Eh, general ranting.

[ickaimp]

I have never thought of myself as an American.

It's not a patriotic thing, it's not an anti-patroitic thing. It's just never been part of my personal identity.

S'like, I grew up in Los Angeles. I never lived in LA. However, I did live in Tucson. There's a difference there, y'see?

And then I moved out of the United States of America. And suddenly, it's become... well, not so much my identity, but a label that I've suddenly been stuck with. This is Icka. She's from the States.

Hi. My name is Icka. I talk funny. Excuse me, "Exotically" (not my word).

Think one of the comments that has infuriated me the most was a former supervisor telling me "There's an entire world outside of America, you know."

No, I never would have guessed. That must be why my passport has funny looking stamps in it.

Then today I was reading an entry over on detective_conan: "Is Conan really that inconsequential to our fellow American anime fans?".

-There's an entire world outside of America, y'know.

*head desk* *head desk* *head desk*

Part of it is Fandom related. I remember being surprised about the time I met Kosagi to find out that she was in the States because that raised it to a grand total of 5 active Detective Conan fans inside the US. Everyone else I knew in the fandom were scattered across the globe.

-granted, with the introduction of Case Closed, that has changed, but it's still a bit of a surprise to realise that there are DC fans in the States.

It was recently pointed out to me that the US is a very isolated country. There's only two countries bordering it and there's two very large oceans on either side. To get anywhere, save Canada and Mexico, requires a plane trip that on a commercial jet takes over 9 hours. And that's bred a very insular mindset.

-How else can you explain country that calls a championship for it's national sport 'The World Series', then doesn't invite anyone else?

*sighs* I guess living outside of the US gives me a difference in perspective I never had before. Americans, by and large, are not stupid. They're Ignorant. And most of the time, they're ignorant that they're ignorant.

*trails off*

... Y'know, had a whole rant here... but now I'm just tired. Both physically and mentally. Cause, y'know... I get tired of being looked at funny cause I'm from the States, so I must be slow or stupid, cause all people know about the States is what's shown on TV. The Simpsons. South Park. American Idol. Sopranos.

... yes, these are your ambassadors of american life to the wide world...

I -like- not being in the US. I don't like 'being American' tacked on as part of my personal identity. I AM MYSELF, DAMMIT. And Myself belongs to this -World-, not a single country.

I hate the fact that as David's looking at universities world wide, one of the considerations is will me, as a US citizen, be able to live there? Because there are quite a few places that being American is at worst deadly, at best constantly harassed. But if I was from a different english speaking country, I'd be fine.

I hate watching the news, seeing what Bush is doing now and knowing people are going to ask my why the Americans allow this and not having an answer. Because the US is a democratic society, therefore everyone in the country must be responsable for his actions.

It's not that people are being rude here or anything, but I still get these questions and I have no answers for them.

It just... it gets old, y'know?

Comments

[niennahirilfea.livejournal.com]

*hugs* I think you're fracking awesome. And I'm sorry if I've ever made you feel like "from the US" is your defining characteristic. Which I think I may have without meaning to.

Because I DO count "from New Zealand" as a defining characteristic for myself, it means I tend to assume that people from other places do the same thing, which is a bad assumption to make on my part. So, yeah, sorry :)

[desdemona-snape.livejournal.com]

I know exactly how you feel, though I've lived in China so long that I feel awkward in both places. You feel ashamed of your fellow Americans sometimes, and other times you wonder if you should cheer for them (like the world cup or the olympics) because by and by it's still home, even if you dont live there.

yet everywhere u go everyone says "oh this is my friend/cousin/colleague, and guess what! she's american!" like its something so unusual like, i dunno, horns on your head. but you like taking advantage of that (officer hails you for parking in teh wrong place.. spit out a string of english and then they wave you off...). but you also take advantage of being an international (like I'm chinese so i let them think i'm native sometimes... though its hold cuz i'm obviously Manchurian rather than Han)

and then the worst is when they realize not only are you american, but u're fluent in their language. Then its "Why did you attack Iraq? Why are you holding Saddam Hussein? Why did you elect George Bush (who's name is synonomous with 'idiot')?" when it's not me, it's the american government.


...i dont know where i'm going with this. sorry.

[kosaginolegion.livejournal.com]

I suspect mileage may vary. We have pockets of exceedingly conservative people who haven't bothered to realize that there's a whole world out there and pockets of people completely fascinated by the outside world's culture.

The media doesn't help. It so often presents the very worst of our national character. Our bombastic personalities, our selfishness and our bigotry. It embraces stupidity as a way of life and degrades anyone outside the norm as the designated butt, there only to be laughed at. Even when it attempts to be cool and 'with it' as far as basic human rights are concerned it can't help but be self-concious and lacking in believability. I could go on about that subject for hours, though.

I note too that I would rather not be blamed for the current so-called government. I voted, but not for them. Unfortunately, I also live in a state that was under control of his party and, worse, had its elections rules set up by someone who was also a member of that government.

