The other day I had a sort of revelation about my time abroad. Bear with me. While watching the news with my host-family (broadcasting the usual- some democratic uprisings over there, some people protesting over here, oh and hey did you know that we finally killed that Osama guy?) I found myself saying to them, "Sometimes I really hate my country." My host-mom gave me a weird look, so I corrected myself: "Okay, sometimes I really really disagree with what my country does." And then I thought about it. It's true that 90% of what I study at Berkeley reinforces the idea that America (and the rest of the West) is a big old imperial bully. We came, we saw, we conquered, and then we re-invaded as we saw necessary. I sometimes joke that Peace and Conflict Studies should be called "Life Sucks 101" because there are times when, half-way through a 300 page reader titled Global Poverty, you sort of realize that LIFE SUCKS for a lot of people around the world, and often times their plight is a result (however indirectly) of some policy or intervention that the United States has participated in. It's enough to make a girl want to stay in France forever.
On the other hand (par contre), I have spent more than a handful of evenings here in Bordeaux explaining to my french friends that the United States isn't all 100% evil, that there is a method to our madness, and that we actually do a lot of good in the world as well (because we do!). Plus, it isn't easy being an aging hegemony; we have enough drama to deal with on our own soil without getting involved in the spiraling decline of the world at large...and it's not really our fault that our past leaders bit off more than they could chew, metaphorically speaking. It's a flustering experience, having to defend your motherland all the while knowing in the back of your mind that you are probably going to end up writing a thesis arguing against what you just said. And the ironic thing is, I actually DO believe everything I'm saying! The United States really IS a land of opportunity- I mean, I am attending the number one public university in the world, I have never once been turned away from something because of my race or gender, and I am friends with people from all walks of life (black, brown, white, yellow, purple, you name it Berkeley has it). America, for all its faults (and there may be many), has given me an endless amount of opportunities and experiences that, even in France, I wouldn't be privy too.
Last weekend on the tram home a man approached Laurel and me because he had heard us speaking English. He told us he was born in Bordeaux but had lived almost his whole life in Florida, and he was curious as to what we thought of the differences between French and Americans. We replied the usual: Americans think the French are smelly snobs and the French think Americans are ignorant brutes. He laughed and then said something that I really liked: "You guys have a lot of courage, studying abroad. It's not easy to live in a place where you don't know the language or culture, but it's really important for people to see that the stereotypes aren't true." So I think the tram-stranger summed it up pretty well; every culture on earth has a stereotype and even though it may be slightly true that Americans have done some not-so-cool stuff in the past (okay, and in the present), that doesn't mean that every single American is a passive subscriber or an ignorant brute! So I take back what I said to my host-mother, I don't hate my country. In fact, I love the United States. It's a land of guacamole and freedom and baseball and universal suffrage. And I love the United States so much that it's my duty, and the duty of every other American, to contribute to shaping a country that we are proud to call home. Now what could be more patriotic than that.
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