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​YES, THERE'S hope

I'm a Foreigner Here Myself

3/10/2017

 
“You can’t really understand foreigners until you are one,” Rich remarked to me today.
 
Instantly my mind was flooded with memories from more than a dozen years ago when we were new residents of Spain. Like most transplants, we worked like dogs (or perros as I had to remember to call them) to come to grips with our new language. Our classmates were twentysomething Europeans who already spoke five languages and found Spanish almost laughably easy to absorb. We, on the other hand, had the unwelcome experience of feeling like complete and utter dunces (bobos) in scenes like this:
 
Teacher, holding up a flash card: “¿Que hace ella?” (What is she doing?)
 
Me, after a long pause: “¿Cepilla su pollo?” (Brushing her chicken?)
 
Rich, after a longer pause: “¿Camino su pelo?” (Walking her hair?)
​
I'm a Foreigner Here Myself / Karen McCann / EnjoyLivingAbroad.com
On a field trip to Salamanca with my Spanish painting class during our early years in Seville. That's me in the white scarf.
Serious Hair? / I'm a Foreigner Here Myself / Karen McCann / EnjoyLivingAbroad.comDoes my hair look too serious?

Being a foreigner is incredibly hard work, and there are countless cultural tripwires. Women in my painting class held an intervention about my hair, which they felt should be “happier,” and they let me know my painting (simple, representational stuff) was “too creative.” At first I was offended by these remarks, but then I realized that they were cluing me in about survival in a more conformist society. If I wanted to belong, I should have massive, frilly hair with blonde highlights and paint conventional copies of approved prints of second-rate impressionist works. I was striving mightily to integrate into Spanish society, and I was very fond of these women, but even for them I could not embrace big hair and bad art. 

​So I can tell you from personal experience that for foreigners, it's a tricky business balancing the desire to fit in with the need to be true to yourself. And it’s easy to criticize the results if you’ve never tried to do it. In response to my recent post, Do Immigrants Make America Less American? someone wrote this on my Facebook page (using this spelling and punctuation):

People youst to come here to beee. Americans. Now to many come here just for financial gains. Its whats in your heart that makes an american. People need to assimilate. To our. Culture. Not vice versa


Ellis Island / I'm a Foreigner Here Myself / Karen McCann / EnjoyLivingAbroad.com
Irish immigrants arriving at Ellis Island.

​Actually, if you look at the historical record, financial gain is the number one reason most people originally came to our shores. From the beginning, “the drive to colonize the Americas was almost entirely economic,” says Reference.com. To bolster productivity, between 1501 and 1866 more than 300,000 African men, women, and children were kidnapped and forced into slavery in the New World. The second major wave of Europeans arrived between 1815 and 1865, and while some were seeking religious freedom, most were motivated by economic necessity, including millions impoverished by the Great Irish Potato Famine. Want to know why people come to America? Follow the money.
 
And is it really “whats in your heart that makes an american”? I grew up in a nation that cherished personal freedom, social responsibility, respect for the law, generosity to the less fortunate, and the right to practice whatever faith you chose. And yet we’re now a nation where hate crimes are on the rise — up by double digits in seven major cities. The FBI reports hate crimes against Muslim-Americans have jumped 67% in the past year. Comparing this winter to last, New York City’s anti-Semitic hate crimes have increased 189%. Last week I wrote about people who burst into an 8-year-old’s birthday party to shout racial death threats at that little girl and her friends and family. Should we view the perpetrators of such crimes as un-American? Do we re-define what it means to be American? Or is it time to take steps to stop the madness?

I'm a Foreigner Here Myself / Karen McCann / EnjoyLivingAbroad.com
Hate crimes against Muslim-Americans are up 67% in the USA.
Stalin & Gaiety / I'm a Foreigner Here Myself / Karen McCann / EnjoyLivingAbroad.comStalin gets in touch with his inner gaiety in a propaganda poster.

​Understanding our own homeland — let alone other people’s — isn’t always easy. I just learned that Joseph Stalin once said, “Gaiety is among the most outstanding features of the Soviet Union.” Wow, I didn’t see that coming! And here’s another shocker: contrary to what many in the USA believe, most people around the world love their birthplace and don’t have the slightest desire to become Americans — or even to become more like Americans. They have their own views on everything from gun laws to religious freedom to race relations, and they certainly aren’t looking to America for moral guidance. Living in a foreign country, you are a minority in a community where everybody is operating from a belief system you know almost nothing about.
 
And that’s what makes living abroad so fascinating. You find yourself gaining fresh perspective on everything from Palestine to the media to whether the proper low cholesterol diet revolves around red wine, dark chocolate, and high-quality ham (as my Spanish doctor advises). Of course, it’s a two-way street, and I share my foreign viewpoint with local friends. Lately, they’ve all been asking what happened in the last American election. Where do I start? Although I attempt to frame things in a rational context, I suspect that’s one facet of American culture that will forever remain as baffling to them as my inability to embrace bad art and big hair.

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Milton Strauss
3/10/2017 06:15:45 pm

Two thumbs up!

Karen McCann
3/11/2017 08:07:01 am

Thank you, Milt!

Patricia Steele link
3/10/2017 06:17:36 pm

Well said, Karen. I am a second generation Spaniard and when I think of the hardships and sacrifices my ancestors made to leave Spain and then assimilate into the American culture, I am making a 180 degree turn by going to Spain to find their culture and their country. The hate crimes continue to multiply and if the simple Golden Rule could apply globally, wouldn't it be a perfect world? I sure enjoy your posts. By the way, I caved. Two suitcases tomorrow.

