When do you feel the most American?

Sometime during our Intro to International Studies class sophomore year, we discussed national identity and how we think of our nationality as an identity or not. When someone asks you, where are you from? You might say the name of your town or the name of your city; you might say the name of your state. When would you say you’re American? Mostly, we feel the most American when we are abroad. Sure, I tell people that I’m from New York but only after I first say that I’m from the United States. We don't notice what it really means to be American until we are away from that lifestyle. Once we enter a new country, we do in fact notice the things we take for granted in the USA. Bringing me to my next point, we learn more about our own culture while we experience another. Not only do I feel more American while I'm abroad, but I understand more thoroughly our American culture when I explain it to my students and roommates.

The week of Thanksgiving, I taught my students about our "giorno di ringraziamento" similar to a month ago when I taught them about Halloween. They already knew a bit about Halloween, it's a holiday that is easily commercialized to other countries with decorations and translations of "Trick or Treat" into every language: "Dolcetto o Scherzetto" in Italian. Thanksgiving on the other hand is less commercial, it is based on our own history and since the Pilgrims didn't found a colony in Italy - there is no reason for them to celebrate it. Naturally, I could recite to my classes by heart that the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620, but other facts of the history I did not know. I didn't know that Abraham Lincoln in 1863 proclaimed the national holiday of Thanksgiving to be the fourth Thursday of November every year at the urging of the magazine editor Sarah Josepha Hale. Apparently FDR changed Thanksgiving to the third Thursday in November to create a longer Christmas shopping season but public uproar caused him to change the date back two years later. I just find that fascinating - something that I otherwise wouldn't have known about our history except that I was teaching it to foreigners.

Showing my students Norman Rockwell's 'Freedom from Want' cover of the Saturday Evening Post and pictures of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade certainly made me feel quite homesick. Luckily, the assistant who teaches outside of Brescia but lives here in the city with a family invited me over for dinner. Her host mother made us "Italian Turkey" meaning two medium sized chickens. She made one stuffing with Speck, one with Prosciutto, and then Megan made real, mashed potatoes. Delicious.

Our "Italian Turkey"

We put it all on the table and Megan's host mother Carla served pieces of the chicken with stuffing to all of us. What do we do now? Megan and I immediately started helping ourselves to a bit of mashed potatoes, a bit of corn, a bit of zucchini and ate it all together. The Italians were completely confused. We eat everything together? You mean we're not going to eat a first course and then the second course? Carla tried to be very American and eat bits of everything together, while her son Giovanni ate his chicken first, then he took some mashed potatoes and finished those before taking vegetables. It felt very American and very un-Italian but it was just what I needed to feel like in some way, I did in fact celebrate Thanksgiving. I was naturally grateful to be invited to this home and eat some traditional Thanksgiving dishes even though in a foreign country.

When I was younger, I used to consider myself Italian. I used to say that I’m 50% Italian as if this heritage made my nationality only 50% American. As I grew up, I understood a bit more about heritage, nationality and identity. The USA as "a country of immigrants" is in fact a melting pot of various cultures. We are not all the WASPs who might have been part of the founding fathers. I think that being American is more of a lifestyle. I find comfort in the American lifestyle - this is what I know. My family has Italian traditions, other families have Irish or German traditions, but I do think that we live in a particular lifestyle. One that I certainly found comfort in replicating for Thanksgiving and am excited to appreciate again over Christmas Break!