were. So we joined forces and forged onward to collect free falafels, leftover coffee, ten breadsticks for a dollar, stickers, pins, and sign up to win things we were never going to win.  Believe me, I even tried to talk the sugar-nut people into some free goodies, but the vendor kindly explained to me that they weren’t really that “ethnic” and they were moving on to another festival the next day.

As my friends and I headed towards the entrance we passed the host country’s booth, which happened to be India that year. The Indians weren’t giving anything away for free, it turned out, except Indian techno that blasted from a boom box as they tore their booth down. A small crowd of shameless Indian teenagers had begun to dance to the music, which intrigued us enough to stop and watch for a bit. We laughed at the little kids who joined in on the improvised choreography, running through their parents’ legs with bright colored glow-sticks tied around their heads.

My skateboarding buddy, locally infamous for his James Brown impersonation, jumped in, “To hell with you guys, I’m joining in!” The only thing more brilliant than watching the Indian-natives teach each other goofy dance steps was watching an even goofier, lanky white kid join the bunch. Tim and I stood back, arms crossed, and did what self-proclaimed intellectual twenty-somethings like us are supposed to do: we pontificated about the over-sexualization of American dancing that led to the bastardization of the art form all together, a major loss for our culture, we agreed, a major loss.

Tim told me stories about his family reunions, which they held several times a year in Missouri to where his family had migrated. “I found it very strange when I came to the United States, and realized that families do not dance together,” Tim said with his good diction, “When Russians get together, it is mostly drinking and dancing!”

A real shame, we said, clucking our tongues in disapproval, that guys like us couldn’t dance in public without being mocked, watched, or judged. Then, just when the conversation got to that laughably ironic point, I felt something deep within my chest telling me we needed to shut up and get our damn groove on.

“Do you and Mandy ever go dancing, Tim?”

“No, she doesn’t really like to dance.”

“Well…” I paused and wondered if I was actually going to ask this question, “…are we going to dance, or what?”

Now, I hadn’t danced a single day since trying out for my grade-school talent show to a Christian rap song. But standing there, realizing that we were either going to dance or we were going to be hypocrites, Tim and I looked at each other like eighth-graders that had just been dared in front of a gymnasium full of cheerleaders. We knew that last question was loaded with ten minutes of American-poser conversation, and we were ready, at least for one night, to not be posers anymore.

I don’t even remember who said go, I just remember that seconds later, Tim and I were flaunting our whiteness like there was no tomorrow, and creating one of the most memorable evenings of my life.  We would all watch the six and seven year-olds make up ridiculous dance moves, and pull muscles trying to mimic them. Every now and then our buddy would imitate James Brown or Michael Jackson, throwing his fingerless-gloved hands around like ninja swords and grabbing his crotch way too much, and we laughed trying to copy him.

I guess it was just hard to watch and not want to join in, watching the seemingly uncontrollable laughter coming from the bellies of the dancers, because eventually most of the onlookers joined in and made asses of themselves alongside us. There we were, twenty or thirty of us, dancing at midnight to Indian techno on Washington Street in front of City Hall, a fusion of race and ethnicity, communicating with each other in such a joyous way, which deeply connected us to each other even when our native-tongue couldn’t.

After a half hour or so of dancing, we decided to give the cheery Indians (who celebrated even the ending of a festival, God bless them) a rest, and quit shamelessly shaming ourselves. But as we picked up our coats and headed across the street towards the bar, one of the few English-speaking Indians yelled for us to wait up. He said that some of the dancing crowd were Columbus locals, and mentioned that they would be honored if we would join them in dancing in an upcoming Indian celebration at the high school. They took our numbers and we all shook hands, hugged, and walked away hoping that these kinds of nights would punctuate our lives enough to be remembered by all.