[Serious] Immigrants to America: What was the most pleasant surprise?

I was a smoker 20 years ago. I vape now, and I'm slowing cutting back on the nicotine (and I'm very conscious of who I do it around). But its been a long road for me.

I remember when the transition was happening. There was a band I listened to called Eddie from Ohio. They quipped "We were in California just about a month ago, and - great place California, we really enjoyed it out there - but we flew all the way out there and the day we got there we went to the hotel rooms and turned on the tvs to find out that the state of California had banned smoking. Everywhere. I mean you couldn't smoke in bars, you couldn't smoke in... churches. Just everywhere, you know. And California is sort of a leader in these things some times and people out there seem to really [get] behind this law that they've enacted, and we - don't get me wrong we thing that it's a good thing. We're very much in favor of - uh, living. But it was just a little odd for us, a little difficult for us to digest. We're from Virginia... tobacco is the state flower."

I remember being a bit peeved. Especially about the bar thing. The argument was that you weren't going to the bar to be healthy. But it was obviously short sighted of us who were on the side of allowing smoking in the bar. At the time, though, I remember people wrapping the argument in a flag of freedom... "Pretty soon," we said, "you won't be able to smoke in your own car!"

Obviously, we were indulging in hyperbole. And that shouldn't come as any surprise to anyone who lives here. Americans love hyperbole.

But I do take issue with /u/MiaMiaPP's claim that we blew smoke at children and babies. To /u/MiaMiaPP's defense, I'm sure he or she saw it. Heck, I'm sure it still happens. People are assholes. As long as cigarettes exist, some asshole somewhere is going to blow that smoke at a baby, because they are assholes. But I do want to say that I never ever saw that happen. On TV I saw that kind of stuff, but never in real life. In real life, I saw (and still see) smokers go out of their way to not to get smoke near children, or to just try to keep their smoke away from non-smokers in general.

I guess I just want to say that I'm ok with the demonization of smoking... I'm just not ok with the demonization of smokers. Quitting is hard. It seems really easy from the outside, and if you're one of the lucky people who has managed to beat the addiction, maybe you don't realize what people who are having a harder time are going through. But smoking is the problem... fight that. Don't demonize the smokers, please.

/r/AskReddit Thread Parent