I feel like...

Quite a few times in the last couple days in Colombia I have felt like an asshole American. Not because I was wearing my American flag T-shirt, scoffing at people who can´t speak english, or any other ridiculous thing of the sort (I was doing none of those and don´t actually own an American flag t-shirt), but there´s one of the problems in the first sentence...I´m not an American any more than Colombians are, Canadians are, Chileans, North Americans, South Americans, what have you, we are all Americans. But because I am from the United States of AMERICA, citizens of the same have taken it upon themselves to refer to themselves as the most American, so much in fact that we don´t even have a word for us. We use estadounidense or gringo here, but the only politically correct way to refer to ourselves is "Person from the United States of America," c´mon.

I guess I have always known that (especially recently) there has been a general dislike of the United States from other countries, but I guess I was kind of skimming over the fact when I thought it was just that, general. It is in fact very specific, as I have conversations with people who each can individually pinpoint why there is such strong dislike: "I just wanted to go visit my aunt in Florida and I was denied a visa," "every estadounidense I´ve met has been very ignorant and comes off as very mean," "are all of the girls in the U.S. like the ones on "My Super Sweet 16?" I was able to clear up that last issue pretty quickly, and I tried to explain that estadounidenses may come off as colder because of cultural differences (we´re less touchy-feely, need a larger are of personal space, aren´t close talkers, individualistic, etc.) but when it comes to defending our ignorance, I´ve kind of got nothing. They thought this before I had to tell them that about 3 of the 40 people I had told I was coming to Colombia were actually excited...most of the rest made ignorant remarks that I won´t repeat at this time, but you can expect them in a later blog when I get really fired up.

Everything was solidified when I went to the Museum of Modern Art yesterday where I watched a short film about the nature of fear including many interviews with people from both sides of the Tijuana-San Diego border. And again I felt really bad as I thought about our extremely flawed immigration and foreign policies. It feels a lot worse when you listen to people´s real stories rather than read statutes, ammendments, etc. etc. about these supposed situations.

And again I feel like a jerk because my Spanish really is not as top notch as it should be, but I am trying...