It’s Christmas day, and I’m an American living abroad.
I’m 22. I was born in Madison, Wisconsin. At age four, my family moved to Annapolis, Maryland, where I lived until I moved in September 2006. I went to a state school – the University of Maryland, College Park – where I finished Bachelor’s degrees in history and secondary social studies education.
I’m currently living in Oxford, England, where I’m completing my Master’s degree at the University of Oxford. I study education – focusing on philosophy, media studies, development education, and whatever else piques my interest. My actual course is "Comparative and International Education" – but it allows me to focus in on all of those interests.
I’ve just returned to the Island from a weeklong trip to the beautiful city of Barcelona, Spain and a 10-day sojourn in my home country. And for some odd reason, I feel obligated to write this: I love America.
It’s Christmas day, and I’m an American living abroad.
I’m 22. I was born in Madison, Wisconsin. At age four, my family moved to Annapolis, Maryland, where I lived until I moved in September 2006. I went to a state school – the University of Maryland, College Park – where I finished Bachelor’s degrees in history and secondary social studies education.
I’m currently living in Oxford, England, where I’m completing my Master’s degree at the University of Oxford. I study education – focusing on philosophy, media studies, development education, and whatever else piques my interest. My actual course is "Comparative and International Education" – but it allows me to focus in on all of those interests.
I’ve just returned to the Island from a weeklong trip to the beautiful city of Barcelona, Spain and a 10-day sojourn in my home country. And for some odd reason, I feel obligated to write this: I love America.
A half-year ago, I would never have imagined that I’d be uttering those words. But I am, and proudly. It only took me three months abroad, studying the education systems of countries around the world, meeting people from around the world, and absorbing a new culture, to come to this conclusion.
I don’t say I love America because I think it’s "the best country in the world". I don’t think there is a "best country in the world". I don’t say this because I think our past is spotless, that it lacks the atrocities that checker the histories of most countries in this world. I don’t say this out of jingoism or to put any other country down, or God forbid, to tell those in America that if "they don’t love it – leave it". After all, I left it.
Had I not left it, I would not be writing this. And were the opinions of America not so negative around the world, I would not be writing this. Indeed, it is this criticism that has in large part spurred me to write this.
Let me get a few things out of the way first. I am a liberal. I am a registered Democrat. I cannot stand the Republican party (though I’m quite fond of many Republicans) and the harm its wrought on the world in the last six years, but that won’t hamper my vision so much to forget that the Democrats aren’t perfect either – they too have their scandals, their racists, their perverts, their xenophobes, and every other thing that reflects so poorly on any person. Additionally, I’m agnostic, or in other words, Godless. (Here’s to you, Ann Coulter!) Though being a teacher is still a large part of my identity even at 22, I’m a graduate student, living in a world of ideas. My hair is past my ears. My parents paid for my undergraduate education. I do things like march in the streets to protest war, while returning home to criticize our country, particularly its government, on the internet.
In other words, I’m a middle class liberal, who admittedly hates the Bush administration, I’m outspoken, and I’m a student. I’m a sitting duck for jingoistic Americans, just waiting to be shot down for being naïve, young, and maybe even anti-American.
But never in my life have I felt so patriotic. Never have I been so in love with this country, even when it’s politically at its worst. Even when America is invading sovereign nations, killing nearly 3000 Americans in the process, and that many Iraqis every month. Even when America is more racially segregated than decades ago. Even when America has a dual education system, serving one part a world-class education, and the other an education so poor that it would instil outrage in anyone understood even some of its failures. Even when women in America are still paid ¾ of what men are paid per dollar. Even when one can fairly say that a fair amount of the world hates a lot of things about America today. All this, and I still love this country.
With all of those problems, with all of those dehumanizing elements of America, why be so patriotic? The cynic might just say I’m home sick, but I don’t think that is fair.
Being away, constantly defending our country, and even taking a short visit back, I have realized how great of a place to live it truly is, how interesting is its history, how endearing is its culture, and how great are its people.
I studied American history as an undergraduate. Rightfully, I studied mostly the bad things, including slavery, Vietnam, consumerism, and bigotry in all its forms. I have no problem with this: why study the good things that do not need fixing, except to recognize that they are good? The "good things" were not neglected in my education so much to forget that they are good, but the focus was on the bad. This was, I think, an optimistic approach, conscientizing students enough to take steps in their life to make sure those bad things we studied do not happen again, and if they are inevitable, to make them less painful to endure, so in the future they will not happen again.
As a student of education, my goal is much the same: through a critical approach, focus on the bad, recognize the good, in the hope of gaining something I can use to make things better. Though studying international education for my current degree, my focus is still on America. Everything I study about a foreign country’s educational system brings me back to America: what can we learn, if anything? What does America do well? What does it do poorly? What is unfair? I make these comparisons because I have a deeply felt care for the children of this country, and our education system as a whole, and I want nothing more than to see it improve, to help future generations find what’s beautiful in the world, and to not shy away in apathy from what it is ugly.
I love America because of its beautiful cities that have so much to offer. Many people know the magical feeling one gets when entering New York city – seeing the lights, the sights, the shops, the people, and most of all, the overwhelming potential. Many of those same people have been to Washington DC, where in a day’s time they can visit some of the most unique, important places in the world: Congress, the Supreme Court, the White House, the National Archives, the ACLU, the AFL-CIO, and countless other NGOs and governmental institutions. North of Washington is Baltimore, a city riddled with problems, but still with such a personality it’s hard to spend any amount of time in that city without falling in love with it in some way. Nearby is Annapolis, a beautiful city, situated on the Chesapeake Bay, housing the Maryland state government and two academic institutions that couldn’t be more different: The United States Naval Academy and St John’s University. Two hours by car north is Philadelphia, full of history, and perhaps most importantly, the best cheese steaks you’ve ever had (Pat’s not Gino’s, people).
