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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC, and for our last 15 minutes today, we'll end with calls from those of you with one foot in the United States and another one somewhere else. It's the latest in our occasional series of call-ins for immigrants from anywhere to compare notes on important or interesting things from the two countries you know. Today's question for you, immigrants from anywhere, may sound a little abstract, but it's also really personal. Let's see if anyone's got a story for us.

The question is, how is making friends different in the United States versus whatever other country you feel tied to, or more broadly, if you have ties to both the United States and another country, how connected do you feel to your fellow country people or your local neighbors in your community? 212-433-WNYC. Compare the two countries in these respects. Again, how is making friends different in the United States versus whatever other country you came from or feel tied to? Any observations on that question?

212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, give us a call. Tell us a story about making friends in one country or the other, or more broadly, if you have ties to both the United States and another country, how connected do you feel to your fellow country people or to your neighbors at the community level, and is it different in the two countries? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Why do I ask?

Well, there's this recent poll from the Pew Research Center, and it finds Americans are less likely than people from other countries around the world to feel close to people in our own country, or even our own local community. Across the 24 countries included in the survey, Pew found a median of 83% of adults, this is worldwide, feel either very or somewhat close to people in their country, but the United States was well below that medium, 66% feel close to people in their country as fellow country people.

They used to say countrymen, I now say country people. Essentially, Americans feel the least close to other Americans as compared to all or most of the other countries in that survey. On the opposite end of the spectrum, in case you're curious, are countries like Hungary. Why Hungary? I have no idea. The Netherlands, Sweden, Greece, India, and Japan, very, very different countries, but they all report that over 90% of adults feel close to other people in their country.

Listeners, do you have one foot in the United States and another in India, Sweden, or anywhere else in the world? Which country do you feel has more community connection, internally? What severs your connection to other people in the United States? If you have a theory about that, what builds your national bonds in other countries, the other country you're connected to?

If you have a comparison to make, and that even drizzles down to the personal level, because Pew's findings on Americans' connection to our local communities are even lower. Only 54% of adults feel close to those who live near us, compared to 78% of those surveyed across the 24 countries. Demographic questions in the poll paint the picture of our most disconnected adults under 30, living in urban areas, that's a lot of people listening right now, with less education. That's another demographic.

Lower incomes and no religious affiliation are the least close to their community. If you hit any of those demographic marks, Pew find you're most likely feeling pretty isolated from those around you. Only South Korea, for whatever reason, reports more disconnection at the local level. Listeners, call us. Tell us a story. If you're an immigrant from anywhere, of your country of origin and the United States, in comparison, how is making friends locally different in the United States versus whatever other country you feel tied to, or more broadly, how connected do you feel to your fellow country people?

212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. We'll take your calls right after this.

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Brian Lehrer, on WNYC, and now to your stories of making friends or feeling connected to your fellow country people in the United States, or any other country you're from, or connected to. Aida, in Queens, you're on WNYC. Hi, Aida.

Aida: Hi, Brian, longtime listener, so excited to be online with you.

Brian Lehrer: Glad to have you, tell us your story.

Aida: I was born in the Dominican Republic. I've been in New York for 33 years, and I do think that making friends in the Dominican Republic, as a child, was easier for me. I think because of the weather, also, because we spend a lot more time indoors versus in New York City, because of the cold weather, sometimes we tend to isolate for long periods of time.

Brian Lehrer: Weather has something to do with it. Aida, thank you for starting us off. Call us again. Ross, in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Ross.

Ross: Hey, Brian, longtime listener.

Brian Lehrer: Glad you're on.

Ross: I lived in Australia from 2010 to 2016, and making friends there was incredibly hard, because there's a high school culture there, where you're only friends with who you went to high school with. Breaking into friend groups there is almost impossible. I had friends by the sixth year, but then I left.

Brian Lehrer: I wonder if that's true in general, even in local communities, without being in different countries, it's harder to break into new friend groups as an adult, you think?

Ross: Yes, maybe it was. Well, I used to follow a lot of sports in America, and then moving to Australia, I didn't have any association with crickets, rugby, or AFL. I lost those connections watching the games, and yes, it was-

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. Ross, thank you.

