‘All the World is a Stage’ but I am no longer a Marionette

www.theworldinlight.com

Since childhood, I have been apprehensive when exposed to different cultures.  Traveling in Europe (currently in Spain) has pulled the curtain; I am no longer afraid of the mystery.  I acknowledge that it was fear … fear of diversity.  I was born in the 1950’s; my education was completed in white rural America.   I can recall discussions of bomb threats (we had water and food supplies in our underground well house), fright of the Soviet Union was a constant, throbbing message perpetuated in geography classes and at home.  Vietnam was a fight to stop the evil communist from taking over the world.  The maps used in the classroom were spatially incorrect – the United States was huge.  There was no other America – South America did not count and Canada was a stranger to the north.  Europe was a distant and small speck far across the Atlantic next to the monster Soviet Block.  Nothing was taught in the 50’s about the Middle East, people starving in Africa really did not matter, and China was a nothing space of land surrounded by a great wall.  I was naïve and badly informed.    Couple the embedded societal threats with a home life that was also insecure and it was easy for me to become a marionette on the American Nationalism stage.   I was taught that my large, isolated country held the superior rank in the eyes of the world. 

Well, I am now traveling in the 'speck' called Spain - the home country to Columbus who discovered and then obliterated a people to the west.  We "Americans" later managed to kill off most of the rest - or you can visit a reservation to visit the survivors.  

What  I am learning is that contemporary Europeans seem to be more open to language difference.  They can travel freely between each other and listen to other tongues.    In America, I can travel (sometimes within a distance of 20 minutes) and hear street talk, a twang, a drawl, a jersey inflection but within these accents are words that I understand.  I can communicate; and when I can exchange words, I feel safe.  There are segregated populations in Michigan (my home state) that speak other tongues, examples include Dearborn, Mexican Village, Chinatown area in Detroit – from my upbringing, I believed these were areas of less economic desirability.  In the 60’s, whites moved out of the city … the suburbs flourished.  Innocence and ignorant intellectual spaces were puffed up with prejudice and might makes right propaganda, I also was brought up in a conservative church (we were the only religion going to heaven), both experiences making me the fattened calf of rural American life, ripe for the harvest of patriotism.  Part of what  I lacked was missing the richness of developing skills in another language.  There is a respect, a commonality that can be bridged between people when we can share with each other. 

This brings me to this morning’s observation.  My traveling companion can speak Spanish – I am trying.   There is a joy (perhaps respect) that is evident as we stumble through trying-out our Spanish.  This delight is felt.  There are moments when I miss what is comfortable, I do miss family but for the most part, I am learning what I have failed to know much about people from other cultures.  What I detect is a similarity within our daily life, our family needs are comparable with the exception that I have too much of everything … more than I need.   Instead of spreading fear, I believe that if Americans had an embedded cultural exchange and had to learn the language of the people we intend to war with, we ‘the people’ would  be less willing to perpetuate the hate, commit the atrocities of war that ‘my country right or wrong’ propels us to participate in.  I am reminded of the child tale of the duped emperor who paraded the streets to show off his invisible clothes.  It was a small child who said, ‘He doesn’t have anything on!’  Travel allows me to see that the average people within a country are much like me, they have less, but they have a broader perspective of people.  They are not afraid of language … they are not afraid to smile at me and offer  camaraderie in acknowledgement of my effort.  I am cutting strings; I am designing my own stage … I am thinking thoughts that do not belong to the state.

www.theworldinlight.com