This post is a long time coming

I watched an interesting show on SBS tonight. An Australian woman went to New York City and held an open forum with a group of inner city kids to talk about the American Dream. Basically, she wanted to know whether this notion was still alive or if it was all just a bunch of crap.

The gathering of kids from NYC was a clever move because it drew people from very different racial, ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds.

After watching it, I felt extraordinarily upset and hopeful all at the same time. The show illuminated a couple things. First, that our country still has a long way to go as far as making every citizen feel equal. Second, that many inner-city kids hate being victimized. They're eloquent, passionate, informed, determined and hopeful. But they have significant hurdles to overcome that I, for instance, never had to deal with. Namely, they simply don't have the money to make their 'American Dream' come true.

I try extremely hard not to take my life for granted, but sometimes I just do. I get caught up in the fact that I don't get a grade I think I deserve or get mad when a roommate doesn't clean up after herself or believe my world is going to fall to pieces when a boy doesn't return my call. But I received a college education from my parents. I've never had to buy a car because my parents gave me one. I have never had to worry about whether I was going to have enough money for rent because I knew that if times got tough, I'd have someone who would help me out.

But I digress from the original point of this post...

The moderator ended the discussion asking the young people's thoughts on America's global reputation. Many didn't seem too concerned about what other countries thought because they have never had the opportunity to leave the U.S. They cared more about what they felt. And that's that America had failed them.

The question made me think about my experience as an American abroad and how my nationality has impacted the way I've been treated.

Since the very first day I arrived in Australia, I've been confronted with a reality that I never knew existed: that many people I've never even met don't like me simply because I'm American. I've repeatedly heard horror stories from friends who went to England or France and how they were treated terribly by the locals, but what the hell did we ever do to Australia? Maybe it's the bad American reality TV that they show 24/7 here or possibly that we've dragged them into two wars within the past eight years...could be anything, come to think of it.

One of the girls in my program called me a 'big mouth' shortly after I met her. Now I know I'm opinionated, but I've never been called loud. In fact, most people would say I'm fairly reserved back home. I really only get heated when someone prods me. Maybe I'm out of touch or in denial, which is quite possible. But I'm more inclined to believe this Aussie chick's comment was an effort to typecast me into her version of an American.

I know one American here who's resorted to telling people she's Canadian when asked where she's from. She told me that after she does it, the Aussies typically let loose: "Don't you just hate being mistaken for an American--they're so loud and awful!"

This is just something that an American abroad has to deal with nowadays. I guess I've just tried to prove people's perceptions as misconceptions. Yes, I still talk a lot in class (which really tends to piss Aussies off--they call it Tall Poppy Syndrome, and it's ridiculous), but I like to think that I've convinced at least a handful of people that Americans aren't as bad as the rest of the world makes us out to be.

On Friday I'm participating in a forum with the UOW International Office. It's solely for American students to offer feedback on what the university can do to improve their experience. I'll have plenty to say. But hey, they're asking for it.

Big mouth? Me?