Bleeding Red, White, and Blue

I am not exactly sure why I never considered myself to be a mainstream American. As if somehow I was raised in America as an observer, not a participant, therefore I have adopted few of the values. I have often seen Americans as junk-food-eating, sneaker-wearing, loud-talking people who rarely travel more than 5 miles from their hometown: certainly THIS did not describe me.

I am worldly. I am part of a crowd that is all secretly addicted to small bags of peanuts, hot towels, and the horrible food that any airline serves, even on a transcontinental flight. A group that constantly discusses world politics, world economics, and world exchange rates. Pounds, Francs, Egyptian dollars. Time zones. The best drugs for jetlag. The worst flying stories. And cities, not countries, as if we know them all. The worldly world.

I decided to head back to school to see if I could find a place to hang with the worldly world so I took a class in Intercultural Communications from a "peace, love and happiness" institute that offers this in a summer retreat 25 miles west of Portland. Why yes, let's all hold hands and sing that "we are the world." And then study about how Americans go "oh-we-oh-we-oh" when they speak and Gambians go "ohhhhh---deeeee--- doooh" when they speak. Useful stuff that is a great discussion point at a cocktail party or a ten hour flight to the other side of the world.
It was all going along just as planned.

I started school with conversations about the Tokyo stock market, the usage of the Internet in Helsinki, living in Paris and the challenges of understanding the French, and, and, and. All perfect. Until I got to class. As part of the class, we took tests and evaluated ourselves. And we learned about all sorts of characteristics that define us as Americans. How we see time (as insanely important). How we see authority (as insanely unimportant.) How close we stand to each other (a long way apart.). How we view cleanliness (we shower daily, does this say something?). If we do things for the good of the group or for our own personal gain (this one is tooooo obvious, I am sure you will figure it out.) And, and and .

And the result? Ahh, yes, I am so American that I bleed red, white and blue. I am talking average here. Predictable. So predictable that I honestly say I almost felt discouraged. Aggghh, how could it be? How was I not different?

So, that night, feeling a bit down I went back to my dorm room. My roommate, a Japanese girl who has lived in the US, traveled all over the world, and is easily twice as worldly as me, was sitting on her bed. I asked her how her class was going and she said,

I had this very funny experience today. I was watching a video in my class and I realized that my best friend from home was featured in the video. I was so very excited to see her. And I thought it was incredible that she was in this video. I could not believe it. She had gone to an American school awhile back and the video is from her school. How exciting. And so, after the class I told another person what happened. And this American girl said, "why didn't you tell us all, we would have been so excited for you. You should have blurted this out and we would have all thought that was great!" "I just lowered my head and said, "I didn't say a word because I am too Japanese."

We both laughed for awhile. And it was then that I realized that no matter how many years go by, no matter what countries I travel to, how many hot towels and small bags of peanuts I survive, and how many city names I can discuss, I will always be American. Not Japanese. Not Italian. Not French.

And besides, what's wrong with wearing white sneakers with jeans on the Champs Elysees while screaming to a friend next to me in American English?

By Linda English