I believe in America

WHAT I LEARNED TODAY:
With time, we can start thinking again....

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Went dancing for Jess's bday last night with her and her roommate Ariana. Woke myself before dawn for a run in the freezing rain. Watched the sun rise over the sea. Lovely.

Some thoughts I've been mulling for the last few weeks are below (emailed to many of you):

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I believe in America.

A bold statement nowadays, and how sad is it that?

If there is one thing I have learned while in Barcelona, it is that no one identifies strongly with their state, country or continent. The English don’t consider themselves Europeans; the Catalanes scoff at the Adalucians and neither strongly identify themselves as Spaniards; and the Americans all tease each other about their respective corners of the country (Kentucky Fried Todd has a drawl, Seattle Bri loves nature more than her mom, etc. etc.).

I’ve never really had to consider myself as an American before because I’ve never been around masses of people that were not Americans. In high school, I was a savvy Tinley Park girl as opposed to an Orland Hills jerk. At U of I, I was a cookie-cutter suburbanite as opposed to a down-home Central Illinoisan. Eventually I became a Chicagoan, and more precisely, a hard-working Southsider as opposed to a yuppie Northsider. And in traveling around the country, I was a Midwesterner, whatever that
is.

But now, I am an American and until very recently, that wasn’t sitting well with me. Every time I applied this label to myself, I had to immediately follow it up with an apologetic smile and shrug of the shoulders. What the hell did that mean? It meant, “I don’t agree with what my country has done, but I claim no responsibility for any of it, and the best I can offer you is avid head nodding as you defame Bush. Starting…now.” That’s a copout, Angela, and you need to accept your responsibility for the loads of America bashing you have had to handle in the past few weeks.

And America has been bashed. The whole impetus for this short essay came when the last straw was thrown upon my emotional back and I began crying while reading an article in Sunday morning’s La Vanguardia Magazine (similar to the Chicago Tribune Magazine). The headline is translated something like “The Two Lives of the United States: Such are the Americas of Bush and Kerry that take to the polls.” I quickly turned to this article to find out how the writer would peg us, and I was stunned.

The columnist Xavier Mas de Xaxas outlined an America of Red (conservatives) and Blue (liberals) with no mention of white. Of the Reds/conservatives he wrote, “In the most numerous group are those who think, like George W. Bush, that the puritans crossed the Atlantic to raise the Earth up to the Heavens. For these people of faith and moral superiority, New England was the New Israel. They thought, as John Locke wrote, that at the beginning, ‘all the world was America.’” Of the Blues/liberals, the writer said that “they no longer believe in utopias. Although they continue being people of the frontier, they live surrounded by asphalt, technology and giant skyscrapers. Their future is no longer in the visionary ideals but rather, in political pragmatism, cultural tolerance and social solidarity. They don’t want to change the world, only manage it.” In summary, he wrote “There is nothing more important than values for the conservatives, while for the liberals, the economy, more than culture, will define well being.”

I cried because he made us sound so divided, self-centered and hopeless, but also, because some of what he said rang true. I can’t speak for the Reds so much because I don’t identify, but when reading about the Blues and their city-slick ways, I couldn’t help but feel divided in myself. I wanted the World to know that I CARED about more than my cosmo life and that the Reds didn’t have a monopoly on being American. At the same time, I couldn’t help but think, “Haven’t you given up on America, Angela? Don’t you giggle at people who are hard-core Americans? At a really important time in the history of your country, where are you? Haven’t you stopped caring about politics because it all sickens you, overwhelms you and seems like a useless, crusty knot that improves no one’s life? Are you not wrapped up in your ‘learn-ed’ Euro life?”