Yet, I take heart to some extent. In maps of the country that shade each county by its voting record, America is not red and it is not blue. It's purple. In some places a little redder than blue, with pockets of greens and yellows here and there. We have not, entirely, fallen over onto our right sides, lain down and allowed our rights to be walked over. You might remind the questioners that 52% doesn't really represent a majority and that - honestly - we're not all like that.

Aside from that, don't be ashamed of being American either. Be proud of the fact that you were able to - despite the media and the folk who would rather hide their heads in the sand - grow up cosmpolitan and interested in more than what lies beyond our borders.

And no, I don't know why they call it the World cup either.

[xenogram.livejournal.com]

It was set up by a newspaper called "The World".

[kosaginolegion.livejournal.com]

Awww, there you go bringing logic into things. I never knew that, not being into sports. Good to know, though.

[slothphil.livejournal.com]

Snopes says otherwise, however: http://www.snopes.com/business/names/worldseries.asp

[kosaginolegion.livejournal.com]

There you go, messing up a nice story with facts.

Actually, I could have checked myself. Ah well.

[hoshi-ryo.livejournal.com]

Look on the bright side...

People keep mistaking me for being English. Including people who have spent years there. (Don't know if any Englishmen have mistaken me for a fellow Brit yet.)

This would make at least bit more sense if I'd ever even been in bloody country.

(This ranks up with people wondering where my sister is after I got my hair cut short. And a classmate of several years not recognizing me because I was wearing *gasp* a skirt.)

[clover-magic.livejournal.com]

"There's an entire world outside of America."

You don't say, Mr. Former Supervisor. I would have never guessed the two other languages I read/speak came from outside America. I would have never guessed that's why most of my reading/listening/watching material happens to not be in English! Why don't you further enlighten us by telling us that all those funny-colored shapes on the globe are actually other countries! Wow. Or REALLY break ground and inform us that America is not, in fact, the center of the universe.

:p

I haven't gone out of country myself, but I get crap like that INSIDE the US just from being from Texas. If I get asked one more time about how many cowboy hats I have (none) or if we actually have cars instead of riding horses everywhere, I am going to shove my succulent plants up their ASS. Yes, I have actually been asked these questions. In a serious manner.

America, you hurt my brain.

[hoshi-ryo.livejournal.com]

It's mostly Boswash and its West Coast equivalent -- city people who, if they've physically left the city, never mentally did so.

There is a reason some rather sadistic practical jokes, such as "You Can Eat This, Really!" are played upon city idiots when they're in the country. (The things you learn from a field guide to poisonous flora & fauna...)

[soc_puppet]

Europe was actually pretty darn awesome to me (and, to the best of my knowledge, all of my American school chums). Though it could just have been the influence of Miss Weibner, who is scary. It's also where I got all of my (admittedly few) Detective Conan books ♥ Saw Magic Kaito in a magazine while I was there, too. European countries love the DC/MK.

[jeva-chan.livejournal.com]

...personally, even if your rant didn't mean for anything of the sort...I dunno...I do feel a bit offended...but I know I have nothing to be offended about because I knew that the people you have run into that keep harrassing you about being American were out there. I knew that everything America does is scrutinized, criticized, and basically laughed at world-large.

...but I dunno...it just hit me hard yet again...just how ignorant people can be.

It's not only America that's ignorant. Sure, we like to keep to our business and our president has a nack for being either a dumbass or just plain clueless, but that doesn't mean that all the other countries are exception to such things!

Yes, America is a democracy, but that does not mean that every person in the US has a voice. A lot of people go unheard, their shouted words falling onto deaf ears. There are a lot of people who would just rather keep our country closed to outsiders--just like during the WWI/WWII era. But there also a lot of people who want to keep our borders open, to let people come in as they wish, because--hey! America was made from immigrants new blood is what America thrives from, that's how its stayed standing as long as it has even though it should have very well collapsed in on itself numerous of times.

...I dunno. I think what burns me the most about hearing how people are labeling you is the fact that by calling you "an American", people are using a nationality as an insult and as a way to call you ignorant and unaware of the world around you.

This is simply not true and completely shameful of them to do. I really never approved of making anyone feel stupid or ignorant or anything of the sort--if a person doesn't know something, you educate them. You don't laugh at their shortcomings, rubbing it in their face that they're from a country that is popularly called a collective idiot. It just shows how ignorant you really are when you do it.

...and you know, it's reactions like those that almost makes me happy I can't travel the world right now. I have to put up with my fellow Americans being idiots, insulting me in my native tongue--I don't want to deal with idiots around the globe, insulting me in languages I can't speak yet behind my back.

...*siiiiighs* No, didn't mean to rant but...gah. *joins you in the headdesking* PEOPLE CAN'T HELP WHERE THEY'RE BORN AND RAISED, IDIOTS OF THE WORLD WHO JUDGE OTHERS BY THIS SINGULAR FACT!