Ross: -really, just not having-- Yes, Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. Here's an interesting text. I wonder if anybody can relate to this. Listener writes, "Moving to Southeast Poland at the end of July, I'm a smiley American and have been warned. People will think there's something wrong with me if I smile at everyone and try small talk. How else to make friends?" Who wants to text in some advice for that listener? Andrew, in Sacramento, you're on WNYC. Hi, Andrew.

Andrew: Oh, hi. I grew up in the Philippines, and when I moved to the States, I ended up moving to a fairly conservative suburb of California, in which both situations were very difficult to make friends, because everyone was very cliquish, and if you didn't have the same background, nobody wanted to be friends with you. It really wasn't until I moved to New York City where I actually learned how to interact with my community, and how to open up and talk to strangers, which was a very exciting experience for me.

Brian Lehrer: What do you mean learn to? Is there something particularly New York about how to-- or was New York particularly conducive for learning more how to connect in a new place, anything on that

Andrew: I think it's the diversity and, for me, just spending a lot of time within my neighborhood in Greenpoint, where I would go in and out of the same restaurant and bars, where I just started talking to people in public places, which I normally hadn't done before, growing up, or even in the Philippines.

Brian Lehrer: Andrew, thank you very much. Marouf in Morristown, you're on WNYC. Hi, Marouf.

Marouf: Hi, Brian. How are you? Thanks for having me. I originally grew up in Bangladesh and I moved here when I was 18, in 2000. I feel like in the last five to eight years, things have significantly changed at a societal level in the US. Before that, I truly felt America was the melting pot. I hate to specify one period, but since the Trump era, this racial undertone that's very pronounced, doesn't matter what part of the country you're in, and it's prevalent. I've never felt out of place before, up until the Trump regime.

I was here right before 911, and even after 911, I felt America was truly a melting pot. Everyone in the country, doesn't matter your racial background, the color of your skin, rallied it around America, but that sense has gone now. It's more about what the color of your skin is, or where are you in a societal structure.

Brian Lehrer: You feel it locally--? I see you're in Morristown, which is a politically diverse area. There are a lot of democrats, a lot of Republicans in Morristown. Do you feel like something has changed just at the local level, in the sense that you're describing?

Marouf: I think at every juncture, it's changed. It doesn't matter what part of the country you're in. It's there. It's prevalent. I'm saying this because I moved here when I was 18, and I'm past my 40-year mark right now. I've spent more of my lifetime in the States than anywhere else. I consider America my home. I consider myself an American. It's sad to see where we are as a nation today versus when I first got here.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you for your call. Call us again. I mentioned in the intro that the Pew survey found that the highest connection that people felt to other people in their country were in Hungary, the Netherlands, and a few other countries. We have a caller who was born in Hungary, and, I think, has a theory about why they would rank so high on that. Anne, in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Anne.

Anne: Hi. Good morning. Yes. I was born there. Tried to find some people that speak Hungarian here. That's the connection. I don't have to explain myself. I don't have to spell my name, it's a different world, right? Just like your previous caller, I found-- I can't say it's racism, but it's an anti-- I've been here for decades, but it's this anti-otherness that you feel. I'm always a foreigner here, in a way. You don't know that I'm Hungarian when I speak to you, but I feel it inside. Maybe I do it on myself.

Brian Lehrer: That's the challenge of the immigrant in general, in that case, maybe not so much, comparing what Hungarians feel within Hungary to what Americans feel within America. Let's close this out with Tiffany, in Bergen County, who's going to get our last 30 seconds and has a theory about why this might be true, that the US ranks low on this cohesiveness. Tiffany, you're on WNYC. Hi there. Go for it. We just have a few seconds.

Tiffany: Hi. Okay. How are you? My theory, I come from an immigrant family, so I get it, but my theory is that America's capitalism, where we're so focused on individually, ourselves building, rather than, dare I say, a more socialistic society, where they're more concerned about the concern of the society as a whole. Our specific culture allows that. I have a friend from Japan who says that.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Very plausible, Tiffany, thank you.

Tiffany: I'm sorry, but yes.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you. That was great. Don't apologize. That was great. That's The Brian Lehrer Show for today. Thank you for all those calls from people from all over the world down in our listening area, interesting social comparison that, hopefully, we can learn from. Stay tuned for All Of It. Thanks for listening to our show today.

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