On American Identity

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I’ve found that leaving the US has made me think a lot about what it means to be American (1).

  • The sense I have in reading the news and talking to people in the US is that America is in decline. This made me unprepared for the volume and influence of American culture I would find in Kenya. I feel just a bit proud every time I see someone in a Spiderman shirt, watch an American movie with my friends, or hear Michael Jackson on the radio.

  • I appreciate the melting-pot nature of the US much more now after realizing that I could live for 20 years in Kenya and never really be Kenyan. I don’t think the same thing is true in the US. From my perspective, as a native-born American, immigrants to the US strike a balance between assimilation into American culture and maintenance of the culture of their motherland. This allows the people in the US to have an identity as “American” while maintaining part of where they came from. I think on balance this is a very good thing for American culture, creativity, and innovation, though there are also downsides (e.g., immigrants feeling that they are forced to assimilate to some degree, and native-born Americans feeling that their country is being taken away from them).

  • The fact that there’s such a constant and robust debate within the US about what it means to be American is itself, I think, very American.

  • The fact that most people here know so much about my county’s politics, history, and culture makes me feel bad because I know so little about their countries. But also better because the fact that they know so much about my country must mean that my country is actually really important, right?

  • I feel at ease talking to other young Americans here because I don’t have to mentally translate to the metric system, wonder “should I say math or maths?”, or question “do we both love ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’?” These three things make conversations much more natural (though sometimes less interesting)

Finally, living outside the country has made me more proud to be American. I love America more than any country in the world because it’s mine — something I appreciate much more with distance.



1. These traits might not be unique to the US, but they are characteristic.