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Loyalty to more than one country?

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Author:
Isa

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Hey all

Recently, i met up with an old friend (one who i met when i first came here) but who i have heard things from through my mother (Albert’s parents and my mother are still friends).

In school, we were very close as well as with another mutual friend Ali. Now, Ali and i connected partly because he and i both came ‘from’ America. I had been born there and so had lived there and had never set foot here in Australia before i came depsite my citizenship. He, on the other hand, had dual citizenship, US/Australia and his parents were American, but Ali had never set foot in America before he left when i was 9.

So, i met up with Albert -Ali’s and mine’s mutual friend the other day after ten years of not really having seen him. It was…. strange. Good, but strange.

He asked me if i still spoke in French with my mother… i found that i could not really explain how come i stopped. Well, i still do, but only occasionally. I couldn’t explain how kids here are cruel, and that i had to choose in order to fit in, that i was teased for my accent (a weird mix of Mauritian-French and Californian).

When it came to jobs he asked me what i was planning, and i said that it an ideal world, i wld work for the UN (an international org) or an NGO…but have set my sights on being a diplomat so i was gonna join DFAT(the Dept of Foreign Affair sand Trade in Aus). But that i did not know if i wanted to be ’stuck’ representing one country (or, en if i could). You see, i have the choice to join DFAT and/or the US Foreign Service.

And i don’t know if i could be able to, emotionally, represent just the one, or be able to represent one cuntry my entire life. (Which is, yes, i know, what i do on a daily basis on a personal level, i just don’t know if i could do that consciously on a professional level).

And i tried to explain to him that i felt the need to return to America to live for at least a year…. to face my demons. Because i just left, the umbilical cord was cut, so to speak, and i had no further contact with the States from when i was 6 until i was 12. And he couldn’t understand that.

He was astonished that i had idolised it for so long and that i love LA when he thinks its an shithole.

In repsonse, i tried to explain… that i didn’t particularly like Aus when i came either (read: hated it). But now, i have come to (albeit somewhat grudgeingly i admit) to like it, such as the weather, the humour, and the countryside is very pretty. So are the kangaroos. And the deer. The snakes and spiders? Not so much..

Can anyone understand?


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May 5, 2008 | Filed Under General Forum 

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Comments

8 Responses to “Loyalty to more than one country?”

  1. 1
    IngridGiles
    IngridGiles Says:
    May 5th, 2008 at 7:23 am

    It’s hard being between countries, isn’t it? Sometimes you don’t realize how loyal you feel toward one until some situation triggers that loyalty. As much as I might enjoy the Foreign Service (and it would be for the US if I did it), I can imagine how difficult some moments might be, when I found myself faced with conflicting loyalties but the obligation to represent one country.

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  2. 2
    USAFinn
    USAFinn Says:
    May 7th, 2008 at 4:46 am

    That’s how I feel too. Growing up my friends always asked me (even teachers sometimes) which country “I like better.” (I’m a child of immigrants, between Finland and the US, for perspective) I mean, we came to the US because of my dad’s job, and we just….stayed. I really love Finland, but I really didn’t know anything about it until I lived there for a year in high school. (my “foreign exchange” heh, though I visited every summer) I STILL don’t know enough about Finland. I feel really awkward talking to Finnish people I don’t know because, yes, I do speak Finnish, but I don’t speak it perhaps as well as they do. (like grammatically and stuff) But in the US, nobody even knew where Finland was, let alone what it was like. So I’d love to work for the Finnish embassy, or the US embassy in Finland (or China, since I’m learning China…or Germany, since I can speak a bit of German), but I don’t know if I can honestly represent one country when my heart is in two countries, even more. I’m falling in love with China, so I guess it’s 3 countries now!

    does that make sense? I tend to often be random when I’m typing comments like this ^^;

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  3. 3
    Unregistered
    omar Says:
    May 7th, 2008 at 9:06 am

    I find that its easier to be loyal to no country.

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  4. 4
    mairabay
    mairabay Says:
    May 7th, 2008 at 2:26 pm

    I think the “problem” with you two is that your friend has a different relationship towards the US than you do.

    I also have a friend who was born in Brazil and lived many years in the US, and she absolutely loves Brazil. It really blows my mind.

    So I think it’s not a good idea for you two to try to come to an agreement as to whether it’s a good or a bad place.
    Maybe you two could analyse together why you love or hate it. You can talk about the memories and feelings you have for/against it.
    You will see that the “problem” is not in the place, but how you relate to it. And you both relate differently to the US, that’s just it. You can still be friends :)

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  5. 5
    IngridGiles
    IngridGiles Says:
    May 7th, 2008 at 3:23 pm

    Good point. I think often our feelings about a country have not to do with good or bad, but with our own relationship to the country, and our memories, expectations and experiences.

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  6. 6
    Jemila
    Jemila Says:
    May 7th, 2008 at 5:46 pm

    It’s weird, I am very patriotic when it comes to Argentina, as long as I am not here…when I am a hate the place!

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  7. 7
    Desi
    Desi Says:
    May 7th, 2008 at 7:07 pm

    I used to feel most belonging to Taiwan when I was younger; when I left that intensified, and now that I’ve come back I’m starting to get really patriotic about Switzerland… which is weird, because I’ve never lived there! I think partly it’s also out of protest and wanting to be the different one. I’m the only Swiss in the class (in a German school), so I often act patriotic just because of that.

    Choosing between countries to represent them would really be very hard! Right now I’m trying to think of where in the world to go after I finish my studies, and I’m totally blank on that, because I’ve lost my sense of belonging to ALL my three ‘home’ countries…

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  8. 8
    mmmmmm
    mmmmmm Says:
    June 28th, 2008 at 6:38 pm

    of course it’s totally fine to be loyal to more than one country!
    ever since i was a baby i thought…why r there even countries in this world? why dunt we all have no boundaries?
    and honest i still dunt see why the boundary.

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