Culture Shock in North Carolina

About a year ago, Gabriel Grana picked up all of his belongings and moved to North Carolina. He and his girlfriend Sarah drove there in his 2006 Honda Civic proudly displaying his "End this war" bumper sticker. Grana, A Miami, Florida native, was not adequately prepared for the political and social climate he was about to be submerged in. Growing up in Miami, he was vocal about his liberal political ideas, but in Jacksonville, North Carolina, which Grana describes as a "Marine Town," bumper stickers which read "give war a chance" are the norm. He remembers sitting in a cafe on the phone with his friend and saying, "...it's time for a female president - if only to reduce the ever present testosterone levels which dictate our nations every move." Only then did he realize about five United States Marines giving him a look of death. "I never really appreciated the true meaning of 'if looks could kill,'
until that moment." Gabriel didn't let the angry looks silence him, and to anyone who dares challenge him, he has this to say, "Dissent is ESSENTIAL in democracy."