If You Invite an International Student Home for Thanksgiving...

If you are planning to invite an international student to your home for the holidays, allow me to warn you. Your invitation, offered in the name of cross-cultural solidarity and holiday cheer to some upstanding young man or woman with a charming accent and in need of a home-cooked meal, could lead to an unprecedented chain of events, after which you may never be the same.

If you invite an international student home for Thanksgiving:

Your car might break down at 11:00 p.m. on the highway somewhere between campus and your parents’ house, stranding you and the international student at a gas station. You may pass the time playing Frisbee and learning Arabic greetings in the deserted parking lot as you wait for the tow truck and your mom and dad to arrive.

If you invite an international student home for Thanksgiving:

You might learn on the drive that he single-handedly found families to host all the other international students in need of a place to stay over the holiday weekend so that he could be the only one accompanying you. “You’ll love Miami,” the international student may have told the music major from Myanmar who has always wanted to go to Nashville, where your family just happens to live.

If you invite an international student home for Thanksgiving:

Your family may take him along on their day-before-Thanksgiving tradition of pancakes and hash browns at Shoneys, and your dad may try to convince the international student (and almost succeed) that if