My daughter's class in school has nine students, and nine nationalities: Canadian, Isreali, French, Costa Rica, Italian, Dutch, Argentinan, Chilean, and my daughter, the American. Most of these kids have lived in Costa Rica almost all their lives, some of them were even born here. My daughter at 13 has been here for 7 years, more than half of her total existence on this planet. They are all bilingual, Spanish and English these are the two languages they need for school and many of them are tri-lingual speaking a different language at home than they do at school. And yet they still identify themselves by the nationality and language of their parents.
The private school my children go to stresses that their students are citizens of the world, while at the same time bragging about how many different nationalities the school encompasses. Last week the music teacher decided to teach all the children that they were Costa Rican. He argued that they had lived all or most their lives in Costa Rica, that they spoke Costa Rican Spanish, that they were part of the culture of Costa Rica thus they are Costa Ricans.
The French boy in class said, "Sir, didn't you say you lived in Paris for five years as a musician, and you speak French?" The teacher replied to the affirmative. "Then Sir, you are French." The music teacher shocked responded, "Of course I'm not French, I'm a Costa Rican" at which point our little French smartass said (to the joy of the entire class). "Yes Sir, you're a Costa Rican and I'm French."
Nationality is a hard thing. I hate nationalism as a concept. Nationalism has lead to more blood shed than anything else except religion. At our wedding my future ex-husband made a nationalistic speech for Quebec to break away from Canada. I hated him for it. I was born in the US, to New Zealand parents. When I went "home" to New Zealand at 4 I already had an American accent.... I was already different. I was an American, and proud of it. When I left "home" at fifteen to go back to the US I had a Kiwi accent, I was always a foreigner. I've lived most of my life out of New Zealand but when people hear me speak they know I sound different and ask me where I'm from. Whereas California would be a more accurate answer I answer "New Zealand' because that is where my accent comes from and as I grow older I find myself with more of the New Zealand culture in me than American.
American's are proud and arrogant. They are proud of their country, proud to be Americans. It's written everywhere. America is the greatest country on earth. Dear God who came up with that? Is it because they recited the Pledge of Allegiance too often at school or is it in the water, or the coca cola (because American's don't really drink water except from a polluting plastic bottle)? Why they hell do they believe this? Costa Rican's hate that Americans refer to themselves as Americans and their country as America. America is a continent, say the Costa Ricans -- we are Americans too. How dare they be so arrogant as to believe that they are the only nation on a continent of 36 countries? Costa Rican's are taught that the entire Americas is one continent (and why isn't it? And for that matter why aren't Asia and Europe one continent?) Why do we insist to drawing arbitrary lines to say who belongs where? Why do we need a nationality?
Someone once said that the only thing New Zealanders were proud of was that they weren't Australians. My daughters born in the US to a New Zealander and a French Canadian and having grown up in Costa Rica are Americans. Their accents are Californian American, an accent neutral in this world of pigeon holing, an accent broadcast worldwide on almost every television show that is not reality TV from Jersey, or from a red-neck neighborhood They have chosen an accent that makes them stand out to no one. When they speak Spanish their accent is of Costa Rica and Nicaragua from the Nicaraguan employees we have. They have learned their Spanish accent from their companions but their English accent is not from their friends or their family, it is from cable tv.
The other day I gave a ride to a boy from school. He's 16, lived here 9 years. He spoke to me in English with a Californian surfer boy accent and to my daughter's boyfriend in Costa Rican Teenage slang accent. He's German, sometimes a word would sneak out with a German twist, but not often. But I know if you asked him what he was he would say German. He will probably never live in Germany his whole life but he is German.
I hate nationalism. Yet at the same time I understand the need for a nationality. The need to know where you belong, where your people are from. It's always been important. Robin Hood's real name was "Robin of Locksley". People were identified by a name and then a place. The Duke of Salisbury, last names were carved out of place names even today many names in French and Italian still contain the "of" (de Laurentis, di Caprio). You needed to know your place in the world. So you could either be of (enter town home here) or someone's son (Jack's son) or from a profession (Carpenter). Knowing where you come from is vital, everyone needs a point of origin.
Costa Rican's are supposed to be the happiest people on earth, I think this may have a lot to do with the fact that they don't leave home. They grow up in a little village and they stay there, they don't go to a different state to go to College, they don't meet up with a woman from another part of the country and go to live in yet another part of the country. They marry the girl next door and build a shack next door to mom. There is something to be said for knowing exactly where you belong and knowing everyone around you.
I envy those who know their nationality. Who state it with pride. "I'm not Costa Rican, I'm French." I wish I shared such certainty. I feel the lack of a nationality, the lack of a true belonging to any place. The country of my accent has been my home for so little of my life; the America of my adulthood repels me in its arrogance and the Costa Rica of my middle age will always be a place in which I am a gringa with a horrible accent.
World Citizen is a nice idea, but a lonely existence where one is cut off from any real stability, from any real sense of place. I long to have a last name that tells all where I am from, to have a last name that reflects where I am from instead of an absence of belonging in my very soul. I long to proudly proclaim my nationality to know with certainty where my place in the world is, to know that somewhere there is a home to go back to.
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