Realizations 2

I had a very interesting walk back to Karklu last Friday (Sept 17). I walked back with Mārtiņš, and before even leaving DeFehr, we had begun a very interesting conversation. He will probably call it an argument, but whatever it was, it made me think.

We had just finished Lithuanian class, and Mārtiņš had to stop to talk to someone quickly. So I was tagging along, and I walked ahead of him through the doorway (since gentlemen here let the ladies go first.. men back home, take notes), and stopped a little further ahead to wait for him to catch up. There was another guy trying to walk through the doorway at the same time as he was, and instead of either one stopping and letting the other go first, both of them tried to squeeze through the frame. So I questioned him, ”Why didn’t you just wait three seconds and let him go, then you could have easily fit through the door?” To which he oh-so-calmly replied, “What are you saying? That men are impatient? What, did I walk through the door incorrectly because I’m Latvian? What do you have against Latvian men?” and opened the door for me to leave Defehr. (I’m sorry Mārtiņš, I know this isn’t quite exactly what you said, but it was along these lines: that I had something against Latvians, and something against men, yeah?) He had a mischievous look in his eye, and I knew he was only teasingly picking a fight with me, but I still attempted to explain what I had meant by my comment.

After I eagerly denied any bad feelings against men, and especially Latvians, he then moved on to pick on me about being American. I am not saying that Mārtiņš honestly believes these, because I’m like 99.9% sure he was just teasing, but I think there was some truth behind his words. This list describes the *stereotypical* American that I think everyone can nod, kinda laugh, and agree with. A few things include:

          As an American, I thought I was better than him

          As an American, I was trying to impose my beliefs on him because I thought my way was right and his Latvian way was wrong

          Americans can only speak one language and we’re selfish

          Americans are stupid

I was trapped, my back against the wall as I was being called the stereotypical American that I wanted so desperately not to be. So I did the only thing that I could think of: I told the truth. I, in no way, thought of myself as being better than he was, either as a man or especially as a Latvian. I was merely curious of why neither one of them had stopped to allow the other one to go through the door first so that they didn’t have to squeeze through the doorway at the same time. I had noticed other people doing that too, and I wasn’t quite sure why it happened. I think it is more convenient to be able to walk through a doorway one person at a time rather than two, and it takes about five extra seconds to let the other person go first.

The “Americans only speak one language” really gets me. I believe that it is important to know more than one language (preferably fluently), but I think America is stuck in a pretty tricky situation. The world language may as well be declared as English because nearly anywhere you go, people can pretty much speak it. Other countries have their home language, and the shared language of English. Now, America’s own language is English, which is also the shared world language. So I ask you, as a nation, what other language should America speak? America is forced to *choose* one language to have as a second option? That would most likely cause a bit of a problem. If we chose German, would not the French be offended that we didn’t pick their language? If we chose Ukrainian, would not the Lavtians be insulted that we didn’t pick theirs? If we chose Russian, would not Lithuanians be upset that we didn’t pick theirs? I don’t want this to come off as an excuse, but I don’t think it’s right to make America as a nation choose a second official language. I do believe it’s important to make people learn a second language, even if it is their choice to decide which one.

The “Americans are stupid” card. I want to make this very clear, the *stereotypical* American, I will agree, is portrayed as being stupid, and I admitted this to Mārtiņš. But as all stereotypes do, they only truthfully portray a very small portion of the group they are assigned to. But, I think it is important to think about the difference between ignorance and stupidity. I believe most Americans are ignorant to how the world really is. Sure, we are educated in school to learn about history of other countries, what wars have taken place, and know of some of the world’s current news, but do we fully understand and comprehend what that means? I know I don’t. I was naïve about the truth. The words I read in textbooks, the multiple choice answers I circled on history exams, the essays I wrote about information I quickly skimmed over; I don’t think I ever fully realized what that information meant. It is a completely different perspective to leave home, to go to a different country, different continent, different part of the world and experience a different lifestyle. I believe ignorance is not knowing something, whereas stupidity is knowing something but choosing to believe in it knowing it is wrong or incorrect.

I believe that each and every country has a group of people that accurately portray their stereotype, but the vast majority of the population differs from that label. Sure, America has people who have done some pretty stupid things; unfortunately some of them happened to be people that were in charge or at least in the popular spotlight that is portrayed to the rest of the world. But I hope I am not part of this stereotype. I hope I am not seen as a stupid individual who refuses to admit when I’m wrong and acts unaccepting to others in light of that. I hope I am seen as an open individual who can see and understand that there are different ways of doing things. I hope I am not seen as a selfish individual who only knows one language, and just because it’s English, I believe that learning another language is pointless. I hope it is not an internal pride that keeps me from being bilingual, but maybe growing up in a system that did not value speaking multiple languages as other countries had. I hope I am recognized and accepted for being different; not better, not worse, but simply different. I am proud to be an American, though I may not be proud of every aspect that an American may stand for.

I hope this post doesn’t come off as conceited or arrogant, and I hope it made sense. I don’t want you to think badly of Mārtiņš for some of the things he brought up in our conversation. I’ve had parts of this conversation with many people, and no one has ever verbally attacked me for being an American. It just so happened that Mārtiņš had put a lot of common themes that others have talked to me about together, and so I figured it might be important to stop and truly think about. Plus, he agreed with my answer of every country has stupid people, and that there is a difference between stupidity and ignorance. Just something to think about.