...I'm done. *headdesks again*

[ysabet.livejournal.com]

Welcome to the World, Icka. Membership as a non-national citizen requires that you become aware of EXACTLY what you've just become aware of; I'd forgotton about that little moment of 'Ping!' from when I loved overseas. **sympathetic wince** People really love labels, don't they? I got that "Oh, you're an American" realization/look from people all over the place in Germany, and you know, as insular as we are here, people are the same elsewhere; it's just a bigger pond. But yeah, I've realized that I liked living abroad an awful lot... which is beginning to make me think really, really hard about where I'm going to be in, say, five years or so. I *like* being a non-national citizen (my own phrase); maps look really different then.

[iori-baine.livejournal.com]

*sigh* I wish people would realize that people =/= government.

[fyliwionvilyaer.livejournal.com]

I kinda half to second. I was looking at some colleges over and Europe and that was one of my biggest worries... hell one reason I'm so thankful I travelled as a kid is no one ever figures out where I'm actually from(being in the south its almost worse since the us its self isolates separate areas with the sterotypes)

I'm sorry though >< It is unfair... since a group kind of ruins it for the whole. And I guess it does come down to we keep ourselves entirely blocked away and people don't tend to look outside the borders unless theres a crisis of the like...

But yeah... I'm in complete agreement with the rant and have felt similar on more then one occasion...

((hope you don't mind a half lurker speaking up but couldn't resist... especially since I'm living with some people right now... and while they're my good friends they've got a similar american mindset (no watching news only seening what goes on locally etc) so I had to speak up))

[dreamingcanyon.livejournal.com]

Now you have an idea of what it feels like to be an immigrant or nonwhite person in the US, where we have to deal with being stereotyped all our lives . . . (I'm not trying to minimize your experience here: it's just an observation.)

[ickaimp.livejournal.com]

No, you're right, that thought crossed my mind as well.

I have experiance the other way around, as strange as it seems, as being only white person around for ages. Up until middle school, I was one of three white people growing up in a Mexican-American area.
Out of High School, I lived in a heavy mixed Asian populated area.
New Zealand kinda freaks me out on a weird way because there are so many white people... ^^;;

[slothphil.livejournal.com]

You're in the South Island -- the North is a lot darker...

[avilina.livejournal.com]

I hate the fact that as David's looking at universities world wide, one of the considerations is will me, as a US citizen, be able to live there? Because there are quite a few places that being American is at worst deadly, at best constantly harassed. But if I was from a different english speaking country, I'd be fine.

I would feel too bad on this one. I think this more falls into a two person equation kind of thing that every couple ends up fsacing in some manner. taranos spend about 5 months trying to find a job because there were lots of openings - in other places but I was here so he needed to stay here too. At teaching job fairs, I was limited to Tucson because I needed to become employed where he's employed. I know another student teacher who had all of her teaching contacts here but was trying to find a job in Pheonix because that's where her new hubby got a job.

On the other side of things, perhaps you can also make a joke out of it. "America's still a pretty country compared to everyone else. I think we're still having our difficult teenage moments at times - we don't always realize what we're doing or the best way to go about doing things and we sometimes drive everyone else a little crazy while we're sorting it out."

[hakaisha.livejournal.com]

My sympathies. I still don't get the whole aZn Pride~~!!~!@!!111 thing my peers have, either, or how some of my aunts told their cousins they can ONLY have girlfriends from Taiwan or some such rot. I have no attachment to that place, but even living here all my life, I have no particular patriotic pride about being Canadian, either. I just don't see the superiority or whatever of a particular country. I'm rather ignorant of world matters at large, but I don't think that has anything to do with what nation I'm from.

So...yeah. Just Word to everything you've said.

Can't you just omit the information that you're American? Or can they tell from your accent?

[hoshi-ryo.livejournal.com]

::coughcough::

I just realized...

You can accuse them of ignorance when it comes to the World Series -- at the time it was named, in 1903, it really was just that. (Cuban baseball has a rather slim, date-light history given on Wikipedia...thus making it impossible to tell if they had a major-league level league at that time. Everybody else? The earliest would be Japan, and that league formed in 1920 & broke up in 1923.)

[shade-scribbler.livejournal.com]

I understand how you feel, I got that a lot in Ireland, including a rather uncomfortable Taxi ride in Dublin. Its weird when you are suddenly labelled by where you come from. I always just pointed out that the locals were usually equally unhappy with some aspect of their local government and that people everywhere have varried opinions and not all those opinions can be dominant all the time. Or you can jsut make Bush jokes and laugh a lot.

:)

*hugs* pigeon-holing others is a global hobby

[poe-nui.livejournal.com]

*hugs* Laugh and take it all with a grain of salt, dear lady!

...And then there were those scintillating conversations in held in other countries where folks who'd never left their country, or met an American before, would lecture me on the horrors of "Americans are..." When I'd query them and ask if that was really how they saw me, the universal and completely serious response was, "Oh, but I don't think of you as an American!"

...O-kay, I am now confused. *blinks and grins* I've always wondered what nationality they subconciously asigned me? *laughs* Then again, I never could convince one classmate that yes, I am an American - primarily because of my interest in history and international politics... *shrugs*