And that’s only a small segment of the East coast. The plains of the Midwest, the mountains further west, the South, and the West Coast all offer something different, but still American. These places I cannot wait to explore, whether by bus, car, or even on my bicycle.
Then there’s American culture. Many people I know have protested America’s lack of culture. I think this is a preposterous claim, as everywhere has culture. But I think what they mean is that there is nothing special, nothing unique, nothing beautiful about American culture. Go to New York, go to the Deep South, go to Los Angeles or San Francisco. Go to a jazz club, go to a baseball game, go to a rock show, go to a hip hop concert, go to a play, drive around the suburbs, and go to the mountains. Go to these places and talk to the people. Or just observe. All of these places are so different, all unique, and all full of a distinctly American culture – influenced, no doubt, by countries around the world. That is a compliment to those countries and to America. After visiting some of those places, read the Constitution, read the Federalist papers, and read biographies of people like Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, Martin Luther King, JR or Malcolm X.
These are just a few of the beautiful things about American culture.
I just can’t fathom how people claim America has no culture, especially after moving away to a place like Oxford. Usually, I think, it’s because they haven’t been to America or they haven’t left. Given our short history, what America has offered in so many different cultural realms – politics, music, philosophy, culture, media, sport, art, literature, to name a few – is really quite stunning.
And I feel obligated to offer a few words on our current political situation. The beauty of America’s political system shone through when, after four years in the first circle of hell, and two in the ninth, Americans took hold of their Democracy – one of the finest in the world – and rejected what it had lived through, rejecting the war sold with by the political frauds that were and still are in power – in the hope for something better. (Of course, this is not enough, and I hope the voice of dissent continue and move beyond the ballot box.) This is not the first time such hope has manifested itself, not even in recent memory. In 1994 the people rejected the left for something new – and not until this year did they reject the right. After Watergate, they rejected the lies of Mr. Nixon. They protested the Vietnam War – and it was not only students in this protest, but every day Americans. This is all in the last forty years. The 360 before offer much, much more.
Outside of political institutions, women have demanded their rights, with much success. They still do. African Americans have demanded their rights, with much success. They still do. American Indians have demanded their rights, with much success. They still do. Gays have demanded their rights, believe it or not, with much success. They still do. And today, Latin Americans are doing the same. None of these struggles have been complete successes – that is impossible as long as we are human. But real change has been made in all of these situations, and because of our political machinery, real change will continue to be made.
That brings me to one of the most celebrated, and indeed, most beautiful things about America: its diverse people. Within its 300 million people, there are people from nearly all races, ethnicities, religions, cultures, and subcultures. In some places they live together – and well. This is amazing given our recent past. In some they do not. In too many places they do not. This needs to change. Still, I taught in a high school, where in single classes, I had students with fresh roots in East and West Africa, East and West Europe, East, South, and West Asia, and North, Central, and South America. To have such a rich mix of students that get along pretty well is nothing but wondrous.
Our educational system has many problems – I’m quite familiar with this, given my field of study. But let us not forget what is good. America offered public education to many of its people much earlier than did many other countries. It may be counter-intuitive, but age-old countries like England and Japan looked to America for a model on how to educate all social classes (unfortunately, not all races). This is because in America, even in the 1600s, there were publicly run schools for common people. They are not the open, comprehensive schools of today, by any means – but they were something one would not find in a country like England. Education was never fair for all and still is not today. But there are some good, unique, and very progressive elements of American educational history we should not forget.
Even I get nervous writing so many of the great things of America. I do not want to forget the genocide European settlers and future Americans perpetrated on Native Americans, wiping out 95% of them. I do not want to forget the centuries of slavery that bound and still in some respects binds African Americans today. I do not want to forget that in many places married women were property of their husbands until the 1920s. I do not want to forget that today our schools are more segregated than decades ago. I do not want to forget the hate for the other that runs so strong in certain areas of the country, that people like Matthew Shepard are lynched just for being gay. I do not want to forget that even in the 1950s, after the Allied Powers defeated the evil Nazi regime, we still lynched blacks – black children, no less. To say our country is perfect is sheer stupidity.
But that is not the point. All countries have dark parts of their past. Some worse than others. Most people do evil things. This does not justify atrocities past, but it might help us remember that we need not condemn an entire history, an entire country, of people for those errors. We must be well aware that they exist. We must abhor them. We must speak out, march in the streets, fill the courts, hell, even blog on the internet; anything to incite positive change.
But America is a country with a unique culture and a unique people, all a result of a unique history. It has its unique problems and its own stupid, stupid mistakes that exist to this day – the Iraq war being only one of them.
I must accept the ugly parts of my own person, and just like I should not condemn others I find fault with – whether for their racial views, their political views, or their musical views – I should not condemn a whole country for similar problems. I must accept that there is hate as well as love in the world, and the ugly as well as the beautiful. I will not condemn the whole world, or any person in it, for the bad. I’ll leave that to Nihilists.
I can recognize this often-ugly past without hating the whole. I can see what is ugly and still see what is beautiful. For that reason, I still, with much pride, love America.