So what, then, have I learned? Two semesters away from my family and friends and everything normal should have given me at least a few things to think about, right?
Okay well, to start off… I never really was all that into America. I knew our system was flawed and our citizens a bit ridiculous and I think
I was just kind of anti-America just to be anti-America. I’d see people with their flags and their bumper stickers and their (in my opinion, at the time) stupid pride that I never understood. Then, of course, I’d turn around and put a French flag pin on my backpack and photos of the Dominican Republic on my walls and talk about how I couldn’t
wait to get out of the United States, without really knowing a lot a lot about any other country.
But now… well, excuse the
extreme wave of corniness that’s about to come your way… but this year abroad has really made me proud to be an American. Am I about to get the lyrics to the Star Spangled Banner tattooed on my ankle (err… if I knew them all…) or paint my house red, white, and blue? …no. But I think what has happened is that I’ve just gotten really
protective of the US because of my time in France, and really proud of what we
do have, comparing it to the DR.
Credit.
When I first got to the DR, I was all ready to deal with a bit of US bashing, but really, all I ever heard from the Dominicans vis-à-vis the US were good things. Many people who I talked to watched our TV shows, listened to our music, and were in love with our president. I cannot even
begin to count the number of times my friends and I were approached by guys looking for a way to get to the States. And I don’t mean them catcalling to us in the streets, but really approaching us and asking if they could pay us so that we’d marry them and bring them to the US (err...)
I loved the DR, but it’s true that we can hardly talk about what’s not going well in DC if we compare it to the
corruption in the DR (#99). From high up in the government down policemen who won’t fine you for speeding if you pay them off… it’s everywhere. The US is not at all perfect in that regard either, but I’ve always felt as if there was considerably more good than bad going on in the government. I mean, it is a developing country, so maybe it’s not fair to compare it to the States that way? am I just rambling? I think I am. Anyway, maybe it’s not fair to compare it that way, but spending four months there really showed me that the US has definitely got its act together. So in the DR, it was a combo of Dominicans telling me how great
my own country was, and me seeing it on my own.
But then in France… it really couldn’t have been much more different. American music and TV shows are just as popular, yes, and so is Obama for the most part… but I just got hit with stereotype after stereotype after stereotype about Americans. Be it from a French person, or another international student in my class. Do I generalize about people from other countries? Yes. But considerably
considerably less now than before this year… and also, I’m not thick enough to actually approach someone from another country and ask them a question equivalent to “So how many times a week do you eat at McDonalds?”
Really? Really now?
What else have I gotten… hmm… the McDo thing is big, really… and just fast food in general. A few weeks ago, someone implied that my parents didn’t know how to cook because they were American and everything was either fast food or prepackaged. Nope… I ate dinner together at the table with my family almost every single night for the first 18 years of my life, and we probably go out to eat once or twice a month.
I’ve also been called “skinny, for an American” (thanks for that one too).
The stereotype that Americans work too much and are obsessed with money… well yes, it is a fact that Americans spend more time at work than the French (
35 hour work weeks, for the most part, and madddd vacation time), but we’re not necessarily obsessed with money… okay, maybe I personally wasn’t the best person to combat that stereotype because of my near-constant state of freaking out about my dwindling bank account balance… but I think that being concerned over the fact that you’re not working because you’ve been abroad for a year is considerably different than being driven to earn the most money you possibly can without sharing a cent.
And there are others. I know there are others. The food ones are just the ones that stick with me because those are the ones that we hear the most often.
I decided to have a go at remembering the lyrics to our national anthem. I’m writing this from a train with no internet, so I swear I’m not cheating…
Oh say can you see, by the dawn’s early light
Where so proudly we hailed, as the twilight’s last gleaming
Whose bright stripes and bright stars
Through the perilous flight
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming
And the rocket’s red glareeeeee
The bombs bursting in airrrrrrr
Gave proof to the night
Where our flag was still there
Oh say does that star spangled banner yet waaaaaaaaave
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.
There are a fair few words in that song that I think I’ve only ever said in context of that song. I mean, how often does the word “spangled” come up in conversation? I was talking to one of my host brothers a few weeks ago about the anthem, and I tried to translate the title… and it was difficult. Spangled. What the
heck does that even mean? Shiny? I also had no idea how to spell “perilous”.
I think that paragraph up there ^ ^ ^ just reaffirmed everyone (who already knows me well enough) that my English is hardly pro level…
Anyway, geez, heck of a side track there…
back to what I learned. Right. So I’m now a million times prouder to be an American than I was a year ago, thanks to the Dominicans who encouraged me and the French who got me all defensive and made me want to slap them back with outrageous French stereotypes. You don’t see me approaching you and asking you where YOUR beret is, you sex fiend, you. Pssssssh…
This is just one entry of (hopefully) a few where I get all reflective and crap and talk about my year abroad. But to sum this one up,
America doesn't completely suck.
