Abroad View and NAFSA are proud to announce the winners of the 2006 Student Abroad Essay Competition. Kevin Adler was awarded first place for his essay on overcoming fear of the unknown while studying in London, and Matthew Linden earned the runner-up position for his essay on the insight he gained in Germany.
Frustrated, I turned my head from the computer screen and stormed off: I refused to even look at those stupid flak jackets. My dad, in one of his less rational moments leading up to my semester abroad in London, thought he would show me the latest fashions in shrapnel and debris repelling body armor. He thought it might be useful to wear “just in case” while riding public transport during my five months away from home. What on earth was my dad thinking? What could possibly motivate this otherwise intelligent man to urge his son to wear a “flak jak,” a serious piece of defensive equipment that he once wore while riding Huey helicopters over Vietnam?
It must have been fear—I have no other explanation for it. My 54-year-old father was terrified for the safety of his eldest son, a debilitating panic wrought by “what ifs” and the unknown. And I knew exactly what caused this panic. Less than three months before my planned departure for study abroad, four young Muslim men decided to blow themselves up on three Tube trains and a red double-decker bus, killing 52 innocent people aboard and wounding hundreds more. As had happened after September 11, 2001, a widespread suspicion of all things Arab and Muslim reared its prejudiced head in society, percolating down even into the psyche of my own papa.
I could empathize with him. My dad was fully aware that University College London, the institution where I was headed, was only blocks away from the Russell Square bombing site. And he knew, much to his discouragement, that I would be traveling on London’s public transport regularly. Clearly, this attack hit a little too close to home for comfort. Would I be safe on the Tube?
It is this question and these thoughts that occupied my mind on September 3, 2005, my first day in London, as my train on the Piccadilly Line rattled through its trademark deep tunnels. I nervously peered at my fellow passengers. Though I like to think of myself as receptive to people of all cultures, I could not help feel a tinge of anxiety creep up my spine and invade my countenance as I registered skin colors and religious garbs I had scarcely seen before, certainly not in my largely white hometown, nor even at my home university which is renowned for its diversity and is located in the multihued city of Los Angeles. My dad’s enjoinder to “just keep your wits about you” echoed in my head. Should I move to another Tube train? Was this a rational thought? Should I have worn a flak jak “just in case?” Was I being paranoid? God, I was in London, and I was afraid for my safety.
The train rattled to a halt at my destination, and I began the arduous process of heaving two suitcases, a full backpack, and a laptop carrier up a jumble of stairs. Upon my triumphant and sweat-soaked arrival into daylight, I performed a quick spin-around and mentally noted an all-too-evident observation: I had no idea where I was, much less where I needed to go. Quaint accents colored conversation tidbits of busy Londoners bumping by. Black cabs sped past—on the left side of the road. Kansas seemed a lot more than three shoe-clicks away. What I wouldn’t give for a charming Brit to tip their top-hat, flip their cane, utter a dry witticism, and ask…
“Are you lost?” I looked up from my daze. My heart skipped a beat. A lone sets of eyes peered at me through a black facial veil. Two Muslim women, one in traditional burqa and the other with her face visible, stood before me. “Where do you need to go?” they coolly asked after I stammered out a “Yes, I am lost” in reply. For a brief moment, which I am still ashamed of, my thoughts returned to my dad’s words, to the flak jak, to September 11 and July 7, to fear. I had never seen nor spoken to anyone in real life who wore those clothes before. Only on the television screen, the news, the Internet: the domain of the play and replay of the Stars-and-Stripes burning, the crowds-cheering after the United States was attacked. These were the stubborn images that were seared into my psyche, images that elicited the good versus evil lexicon of the day: “jihad” and “democracy” and “bring it on” and “terrorism” and “Islam.”
And in one liberating moment of humanity, the fear was wiped away.
Over the course of the next half hour, my two new friends patiently read maps, walked city blocks, and even proffered their mobile phones, all to ensure that I made it safely to my destination. As the bus I was to board pulled up and people began streaming out, I turned to my companions and asked a final question that had been on my mind the entire time, “Do you feel like people look at you differently, being Muslims, since the terrorist attacks?” The bus doors were clear now. The platform would soon be mine. “Yes, sometimes,” one of my new friends said as my foot entered the bus, “but most people are good.” Before I had a moment to reflect on these words, she stepped up to the driver’s window, instructed the exact stop where I was to be dropped off, and bid me a safe journey as the door closed between us. My two new friends waved goodbye as my red double-decker bus sped off.
Between September 2005 and September 2006, I spent more time in London than anywhere in the United States (I returned to London for a summer internship after my fall semester abroad). During this period, my panicky mindset quickly evaporated into a more steely and pragmatic outlook. While at London’s global uni, I took every opportunity to expand my comfort zone without violating my common sense. The whole “flak jak” debacle and consequent “Are you lost?” encounter thoroughly shaped the rest of my stay. It made me more open. I befriended fellow students hailing from places as diverse as Nigeria and Pakistan, Israel, and Spain. I would try to sit next to people on the Tube who appeared Arab Muslim. And occasionally, this admittedly affable Californian would break the cultural faux pas and say hello and talk to strangers on London public transport.
