I just read a description of a professor who is a “U.S. sociologist who has been living and working in Germany since 1964.” How are you still an American sociologist when you have lived in a foreign country for the last 44 years? The professor in question was born in New Jersey and graduated from Harvard, and then, at age 23, moved abroad. So she is American-born and American-educated, and I assume still an American citizen, but still, is she American? She has lived outside the U.S. for two-thirds of her life.
But what does it mean to be American, anyway? Is it a matter of where you are, or how you think? Does it matter if you maintain an apartment in New York, say, and visit twice a year? Does it depend on whether you still read American newspapers, or vote? Is it strictly a matter of self-definition, or of state definition (i.e. citizenship), or of how others perceive us?
This is an issue that has been concerning me as well this year, in a personal way. People ask me dann und wann (from time to time) for my opinion of the election or other pressing U.S. issues, “as an American.” While I think I have a better claim to that label than the aforementioned professor, I haven’t set foot in the States for almost six months. This leads me to wonder whether I still claim to speak on behalf of my country (as much as I ever could speak for 300 million people). Does there come a point at which you are no longer meaningfully a representative of your nation, even if you can call yourself (on any basis you choose) a national of that country? Does any such authority just gradually fade away, the longer you live abroad? Or can I speak as an American, as long as I have an American passport?
21 November 2008 at 6:48 am
I was in Bishkek last week, arguing with some Kyrgyz 20somethings about September 11. One guy was trying to convince me that it was a cover-up among people in the government as an excuse to get the US involved in Afghanistan and Iraq. (I think there’s a Youtube video.)
And I told him that by saying that, really believing that, shows how fundamentally he doesn’t understand Americans. I started explaining how, aside from the handful of conspiracy theorists, Americans grow up believing in their government. It’s the propaganda that we’re subjected to in school, reinforced by TV, this idea of the supremacy of the Constitution, the well-meaning Founding Fathers, how the government has checks and balances. And though the people in government may be misled, inefficient, and sometimes corrupt, they’re still Americans like that.
In Kyrgyzstan, they grew up under the Soviets, and toppled their first president by swarming the White House. They have no reason to believe in government (and neither does anyone else). So I can see how he could view Sept. 11 from that angle. But if I were to say what defines an American from a non-American would be a basic, underlying belief in the American government. If anything, Obama’s election reaffirms that.
Now this is the part where the Americans come in to tell me how wrong I am.
If you spend enough time abroad, you’ll start to meet Americans who haven’t lived in the US in decades, but can never shake that certain “American” quality to them. It’s kind of annoying, actually, and I can’t quite put my finger to it. Something about the walk, the talk, the way we carry ourselves. Check it out.