Sam Quinn blogpost #4

It is difficult to describe what American-ness is; because honestly, in my opinion, it is a different experience for everyone based on their race, gender, and socio-economic status. I agree with what we talked about today with Spivak, and think that when looking at this question from her P.O.V.,  she would see the idea of "Americanism/Americanness" itself as a median perhaps, and thus would allow for everyone inside class/outside class/etc to explain their answer from their perspective, but also question them to look at this prompt from the vantage points of others in different situations.

For me, I consider myself an "American" first and foremost. What does this mean to me? That I was born here, as were my parents. That I have lived here and been a citizen here all my life. That I speak the chosen native language of our nation, have enrolled and fulfilled many levels in schools here, and plan to get a job in America once I graduate from W&M. My relationship with this country is pretty straightforward on the surface, but I think there are more personal aspects for why I find myself choosing to explain my role here as being full of 'Americanness'.

For instance, I defend our country. I don't support everything we've done to our own citizens and other nations around the globe, but I also feel distinctly attached to my nationality, especially when I travel abroad. My friend and I were talking about this idea today; whether or not it is rational, I feel like we can criticize and scrutinize America, it's politics, it's problems, etc much more comfortably on our own soil than when visiting foreign countries. Maybe this is b/c when abroad I can't get over my "americanness" or more likely I would just rather not give foreigners a snapshot of America that is unfavorable (b/c they don't know all of the good that happens here too). Whatever the case, I feel more American when put in a situation that causes me to stand out as different.

This reminds me of what we talked about in class today, which kind of threw me through a loop. By defending my Americanness, I feel like I am defending my right to my experience in this country, and it makes me sad that external factors can influence our definition and experience of Americanness...even though I understand how they do. Someone's comment today made me wonder if as a little elementary schooler, I'd ever made one of my Black friends feel "less black" by hanging out with me, or if others ever explicitly said it to them...it just goes to show that we still compare our situations in life with "whiteness," and it makes my skin crawl, eek!