Rick Badie's Gwinnett: I found part of my country next door

“I want my country back.”

Such a demand always gives me pause. It makes me wonder what, exactly, America needs to return to, and how I might figure into the equation.

What is it about the current state of American affairs that leads people to believe the America of today is so drastically different and diminished than that of yesterday?

Too often, nostalgia gets filtered through rose-colored glasses. Grand times get embellished. Hard times are relegated to footnotes, unless you lived them. Truth gets muddled and suddenly recollections of America become Hallmark photos.

After being bombarded with so much hoopla about getting our country back, I’ve begun to miss it myself. It hasn’t been seen in awhile because it’s awash in hatred, xenophobia, suspicion and flat-out meanness. Partisan politicians lead. A melting pot has become a wash pot.

And you know what?

I want my country back, too. Then, a few weeks ago, the darnedest thing happened. I got part of my America back without having to cast a ballot, lock down a border, buy a gun or attend a rally wearing red, white and blue.

I simply walked next door. The family that lives near me speak about as much English as I speak Spanish. We communicate with waves and gestures.

One Saturday, smoke billowed from their back patio. Somebody apparently knew his way around a barbecue pit. Several men stood in the garage. I waved. They offered a beer. I accepted and inquired about the barbecue master and what he’d been cooking.

Next thing I knew, I was ushered inside and seated at a dining-room table. A plate of beans, rice and meat arrived. First, someone in broken English told me the meat was “sheep.” Then a young woman who spoke English intervened. It was goat, she explained.

And there I sat: Surrounded by several men and women who spoke little English, who watched me taste that first morsel of meat and reveled in the joy that swept across my face.

Recently, the U.S. Census Bureau released figures that showed metro Atlanta’s minority population continues to grow at a quickened pace.

Gwinnett County’s minority population, when added together, is larger than the white population.

Just 20 years ago, the county was about 90 percent non-Hispanic white. From 2000 to 2009, the county’s minority population increased by almost 215,000 residents.

On Tuesday, a story that appeared in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution detailed the region’s minority growth and touched on how the “changing demographics” would present challenges to county services. Perhaps.

But these are the kinds of surmountable issues everyday citizens like me and you don’t hold much sway over, though we like to think otherwise.

So you say you want your country back. Well, here’s one thing we all can do, and in Gwinnett it appears we’ll have ample opportunity to do so in the coming years.