I love having pretty stuff in the house. I really don't like the look of a bare wall very much. I just don't like the stark euro look, I guess. Plus, when we go places, I love coming back with a big pile o' junk. It extends the trip in a way. Every piece has a story about where it came from and how it came to be here, plus the stories about why it was created in the first place. The longer I stare at the objects, the more detail I notice about them, and the deeper their dimensions become. I also love the common motifs or elements in pieces from totally different cultures. The blue of the Virgin Mary's cloak and the blue of Krishna's skin: maybe they were first represented as blue because the lapis pigment was so dear. I love that artists in such distant corners of the world showed their love for their subject with the same technique--the brother- and sisterhood of artists, connected across time and distance. Or something.
Some pieces I love just for their beauty: our contemporary (but traditional style) bronze Parvati--with luscious curves and saucy gesture.
Some I love for symbolism--the set of tiny pairs of lovers. 
Some I love for its purpose--I can't play a lick of music, but someone else can, on the cute little charango. 
Some I love because it's just so funny--the Ecuadorian dog mask that freaks the hell out of our cat. She hates it. 
So probably I'm an apologist. These pieces, to me, are merely beautiful, useful, or artistic; they may very well have other meanings that I'm ignorant of, and, well, that's the very definition of cultural appropriation, isn't it? I suppose that our tiny collection is representative of American removal of art forms and objects from their proper cultural context.
I think I'm going to have to live with it, though. I really can't bear to not collect things.
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