Due to this openness, this propensity to meet and learn and understand rather than ignore, I had a much richer experience while abroad. Stereotypes on both sides dissolved: the image of me as a self-interested and rude American, and the attitude that others are aggressive anti-American fanatics. “Everywhere, people are people,” as my mom so often affirms. Thanks to Sri, Zahra, and Olimade, and many others from around the world who are now dear friends, as well as all those nameless acquaintances who reside in the throes of my memory bank as ebullient smiles or helpful tour guides, the flak jak seems all the more ridiculous and unnecessary.
And this makes complete sense: there is no need to fear what you know.
Kevin F. Adler, a senior at Occidental College, studied abroad in fall 2005 at University College London in England.
When I first arrived in Germany for my year-long education abroad experience, my ultimate goal was to mentally set aside my U.S. citizenship and try to pass myself off as a German. Many of my efforts to achieve this were naturally concentrated in the area of language—I stopped reading books written in English and switched to German instead; I learned Tübingen’s regional dialect, Schwäbisch, and spoke it as often as possible (especially in public); I appropriated all the small but not insignificant habits of daily life as a German—like counting on my fingers using my thumb—and picked up the slang and social norms of German university life. For most of the year, I prided myself on how well I had blended in and how much I had changed and how much less American I had become.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like being an American. Instead, I was so hungry for more of the German language, culture, and life that my appetite could not be satiated. It was not enough to simply speak the language or understand or even live within the culture–I wanted to make it my language, my culture, my way of life.
I was soon forced to confront the paradox of my efforts to blend in: though I had essentially assimilated into German life, I found that the deeper I pushed myself into this new but no longer unfamiliar world, the more that I began to miss what I knew, deep down, was my world. My home, my culture, and my people. The United States. My “American-ness.” I couldn’t quite define it, but whatever it was, I knew that I missed it.
The realization came during the month-long insanity that engulfed Germany from June to July known as the World Cup. As the hosting country this year, Germany was completely infected with football fever, and we foreign exchange students jumped right into the festivities.
The World Cup brought out the first dormant streaks of U.S. pride that I had lost touch with for most of the year. We painted our faces, bought American flags at local fan shops, and represented a small but quite vocal minority at the match broadcasting locations. For the first time in a long time, I was proud to be an American simply because it was my home. My country.
When America lost to Italy and was removed from competition, we channeled all our patriotic energies into supporting Germany, which was widely thought to have a very good shot at winning. American flags were replaced by German ones, and our faces were now black, red, and gold instead of red, white, and blue.
When Germany won a nail-biting match in overtime and was guaranteed a place in the semifinals, I called Matthias, one of my German friends. Elated, I shouted, “Siiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeg!!” (Victory!)
Matthias laughed and said, “You Americans are so awesome!” It was a simple remark, but it was also the first time a German had said something like that to me. I had a chance to ask him later what it was about the United States that thrilled him so much.
“There are a lot of Europeans who harbor distaste toward Americans because they see them as shallow or arrogant or prideful,” he explained. “They are distasteful of American patriotism and don’t understand how Americans think—and as a consequence, they don’t understand America’s foreign policies toward other nations either. But they only dislike Americans because they don’t understand them. They don’t understand what it’s like to have a completely positive and optimistic outlook on life and on problematic situations. They don’t understand what it’s like to be intensely proud of their country. We Germans, we’re always thinking negatively and it’s politically incorrect to be proud to be German because of our history. America isn’t perfect, but you Americans have a fascinating and inspiring history. You have so much to be proud of. So many people want to come to your country! And those that don’t want to come are adopting your culture, your music, your movies, and even your language. You’re a beacon for the world, whether they want to admit it or not.” Perhaps the greatest reward for me was when Matthias told me that I had unwittingly changed his friends’ perception of Americans through my interaction with them.
Yes, there really was so much that I had to be proud of as an American. My country isn’t perfect, but it is undeniably and intensely unique. For the first time in my life, I was finally able to appreciate that uniqueness—and to be proud of it in a way that I never had before.
It is ironic that I had to leave my country before I could truly fall in love with it. They say you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. Only when I no longer had the luxury of taking my own culture and language for granted, only when I mentally set aside my U.S. citizenship and looked at my country, at my nationality, and at my identity through the lens of life in Germany could I truly appreciate what it meant to be an American.
It’s not easy to characterize what a U.S. citizen is. No matter what ethnic backgrounds U.S. citizens represent, nearly everyone is descended from immigrants who came to prosper and create a new life for themselves and for their families. Today, the illegal immigration debate has ignited a furious discussion over whether America, with all its national diversity, even has a common culture or disposition at all.
For me, the American identity that I learned to love while in Germany is based on certain commonly observed characteristics that were pointed out by my German friends: Americans have a casual, outgoing nature; a generally optimistic disposition; a deep love for their country, regardless of their national origin; an inspiring ability to form a single cohesive nation out of many different peoples; and above all, Americans possess a strong resilience to find a way to make it through every struggle.
Yes, there is something special about the United States. It’s not always easy to define it or even to completely understand it. But you don’t have to understand it completely to learn to love it: there is simply something special about being an American.
Being American isn’t better or worse than any other nationality; but it is different. Nowhere else in the world is there a country quite like this one. It was this simple fact that I had learned to love in an entirely new way. I found a new and inspiring patriotism in the legacy trumpeted by the United States’ motto: E Pluribus Unum (out of many, one). After spending a year in a relatively homogenous country like Germany, that motto finally meant something to me.
Matthew Linden is a senior at Arizona State University’s W. P. Carey School of Business. He is a German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) Scholar, and spent his junior year abroad at Universität Tübingen in Germany.
