Expats and Identity

On Being An American:
There's a quote by Bob Shacochis that sums up pretty much everything I want to say here. (Really, I'm not very eloquent). It's called "Become an Expat" - and I'm extracting the most relevant parts - but if you want to hear a snobbish rant on why living abroad in Western Europe isn't hardcore enough, feel free to google the entire quote for yourself.


"Sink into an otherness that reflects a reverse image of yourself, wherein lies your identity, or lack of one. Teach English in Japan, aquaculture in the South Pacific, accounting in Brazil. Join the Peace Corps, work in the oil fields of Saudi Arabia, set up a fishing camp on the beach of Uruguay, become a foreign correspondent, study architecture in Istanbul, sell cigarettes in China.
...
You’ll learn to engage the world, not fear it, or at least not to be paralyzed by your fear of it. You’ll find out, to your surprise, how American you are — 100-percent, and you can never be anything but — and that is worth knowing. You’ll discover that going native is self-deluding, a type of perversion. Whatever gender or race you are, you’ll find out how much you are eternally hated and conditionally loved and thoroughly envied, based on the evidence of your passport."

I never feel more American than when I am abroad, and I never really knew being American actually meant until I left. It's kind of like when I moved to Oregon, and I realized how ridiculously New England I am. I'll get around to recording observations / actually writing something interesting one of these days.



On Expatriating:

When I was in Italy, we were all very caught up in the idea of our ex-patriot identity, and our all around badass-ness. This might be because we were reading too much Hemingway (but really, can you ever read too much Hemingway?) - or, more likely, it probably had something to do with the fact that we were cocky 16 year olds.

I've noticed though, that none of the Americans that I know here in France seem to think of themselves as ex-pats, or at least none of them are so pretentious as to talk about it. More fundamentally however, I think its because most of them seem to think of studying abroad as a "trip", a "short" term adventure that they'll come back from with stories of drinking and fumbling around with the language, rather than a real living and immersion experience. I think the word "trip" embodies a fundamental underlying attitude attitude, one that SYA trained me to avoid at all costs. That being said, in reality I'm just as much of a non-permanent American as everyone else I know here, but I'm working on it.



Up next... French Identity.