How I Discovered my inner-American
As I mentioned before, I don’t divulge that I’m Haitian-American (operative word being “American”) to most people I meet here. In my Spanish class, however, there is a camaraderie among us since we are such a small group and they all know that I was raised in the US. The group is made up of a French gentleman, an Austrian gentleman a Malagasy woman and the teacher is Venezuelan. We are one motley crew and our common language is French.
Somehow over the course of each class, our discussion turns to politics. Even though they can sometimes get heated, we always move past them without any hard feelings. When I first joined the group, I would usually sit back and observe the verbal ping pong matches about feminism, globalization and politics. To me, they each had their points and I wasn’t emotionally invested enough to say something when I disagreed. Until they started talking about the US…
Don’t get me wrong, I recognize that there are problems with the US; but, there are problems everywhere. A lot of the detrimental behavior of Americans is based on something valid. For example, one time a comment was made how the US only saw students as investments, whereas the French see them as stewards of the French culture for future generations. Okay, that may be true, but in order for any system to be sustainable, money needs to be put back into the system after it has been spent. So, eventually, the person who received a free education has to start paying taxes to fund the next generation’s free education, right? However way you want to twist it, that’s an investment.
Another discussion about education led the French gentleman to say that he thought one of the biggest problems with the American system, or culture, was that it doesn’t require the study of philosophy before graduating high school. Yeah, I took a philosophy course my freshman year in college and I can’t explain for the life of me what we learned exactly. Philosophy has its place, but it’s not for everyone. My response was “In your opinion, what is the best education system?” Everyone shrugged. My point exactly.
So before I knew it, I was getting very involved in these discussions in defense of the good ol’ USA. I wouldn’t say that I am closeted patriot, it’s just I can’t stand misperceptions and misinformation. Sometimes you just have to accept things for what they are even if you don’t agree. In the meantime, I will continue to fight the good fight with the Frenchman, Austrian, Malagasy and Venezuelan 
Tags: American Education System, American Pride, Cultural Assimilation, Haiti, Patriotism, Politics
It’s tough sometimes to talk about one’s country/ies when people think they know everything about it. I find that with conversations about Jamaica. Conversations about Canada? Very few questions/opinions, lots of eyes glazing over. LOL!
Must be even harder with regards to the US because EVERYBODY think they know it all, mostly because the American media saturates so much of the external content that many countries receive. There are indeed a lot of assumptions.
The conversations sound stimulating and at least your classmates sound intelligent and open-minded, which is a plus.
Viajera´s last [type] ..FIFA 2010 Round-up
Yes, I'm lucky in that sense. If they weren't open-minded or if every discussion ended in harsh feelings, I definitely wouldn't participate. In a sense, I get to learn about people's opinions of the US, most of which I wouldn't hear living the States. Also, more and more I see the similarities amongst us instead of the differences.