Being American Abroad

When I travel to another country, I like to be able to speak the language, and get out into the world with the real people of that country. In Argentina, even speaking Spanish, as soon as I opened my mouth, they knew I was from another country.

Sometimes I let them guess... they knew for sure it was not Spain, not southern cone, probably not South American at all... that leaves Mexico and Central America ... more often, I would just say, I am from California, loathe to have to find an acceptable way to say "American" in Spanish. "American" in English or Spanish is incredibly arrogant... to claim all of North, Central and South America for the USA; but what are the alternatives: norte americana, yes, true, but that doesn't narrow it from Canada or Mexico. (Canada might have been a good choice.) The most precise available, estadounidense, is a mouthful and ugly, so, California usually works.

Once I told people, two questions, asked earnestly and jokingly at the same time, followed in quick succession:
So, what you do you think about your governor?
(laughing subsides at some point, and you answer sheepishly, knowing your state is the fifth largest economy in the world, and yet you could only find an action movie actor to be the governor, gag.) There is no good answer to that question. Hardly any way to recover from the humilliation, yet the next question looms...

How could you re-elect Bush? (Rightly, in the rest of the world's eyes, we are a rogue nation invading other countries who look at us cross-eyed -- all the Rush Limbaugh (etal) listeners aside, that is, frankly, the truth.) This question you cannot duck sheepishly. The questioner even offers help: We understood the first election, clearly Florida was stolen, but re-elect him? (Indignation doesn't begin to describe the look on their faces.)

Well... there you have it; however much you explain that the country is a big place, and California didn't vote for Bush, and you didn't vote for Bush, well, in the end he is your president; he does represent you, and you are stuck with the question -- and trying to explain how the nation that considers itself a superpower could be so stupid as to not see past the propaganda we are fed through the media; how people living in the middle of the country, in the smallest town, are afraid that middle eastern terrorists are trying to blow them up. How do you explain that we have been numbed into believing that the only important issues are the ones that take place in our house or our school?

You can't explain it, but you have to live with it.