Briefly: The American Project

I've been doing a lot of reading for what appears to be a rather narrow field of study, as my dissertation focuses on the aesthetics, genre and form of the Asian American Novel from 2000-2010. There have been a myriad of developments in this genre, most of which to the average reader, are probably not that relevant to one's life, nor of particular interest, but such reading has had its effects on my ever changing opinion about the nation I claim as home, and the nation, that I think, in my sensibility I embody, no doubt to its fullest degree.

(This last fact of my being, affirmed on a rather regular basis from my expatriate English spouse who left his own country with a vengeance some years ago, and as a result, repeatedly iterated to me he has no desire to ever participate in another colonial Empire, new or dying, which made life in the U.S. rather difficult, to say the least. China, of course, is another Empire, but more on the complications of squaring our current bi-national household existence in another expanding ruthless Empire later...) :)

But, all that aside, slogging through a great deal of rather arcane, if not dry literary criticism, has led me to think about various aspects of the possibilities and limits of the American national identity, and the American Project, so to speak, of the individual, betterment, society, democracy, and freedom/liberty--these terms defined here in a spiritual, almost esoteric sense. It is this idea of liberty that has enchanted us--Americans and many non-Americans, in its utterance and with it comes this amazement, this belief that there is actually a nation that in its public relations campaign, seems to subscribe to this idea. Unbelievable. Remarkable.

The American Dream.

And due to this wild figment of imagination, and the sorrows that exist as a result of this ever timeless pursuit, all sorts of creative enterprises and efforts spring economically, socially, politically, and artistically--ranging from...oh, let's say, in more recent 20th century times, the birth of MTV and the personal computer to jazz and bilingual education to the Tea Party and Christian mega-churches. (I'm in Memphis, right now. There are many mega-churches here. One features a bastardized Statue of Liberty in front of it, which my son puts out whenever we pass, is actually incorrect in its design as it does not have the torch and the book in the proper place. Lady Liberty co-opted by a group of evangelizing fanatical Baptists...such is America...)

That this Dream is as diverse as the population, is the central reason America is unable to coalesce, and that this Dream is so powerful, is the central reason that America continues to engage in its central project which can be perceived of as a Nietzchean experiment gone awry. We aspire to be a nation of Supermen, (again in the existential sense) but this Ayn Rand reality is a hegemonic nightmare for the majority of its citizens. We can't ALL be on top. Every year I come back, I am amazed by the number of brand-new SUV vehicles on the road. I mean, come on, how many people can AFFORD on their SALARY to buy a 50,000USD car! And keep it running with insurance and gas and every other car repair cost! Are you kidding me? Who can afford a 40 inch flat screen TV? Realistically, few households, but so many people have them here. Because, we are worthless without these goods. We don't have these, and we are not Americans. We are nothing. We don't count because we're not living the Dream.

We cannot sustain this level of consumption--we consume too much gas, we have an obesity problem when much of the world is starving, we bomb for liberty (yes, I saw a car with the sticker FREEDOM THE OLD FASHIONED WAY with a military plane in the middle--talk about a reductive phrase, well, so much for bumper sticker politics) and yet--in defense of a vast number of people here--Americans have a refreshing honesty and creativity that is a vital part of the national character.

I say this with a categorical defiance because in my years of travel and expatriate life, for the most part, it is the Americans who really have less of a boundary when it comes to ethnicity and diversity. (Again, we've had some back and forth about this in my own household, and I am in a biracial, binational household, also about the issue of the waning American Left...Stephen claims that being privy to all types of rants as a white male that no white male would dare broach with me has left him to conclude, more or less, that everyone is biased. I see the point, but I tell him what's even weirder to me is that overseas I get the rants from people just because I speak English! As if speaking English means I will participate in fascist bigoted ideology! More on that later...) People come on and prove me wrong. But since I've been overseas I've heard more Western people rant about immigration invasions and everything else to their home countries who uhm...yeah, don't tell anyone, but even engage in miscegenation. Go figure. How messed up is that? Before anyone goes and gets all huffy about this, I'm not ignorant to how social structures are constantly shaken by an influx of new people, but this is also part of modern life. We're in a period of migration across continents and in an age of border crossings across many ideas and geographic places.

