About Us

Houston is the most diverse city in the US. But what’s the value of that diversity if we all just seek out people like ourselves? ICX wants to disrupt that part of our human nature through bringing people from other cultures and countries together, especially around good food!

To connect international students and first generation immigrants with members of the local community to facilitate friendship and cultural understanding.

ICX organizes traditional American and other cultural holiday parties – like annual Christmas parties, Lunar New Year parties, Easter picnics and American Thanksgiving dinners. We also go on outings to sports and cultural events around town. The goal is to introduce American culture to internationals and to develop friendships along the way.    ICX also connects international students with conversation partners. Relationships drive language learning. For those studying English, this cultural dimension of language-learning is a critical part of really getting the language.    Even for those with good English, ICX conversation partners are a great resource for understanding American culture and figuring out how to handle ‘daily life stuff’ in the Houston area. And, there’s no grade assigned!

We all view life through our own cultural filter. One result of that is that we naturally assume that ‘my way is best’, where ‘best’ means we have the most reasonable and even the most morally superior perspective.

No culture – not even American culture! – can make the claim of being the absolute best.

So this cultural filter – how we view and relate to family and friends, our relationship with work, our sense of humor, our relationship with technology – often results in viewing others as weird or wrong instead of just plain different.

Learning to understand and appreciate different cultures not only helps us avoid arrogance. It also gives us the opportunity to grow by adopting valuable perspectives that we’d miss out on if we were to choose to live in a cultural bubble.

We know that it can be hard to make friends when starting a new life in America. Through ICX you have the opportunity to make friends with people from the Houston area and from all over the world.

We know that it can be hard to make friends when starting a new life in America. Through ICX you have the opportunity to make friends with people from the Houston area and from all over the world.