Why I Do It

I get a lot of Germans stunned to hear that I am a proud American who loves the United States, but has chosen to learn the German language and spend an extended period of time living in Germany. They say, "German is such a useless language. Who would choose to learn it?"* and "What can you learn from us? Technologies in the United States are better than ours."

Americans are deserters, opportunists, and individualists. Throughout the short history of the United States, it has been the people who gave up on their native countries, the deserters, entrepreneurs, and persecuted individualists, who inhabited the new land. Many of these immigrants loved their native lands and cultures, but saw their futures in a new place. They retained aspects of their heritages for a generation or two, even as they assimilated into the American spirit.

But, after a few generations, the purebred American has lost the native culture and becomes curious about the native land. Cultures change with time, but not so quickly that an excursion to the "old country" won't provide some insights. And as it is not fully possible to understand a culture without speaking the language, the "useless" languages are learned.

To study the European story is to take a step towards understanding who I am as an American. My daily social education provides me with ideas to bring over to the United States, but also reinforces my pride in what America already has and is. As a result of critical questions from Germans, my awareness of what it means to be American increases.

The Germans tell me that they don't think I am a typical American. Not only am I not fat, but I confess to my only two fast food burgers in the United States having come from Wendy's, and I am curious to learn about a foreign culture. It may be true that I am not a typical American. But, above all the generalities which Germans make about Americans, I don't think it is fair to say we have little interest in cultures. While Germans have been building up the same culture in the same location for thousands of years, Americans spend every day interacting with an international community and together founding a fresh new culture. This new culture includes the creation of an international language (American English) and tolerance of a vast variety of unique individuals.

Being American means that my family ancestry involves many native countries and cultures. It means that my friends' families don't just originate from the next village over, rather from half way around the world. It means that the food I eat does not follow the rules of a specific culture and cannot be labeled distinctly as such. It means that I hear conversations in Spanish, Hindi, and Chinese everyday while going about the town and don't even bat an eye. In America I can find every possible product produced in the world all collected in one convenient store.

I come to Europe to study in depth the isolated, old, native countries which produced a great number of the people who were to become Americans. Being here only makes me love the United States more.

*And yet Americans get criticized over and over again by the international community for only speaking English!