Americans, Feeling the Love
http://www.truthout.org/011809F
With Obama's election, expatriates say, there's a new attitude
abroad. Instead of challenges on Iraq and WMDs, they're met Wwith hugs
and good wishes.
London - As Micha Wyatt plans an inaugural bash at the Chicago
Rib
Shack in London, she is basking in the new warmth toward Americans
overseas.
It's cool to be an American again, Wyatt said. "Finally! I'm
tired
of pretending I'm Canadian."
From Jakarta to Johannesburg, Americans who travel or live abroad
are finding that instead of being scolded about the Iraq war, the
military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, or U.S. climate change
policy, they are being hugged when strangers hear their accent.
"People would question me: 'Where are the weapons of mass
destruction? What is America doing?' " said Wyatt, 38, a San
Francisco
native who said she does not align herself with any party but comes
from a Republican family.
Since Barack Obama's election, she said, people want to hang out
at American parties and talk about the latest news from Washington:
"There is a buzz about America now."
Many Americans interviewed in Latin America, Asia, Africa and
Europe said that for years they have felt "targeted" by critics of
U.S. policies. They said they often did not volunteer that they were
American, and several said they even dropped the word "Ottawa" into
conversations to try to avoid confrontations.
Now, even in countries such as Japan and Australia, where
Americans were generally not taken to task over Bush policies as they
were in Europe, Americans interviewed said they suddenly have new
cachet. Some compared the feeling to the heady days after the fall of
communism.
"It was cool to know an American" in the early 1990s, said Tanya
Pampalone, a Los Angeles native who has long lived abroad and resides
in Johannesburg.
But the Bush era has been tough, she said, as many saw the United
States playing the "bad guy" role in the world. She, like others
interviewed, said she hesitated waving the red, white and blue in
public.
But as goodwill toward Americans has returned, she recently
allowed her 5-year-old daughter to bring a little American flag she
had been waving in the car to a restaurant.
"A week before, I would have said to her, 'Just put the flag in
the car. Let's not draw attention to ourselves,' " Pampalone said.
But
this time, she told her daughter, " 'Great, take the flag,' and when
she walked around saying, 'Yes, we can!' everyone in the restaurant
was smiling.' "
Organizations of expatriates, including Democrats Abroad, say
there have never been so many, and such large, celebrations outside
the United States to mark the swearing-in of an American president.
In addition to sold-out balls in capitals around the globe, many
other Obama bashes are planned. In Cambridge, England, people are
gathering to listen to Obama's speech at a Hawaiian luau, a nod to
Obama's roots in that state. In Antigua, Guatemala, Americans have
hired a disc jockey to play Stevie Wonder, Bob Dylan and other tunes
Obama keeps on his iPod. In Jakarta, Indonesia, where Obama spent
time
as a boy, students from his former elementary school will perform a
traditional dance at a party featuring some of his old classmates.
David St. Onge, 57, a John McCain supporter who works in the
pharmaceutical industry and was in Moscow this week, said he has
noticed a change in how his Russian clients treat him.
"They seemed to think better of Americans because we elected a
black man as president," he said as he walked through Red Square.
"They think we're more enlightened now."
Andrew Leik, 40, an architect from Michigan living in Cologne,
Germany, said that along with "it definitely being much easier now to
be an American" overseas, he has noticed that German friends who had
refused even to visit the United States are planning vacations there.
In France, Rick Parks, 64, a retired New York City public school
teacher, said he has noticed gestures of friendship and "definitely a
change in attitude" toward the United States. Gone are the days when
relations with France were so testy that french fries were briefly
renamed "freedom fries" in U.S. House cafeterias.
Parks said North African souvenir merchants at the landmark Sacre
Coeur basilica in Paris smiled at him and hailed Obama's election as
a
victory for them all, saying: "You are our people."
Many people said they have been surprised that a new president in
the White House would have such a direct impact on their lives
thousands of miles away.
Brandon Luker, 26, a PhD student from the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill who is in India researching Islamic issues,
said Muslim scholars have given him slightly better access since
Obama's election.
Jennifer Granger, 34, a teacher from New York who lives in
Prague,
said she no longer hesitates to say she is American.
"Thank God! It feels better," she said. "The people I work with
give me high-fives and say things like 'You can be proud to be from
your country again.' "
Perhaps as a sign of the eagerness for a new era, a wax figure of
President Bush with his packed bags was placed on the sidewalk
outside
Madame Tussauds wax museum in Amsterdam on Thursday.
In London, as part of the promotions related to Obama taking
office, U.S. citizens can get into Madame Tussauds free on
Inauguration Day, instead of paying entrance fees that start at $18.
About 300,000 Americans live in Britain and any of those, along with
any visitors showing up with their passports, will be waved in.
All week, Krispy Kreme doughnut shops in Britain have been
offering free cafe Americanos to those - American or not - who walk
up
to the counter and say Obama's trademark slogan, "Yes, we can!"
Kit Maloney, a Boston native who for the past eight years has
lived on and off in London, said strangers have begun to quiz her on
all aspects of American life and on how a country could elect a black
liberal intellectual, something people tell her they can't imagine
happening in Britain any time soon.
"For the first time in a long time, it's cool to be an American,"
she said.
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