My Fellow Americans,
I am so proud of you! I’ve been in Europe for less than two weeks, and I have heard so many good things about our country and our people. You should be proud, too. Proud to be American.
So many Americans have been wearing the “Make America Great Again” mantle for years now, and let me tell you, the rest of the world is perplexed by that. They don’t see America as any less great now than it was at the end of World War II or in 1989 when the Berlin wall fell or when we pulled together as a nation on 9/11.
“Americans are brilliant!” an Englishman declared to me at a birthday party in London for one of my husband’s cousins last Saturday night.
He was telling me a story about traveling to New Orleans, and a mix-up by the travel agent had them for an extra night in the city without a hotel booking. The local travel agent had them come stay at his home for that night.
“Let me tell you, that would never happen here,” he declared as we stood under a portrait of some English monarch
To put this party in context, the party was at one of the Four Inns of Court in London. We were in a 14th century building that has housed English barristers (a type of lawyer) for 700 years, surrounded by portraits of monarchs, famous lawyers, and pedigrees of member judges. The porter let us slip into the ancient gathering room (think something out of Hogwarts School) where members meet for meals and other occasions. It was a pretty intimidating place for an American to be.
“America is a great country, and Americans are so warm and welcoming and hospitable!” he gushed.
In a half-hour conversation at a gathering of some of London’s most powerful men and women, this fellow claimed kinship with Americans no less than three times.
“Well, we are cousins, after alll, aren’t we?” he asked in that Masterpiece Theatre-English accent.
The next day, we had lunch with a set of cousins from the other side of my husband’s family, and we heard essentially the same thing.
“Europe is so grateful for America,” said the partner of my husband’s cousin John. “America is the only thing holding Russia back. Russia wouldn’t dare do anything with America watching. And Asia is grateful for America in keeping China in check.”
This partner is Malaysian by birth.
These are different assessments of American than I have heard on previous trips to England. Once, in the 1990s, I got questioned about buying a set of antique dinner knives. Americans had no use for dinner knives, I was told. The shop owner assured me that was so because she watched “Dallas,” and no one on that show used knives when they ate. She attributed the lack of American dinner knives (with the implication that we had no manners in America) to there being too many Jews in America. I never could puzzle that one out.
On a different, longer trip when we were there long enough to attend worship services more than once, we got called “colonials” by a choir member at the church I was attending. His implication was that the United States was insignificant compared to England and the United Kingdom.
And I believe I’ve already written about being told by the owner of a Bed and Breakfast in Bath, England, that Americans have wonky ideas about freedom of speech.
And then, there’s the proliferation of American-themed restaurants and stores. A shop in the central train station in Utrecht, the Netherlands (my husband’s birthplace and where we’re staying for our family visit here) is called America Today and sells what look like high school letter jackets and sweaters and tee shirts that advertise West Virginia, Wisconsin, and a host of other states. I saw a similar store in Gatwick Airport in London. And in the Scottish highlands, we came across an American restaurant named Route 303, and whose logo looked like the Route 66 logo.
I’m so used to having my country put down and scoffed at when I travel overseas, not embraced even by popular culture. But this time is different. We seem to be recognized for who we truly are – a great country with an established and place in the world – as a leader and as a defender. We are respected, even revered a bit. Our people seem to be well-liked. The attitude so clearly is that we Americans don’t need to make America great again. We already are great.
I don’t know what’s happened in the last three years. Perhaps the COVID-19-enforced absence has made European hearts grow fonder. Or maybe our steady leadership in recent years – politically, scientifically and strategically — has helped the world see us for who we truly are. Whatever the reason, we clearly have reason to be proud of our country and proud of ourselves. We are esteemed as a warm, generous people who are citizens of a country that bears the burdens of global leadership. We have so many reasons to be proud.
