Multiplicity

There is only one more entry left in the "Reconstructing Reo" series. Somewhat sad, I suppose. I guess the main point is that Reo has been successfully reconstructed; however, to say that he is the same as he was before I went to Paris is quite the overstatement. Reo, as me, is no where near the person he was before those epic six months, and the return has been a real lesson in integrating that individual with all that is the United States.

But as I think about how different I am, how changed I have become, it is just that integration, that reentry into America that has been the biggest lesson this whole experience has had to offer. Let me explain, borrowing a little from Prof. Fraga's lecture yesterday...

You see, to call oneself American, especially today, comes with a great deal of ambiguities and uncertainties. If you think about it, no matter how you identify, it is probably very hard for you to pin down a concrete definition of what an American is--culturally, ethnically (yes, unfortunately that is part of it), spiritually, physically, or otherwise. In today's America we are more of an amalgam of multiple different Americas--Mexican America, African America, Asian America, Gay America, Evangelist America, Consumer America, Capitalist America, Libertarian America, Bleeding heart liberal America, I could go on and on, but you get the point...Our identity today has so little to do with unifying ourselves as a whole and forming a singular identity.

And you know, for all that we berate France and for all the mockery Americans tend to throw to our cheese-loving, wine-guzzling, chimney smoking friends from the continent, all we really have to give them is envy. The French, while not exactly the most equilibrated or egalitarian of cultures, do partake of one principle which we in the US could stand to learn from. In France, no matter whether you come from Algeria, Tunisia, Martinique, the DRC, or are a native-born Frenchman, under the law if you are a citizen, you are French. You are not French-Algerian, you are not French-Canadian (ok, but still)...you are simply and undeniably French. In practice this is not always the case, but nonetheless, you are French, and that is all.

Perhaps in America we need to get over our fear of the other. We need to form an identity that is more unified, more comprehensive, and perhaps to decrease our fear of integrating outsiders. Mexican, Chinese, or whatever immigrants may be illegal by our current laws, but they can integrate over time, over generations. If we are so afraid of becoming a nation of brown-skinned people, perhaps we should have thought of that before we moved to a brown-skinned continent. America will still be America, it just will look a little different. But America today looks nothing like America in 1787, so what difference does it make?

I am proud to be an American, however. I am proud, after it all, to say that I am a member of the most exportable, and, by extension, the most integrative culture in the world. If only that culture would realize that this is its most defining quality.