‘Abroad changed me’

You’ll never get speed and convenience like we have here. America is the only country where you can wake up at 2 p.m.; get drive-thru all-day breakfast in under two minutes; order groceries and have them packaged and put into your car trunk for you (and even that’s more energy than home delivery); pop out of the car to buy a gun really quick at the Walmart down the street (just bring that ID); and dress absolutely horribly while doing the whole thing.

I mean, who would trade living in Europe for what we have here? When studying abroad in Paris, I had to go to three different grocery stores to do my weekly shopping: one for meat and cheese, a farmers market for produce and Monoprix for non-perishables. Who would trade the charm of knowing the butcher for the eye-glance you give the Whole Foods delivery guy? 

We have no idea how easy we have it! 

All that being said, for the entirety of my high school career, I thought I hated America. 

After Donald Trump was elected president, I, along with all of my other high school classmates, declared we were moving to Canada. And this time we were sure we meant it. We said it after Sandy Hook and during the #MeToo movement, but this time we really meant it. The morning after Trump won the 2016 presidential election, my high school held an emergency assembly complete with a moment of silence. Girls were crying in the hallway and all we could muster was, “I’m moving to Canada.” 

We thought all our problems would disappear in this northern oasis. Look at Canada! Look at that healthcare! 

Of course, none of us actually moved, and none of us will. Ruth Bader Ginsburg died leaving many without hope for the Supreme Court, and we still did not move. Roe v. Wade got overturned, taking the right of bodily autonomy from millions, and we still did not move. The Equal Rights Amendment continues to fail, and we still do not move. The lack of gun control has led to the death of over 30,000 lives and we are still here. 

America is tainted with injustice and contemptible decisions, but we have to abandon this mindset that we have to leave the country when it gets this bad because deep down, we know that leaving the country does not mean fully leaving its problems behind.

I left the country, albeit temporarily, and I did not abandon my grief for America. Being a citizen, the attachment I feel to America’s journey and striving for better is ingrained within me. As much as I wanted moving to Europe to be my saving grace from any “American guilt,” I did not detach myself when I moved to study abroad; I simply saw America from the outside.

Our freedom of speech, our life of convenience and our ability to consume all the media we want have become part of our lives, but we forget that this isn’t the norm for everyone in the world. Our freedom has come with the habit of taking our privileges for granted.

This is not in any way my pitch to become a nationalist. I hold the view that the most patriotic thing to do is to critique, vote and advocate for the betterment of the country. I also don’t believe in responding to legitimate failures of our systems with a remark about how lucky we are to even be here. And I certainly don’t believe in the, “if you don’t like it, leave” argument that completely ignores how progress is made. Studying abroad this past year only reinforced these beliefs.

Leaving the country, after not liking it, did not solve my qualms with America. If all the people who want better from this country leave, what will it turn into? Fighting for justice is an unfairly-placed burden on those who are oppressed by the system. The ones truly harmed by the policies and injustice in America are the ones who don’t have the resources to leave when they fought to come here for refuge. 

As American citizens, we all should rally behind the rhetoric that we will not abandon our country when it fails us or our neighbors. This kind of national spirit is unique and it is part of all of us, whether we want to admit it or not. Those who benefit from flawed systems owe it to their neighbors to improve the system for them, not reap the benefits and claim that those not at the top do not deserve to be there. Running away is the easy way out. Let’s not add cowardice to the list of this country’s flaws.