Karen McCann
3/11/2017 08:20:20 am

Two suitcases isn't bad;, Patricia; Paris Hilton arrived here a few years ago with 19 (although to be fair, she had a fawning entourage to carry them). As for immigrants, Rich says the same thing: newcomers work tremendously hard to get to a new country and become part of it, while all too often the native-born take everything for granted — like trust fund kids who will never know what it's like to earn what they have.

Robert link
3/10/2017 06:19:14 pm

I first came to live (and work) in Spain in 1965.

At risk of seeming a damp rag - Spain was much more fun then for a Brit..

"Spain is different!" they all used to say. (A bit of sarcasm at Franco´s expense, as this was a government slogan.) It was a far more exotic place than it seems now. Inhabited by charming people, who also seemed fatalistic and accepting of the rotten government. Embarrassed, though the truth is that Spain has a history of rotten governments.

Now, Spain doesn´t seem that different from the UK.

Karen McCann
3/11/2017 08:40:26 am

I've heard lots of wild stories about Spain back in the sixties and seventies; lucky you for being there in those days. And it's certainly true that just in the 13 years I've lived here, the country has become much more mainstream European in some aspects, such as the range products sold in stores and some businesses no longer accommodating the siesta. But I still find the people charming, and fatalistic about the government, and throwing themselves into their social lives with the same zeal Americans reserve for their careers. To me, there are still plenty of ways Spain is very different from the UK — and from my homeland.

Tobey Hiller
3/12/2017 01:32:35 am

So does that kind of mean that the US, (like Spain in the Franco years and Italy in the all--too--long years that have gone on and on too long since "democracy" there, but have also spawned a very grown-up social culture: "ehh, let's go eat a good meal, with wine we can kiss for its body . .") --I know, very long parenthesis--does that kind of mean we should just live with the horrible effects of Trump's destruction of our democracy and hope for cynicism and good food? (I'm hoping not.)

Karen McCann
3/12/2017 08:50:24 am

Not at all, Tobey. The Spanish may be fatalistic about a despised government but Americans are not, and never have been. Our country was founded by revolutionaries and we all grew up on stories of how the ragged band of farmers stood up to the most powerful empire on earth and fired the shot heard 'round the world. Are we going to take the current madness lying down? No way! That's just not us!

Shéa MacLeod link
3/10/2017 07:22:47 pm

THIS! So much, this. I lived in London for 6 years (thought I'd be there forever, but that's another story). Granted they speak English there (sort of), which reduced the language barrier (a bit), BUT it's still a very foreign culture. And it was an eye opener! I've never looked at the world (or the country of my birth) the same way again. As a wise man once said: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” (Mark Twain)

Karen McCann
3/11/2017 08:47:38 am

Well said, Shéa — both you and Mark Twain are so right! Getting out and experiencing different cultures is truly an eye opener, and gives us a broader, richer perspective on the world and our birthplace. I am gobsmacked all the time by new discoveries and deeply grateful for the opportunity to get out there and see what the world is really like.

Denise Zeman
3/10/2017 10:01:17 pm

Karen, this one is a classic. Should be required reading! We make so many questionable assumptions, then make decisions and take actions on them without ever seeking first to understand. You and Rich are such wonderful ambassadors for the USA. I fear the rest of the world sees us a having gone mad.

Karen McCann
3/11/2017 08:56:58 am

It's true, Denise; every single person I've talked to here is deeply worried about what they see as our inexplicable choice and bizarre change of direction. Many Europeans are now talking about this being the moment when the USA lost its position as leader of the free world. And they are profoundly worried about what lies ahead. Aren't we all? Rich and I do try to be ambassadors of goodwill and find reasons to be hopeful that the negative changes in our country are not permanent. Course correction is possible, but it will take a lot of hard, sustained work!

Jackie Smith link
3/11/2017 01:21:24 am

We are seeking our residency permits for Greece and are getting a course in Immigration 101 . . .it is a process not for the faint-of-heart. And it is a process that makes me value even more, every human who has gone through a similar vetting to come to the United States. Ours is by choice and so many of them have no choice as they are fleeing or trying to make their lives better. And yes, we've been asked repeatedly while on that side of the Atlantic what happened in the U.S. in recent months. It isn't a simple one to explain. But one of the more interesting conversations I had in Egypt with a retired businessman (not an American) who was quite happy with our new President and cited, from his perspective, how the former president had failed the world. It was informative and interesting. You do see the world differently, America differently and myself differently by having lived outside the U.S. Great post.

Karen McCann
3/11/2017 09:04:25 am

Good luck with your quest for residency permits, Jackie! It's never easy and these days persnickety new regulations make the process even more maddening in a lot of countries. I am sure you will prevail. And it does give us a great appreciation for those past and present who face the rigors of immigration to enter a new country and build a better life. It is worth the effort — not least for conversations like the one you had with the businessman in Egypt, which gave fresh perspective on an important subject. The world is a big, complicate place and we need to find a thousand ways to experience it in order to understand it.

Marilyn Christenson
3/17/2017 02:22:09 am

I grew up in Toronto Canada and was pointed out as an American in school. It was not a good thing for a child to be singled out as different because of national origin by other children. We think of our northern neighbors as being just like us but they do not. I love Canada but I remember how I felt many years ago as an outsider. Thank you for this blog, Karen.


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