But back to more the conversation...so anyway, the reason I say all of this is that
Americans have little choice but to deal with diversity, for quite a while. They HAVE to deal. Americans are USED to it. And there are LAWS against being a racist. And LAWSUITS. We went through the civil rights movement. Bigotry is part of American life, but as a Western woman of Asian descent, there aren't many places I can say are much better, frankly. Being a person of color in the US, however, it's always good to have a little mental breathing space or insanity sets in...but I think that's in most countries when you are not part of the hegemonic structure. And like most sentient people of color too, one develops a certain distance about the State.

To continue--anyway, there are many Americans who don't like and there are draconian immigration laws now sweeping the country, but they will roll back. They have to and will. There are more people who don't like these laws than do and ultimately, they are not fiscally practical...which is what will be the deciding factor. Let's face it, entire state economies would collapse without new immigrant labor. Americans are about money as much as they are about freedom.

We are, for the most part, an open society. We have to be. We're too big not to be, unless we adopt some Mainland China tactics. Machine guns and porn and terrible immigration attitudes--it's all here. But so is an idea of civil rights and some basic consumer protection and there are the plethora of people who still sustain the idea that our diversity is what makes us a strong country. There are many here who are logical, who see the benefit of a dynamic and compelling society that may be diverse and fractured, but in its idealized form can yield something completely unique in this world.

Americans can be parochial, often are unable to see beyond their own state lines or borders, but this is not entirely due to their own devices given their news media limitations and the inured psychosis that results from being force fed ideas of the benefits of their specific type of freedom or democracy from their television or education system that sicken an individual or a system. The definitions of this liberty are narrow, deliberately construed as easy, posited to the general public as the solution for all. It's simply not the case, but it's often hard for Americans to see this because of a few things--to do so requires going against what is perceived to be the very idea of the American project (to spread liberty) and what support system is in place for this type of thinking? The newspapers are censored, often self-censored, and who wants to go against the grain? Also, the American standard of living, for the majority of the people, is much higher than elsewhere in the world. So the average American would think--okay, overall, it's better here. So everyone should just get on board and be an American.

When brutally compared to many countries--it is far more pluralistic in its ideology. This is its promise: You must become part of the American project (which in short is capitalistic and consumer driven in its negatives, but there are other positives which have to do with the idea of the individual and the expression of self and the power of group dynamics to fashion a better ideal) but once you are on board, we will do what we can to understand and lead you to live out your difference. It cuts in multiple ways, but the bottom line is, you join as an American first, and you can wear your identity as a hyphen (or not, though again, most people of color don't have much choice--they remain hyphenated). Most countries don't allow you to join in social or other ways, so you can keep your identity (national and ethnic) which does have its sanctuary, but then you're not part of the national project in the same way.

All this stuff is nothing new. These are musings of one type of expatriate (4th generation Korean American in Asia, random I know), but the other day, I was cruising along, barreling down the road in mom's hybrid SUV (still, a gas guzzler, but more on that family conversation later) to the library for a few research hours and I got this kind of surge of energy. It comes from being in a familiar environment, but it also came to me in this odd way, I suddenly felt reinvigorated. I started to laugh. It was this wave of feeling that I have only experienced when faced with an open desert before me in the Southwest, or on a wide ocean in Hawaii, or on an endless stretch of open Midwestern plain, but here I was in the Memphis streets with ugly signs for fast food chains and it came to me. It was not entirely about belonging (which in more watery fond memories occurred when strolling down a wintry street in Seoul or looking out on a rocky shoreline on the Korean coast) It was about agency. Or the illusion of agency. To suddenly be sentient and aware of one's movements. And potentially to connect this to a larger idea. To believe in something wider, some kind of possibility of the human society and democratic project, a belief in what one might do in this brief life, to be a participant in a way that went beyond my immediate concerns of my dissertation and child, and the usual ways we volunteer to better our community. And this brief moment of epiphany or a sublime state had, I realize, a stake in what I perceive to be, even from afar, the project as espoused in that strange shaky rhetoric of the Dream....

Self-invented. Entirely personal. Individualistic. Incorporating in its genesis and scope, however, a belief in what a society might espouse to be as a process of becoming rather than an end point. The caveat: knowing that it will not come to fruition, for the self, or the larger group and yet not letting such knowledge quell a belief, but rather, shape it for a pragmatic way forward...
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OKAY hours later...but thinking about this, so I should add this is only one entry here, and not fully developed. Will have to think about this more--the details of the American Project, it's significance and potential reach.

A complicated contradictory country.


Some thoughts, 2011...from an American in Memphis