Realized tonight while talking to a Moroccan man about my feelings on the US election, my country, etc. that the feeling towards Americans has changed. I think I've been feeling it for awhile now, but it didn't hit me until tonight. When I studied in Paris in 2006 I was horribly ashamed to be American because of the stereotypes I constantly met up with. Namely that Americans are selfish, ignorant, arrogant and ego-centric. I humbly submitted to this assessment, even while knowing fellow Americans who are humble, intelligent and open-minded. I didn't want to argue the point, because that would create conflict and there was no way I'd intentially make life harder for myself than it already was in a foreign country.
Now, I don't think Americans themselves have changed that much since 2006. I don't think that I've changed that much. But somehow I now find it far more acceptable to be from the US. Today for example, I decided to bring up the many problems that the US is facing right now. The response from a fellow teacher was: Everybody knows that America is the most powerful country in the world.
Try as I might, I could not explain my broader point of view. Every country has it's problems and it's strengths. And when one country has a crisis, the rest of the world has problems as well. All you hear about in Europe is how the economic crisis in the US is affecting the worldwide economy. And how now leaders from countries around the globe must work together to try and solve this problem. And suddenly I realize that what I'm trying to get across is so simple yet so hard to get across. I don't want to be defined by how powerful my country is. I don't want another person to define themselves by the power of their country. I want people to be defined by their attributes, who they are apart from their nationality.
Now if I can, through my actions, give the US a good name abroad while I'm here, that's great. But I'd also like to be a representative for human kind. Downplaying my identity as an American does not mean I identify myself with another nationality (No, I haven't become a Frenchie). It just means that I feel I have a lot in common with people in France, people in Argentina, people in Senegal...simply because we're people.
That being said, at the end of the day it is nice not to have to deal with negative stereotypes of Americans. Of course there are still the dumb ones...I can't help it if Americans are supposed to eat hamburgers for every meal and watch TV all day long. Call me crazy, but I don't do either. How un-American of me!