For ages I’ve believed that being “American” means you have to think what’s right for America is right for the rest of the world, be close-minded, believe cigarettes and drugs are more deadly than firearms, push your values onto others, be loud and obnoxious, etc. etc. I can remember pre-school when we learned to sing Keep Your Eye on that Grand Old Flag and how we would get so excited every day to jump up and down and point our little fingers from our eye to our flag. I can also remember the first time I felt doubt in my country and that flag. It was in fifth grade during Operation Desert Storm. We were watching the news during dinner and I said, “I really hope we win the war,” to which I thought my parents would reply in avid agreement. A weird silence followed and one of them said, “No one wins wars. War is not good.” If war was not good and you never won, why would AMERICA, the best country in the world, do it? I felt like my parents had reprimanded me for siding with the US. To this day, when I look at an American Flag hanging from a house I feel the same sick-tummy conflict.

But I’m done believing solely in the pacifistic blinders that are my alcoholic-Lost-Generation reading, urban-hipster-ironic-hairstyle donning, and Lost-in-Translation-slit-my-wrists-soundtrack listening. While I love all of these things, the truth is, ALL IS NOT LOST. All hope and possibility, by some slip of fate, were not accidentally misplaced. We ARE, on the other hand, actively giving our country away, allowing the word, idea, spirit, people, place that is “America” to be misrepresented, redefined, and altogether soiled. By shrugging and wincing when I identify my nationality, by laughing at people who have American flags on their mailboxes, I’m saying that America is a crock, that we are a land mass of jerks who are either fat freedom fighters or lite venti frapuccino slaves, and nothing more. While so many nations are concerned that our culture is threatening their own and so many of us are concerned that we don’t have one, we are letting a refracted representation of our culture menace the real thing.

The polar Americans that Xavier Mas de Xaxas described are very real in the sense that we’ve come to believe in these identities and have become okay with letting the rest of the world believe in them, too. It’s become okay for me to generalize about the “other half” of my nation, and thereby, it’s become okay for them to do the same about me; the rest of the world is just following suit while we shrug our shoulders apologetically.

I was listening to the Al Caiola theme song from The Magnificent Seven yesterday (right off the Songs of the West Part II album), and do you know what? I felt like a part of something. I could spend hours ripping apart all the things that are wrong and outdated and non-p.c. about Western films and books, but do you know why Americans still watch them and eat up every dusty minute? Because our cultural heritage tells us that people who have more strength and means should help those with less, that Bad guys can become Good guys, that you should have respect for your opponents and yourself and, most importantly, that there’s always a chance to start over.

We’re feeling stressed as a nation right now. The frontier’s been gone for a while and since 9-11, we’ve had to pull our I-pod headphones off long enough to realize it. Now, when more than ever we need a place to run, we’re feeling trapped on an island with a bunch of shocking weirdoes who are supposed to be our countrymen. It’s going to be difficult, but I think that if we pull ourselves out of our Starbucks armchairs, walk across the coffee shop and introduce ourselves to the other people sitting alone at their tables for four, we might find that they’re kind of okay. In true American spirit, I believe that we can find a new way to start over that doesn’t include running away, retreating into the recesses of our home entertainment systems. Maybe this time, it’s an attitude readjustment.

On a final note, Julie Delpy’s character in Before Sunset has a great line about America. She’s recounting all the reasons why she left the States to return to France, but she points out that something she really misses about the US is the perpetual upbeat attitude. While it might have been total BS, she really enjoyed the “Hi, how are you? Great?! Me too!” retail happiness. It gave her the feeling of anything being possible. Know what, I like that and miss it, too. Whether I’m a Chicago Democrat or a Texas Republican, I think something is possible and that in America that possibility can become a reality. This duality has its obvious difficulties, and the statement I just made was a total cliché, but for one moment before we rush off to take sides at the polls, can we simplify and revel in the sheer wonder of a culture based on concentrated HOPE, FAITH and even a little ENERGY?

This Tuesday, no matter what happens, I’m picking America up from the spot where I left her (in the back of my closet next to my Ace of Base album and Lee Jeans sweatshirt), dusting her off, giving her a Giant hug, reacquainting myself with her, and reintroducing her to the World.

Peace ~