Only now, looking back, do I realize that when I traveled to Mexico and Argentina, I did so with the naive and impossible hope of actually becoming a local. The reasons were three-fold: 1.) I'd heard my parents' accounts of the ugly Americans they'd been embarrassed by during their own travels and was determined not only not to be one, but not even to be associated with any that my local friends might have at one time met themselves. 2.) I desperately wanted to speak fluent Spanish and without the American accent that made me cringe whenever I heard it on anyone else. And 3.) I was bored with America and thought everywhere that wasn't home was better. I remember passing local children in both countries and envying them for their perfect Spanish as well as for other cultural traits I assumed they took for granted, like the ability to move their hips to salsa or to make tortillas from scratch. In short, I wanted to be Latina.
In Spain, my perspective and goals have changed. Becoming Latina is, mercifully, no longer my objective. I speak a level of Spanish that I'm happy with and have accepted that I'll always have some degree of an accent that my Spanish friends have deemed either mild American with a Mexican lilt or Puerto Rican, despite my never having been to Puerto Rico. I have made some great American friends who have done much to lift the stigma I once held against my fellow Americans abroad, as well as who've given me the opportunity to honor American traditions like Thanksgiving which, only after celebrating in these friends' company, did I realize how much I loved. And finally, I am, probably for the first time ever, truly interested in American politics and current events and no longer shy about discussing them with locals.
You don't have to live in America right now to realize just how critical this moment in our history is. In fact, living abroad and seeing Obama's name and the word "crisis" on the front page of every newspaper each day probably makes me even more aware of this reality than I would otherwise be at home. The interest that Spaniards and the local international community take in American politics is both astounding and, for me, contagious. The days prior to the election, nearly all of the teachers at the school where I work knew how each candidate was doing and what the latest news was. The day after Obama won, I was congratulated over and over again as if his victory were my own personal achievement. Never before have I been more aware of my country's influence in the world, nor of my own responsibility for determining what that is. As a British friend of mine recently lamented, "When America sneezes, the rest of us gets a cold."
This isn't to say that I've come to see America as the center of everything; in fact, my opinion is quite the opposite. Getting my news through outside sources like the BBC news Podcast and local Spanish newspapers makes me realize just how self-absorbed as a nation we are, relative to most European countries. While these news media offer in depth (and much needed) analyses of the economic situation in the U.S., they take nearly as much time on the wars in Africa and the bombing in Mumbai which, for huge numbers of people, are much more immediate concerns than the looming American recession. If it's true, as my British friend suggests, that the rocks we throw send some of the biggest ripples through the world, I think it would do all of us some good to remember that we're not the only ones with an arm capable of rocking the boat.
... In the meantime, I can't wait to be home for Christmas!
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