By Cameron Scherer

Guest Writer

The Irish are, in a word, confused. Much of their long and tumultuous history is marked by an active attempt to define themselves by everything they’re not.

 When prominent Irish scholars in the mid 19th century, fed up with the oppressive influence of the English, sought to define Irish national identity, they were faced with a major dilemma. Initially, the scholars declared that the real Irish were Irish-speaking, traditional, rural, and Catholic. Simply put, they were not English. The problem, they soon found out, was that this homogenous collective identity simply did not exist. Modernization brought the inevitable urbanization, and for all of those outside Ireland’s Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking) regions, speaking anything but English was totally impractical.

 James Joyce’s esteemed spot in Irish literature is a tribute to this identity crisis. Not only did he live most of his life in Paris, but he, one of Ireland’s most famed authors, spent his career tearing apart this very romanticized notion of the Irish countryman.

Today, a similar dichotomy exists, albeit not nearly as strongly as before, but its invalidity is just as evident. Granted, a lingering, at this point almost habitual, rejection of the English still exists. Now, however, most of that resentment has been transferred to America, the country that has replaced Britain’s physical occupation with its own form of cultural imperialism.

I should state, for the record, that most of this derision is all in good fun, and the vast majority of the people I’ve met here are among the nicest and most fun I’ve ever encountered.

Still, there’s something funny about going to a pub and having to listen to the Irish boys make fun of our inherent American-ness before promptly singing along to Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind” with no apparent sense of irony. Or hearing about how awful our “Governator” is by people decked out in Hollister clothing that bears the California state flag.

To be fair, it’s easy to get defensive when you encounter foreigners. It certainly works both ways. During one of our first nights here, the people I was with, perhaps longing for something a bit familiar, stopped in a McDonald’s late at night. There, we came across a man who (quite drunkenly) went into detail about how obnoxious America is. My friends, obviously offended, got him thrown out of the building and launched into a conversation about how he just “didn’t understand” all the good America has done. Maybe I should have joined them in defending my country, but I didn’t. Rather, I sat there in silence, proud of myself for being above such pseudo-American exceptionalism.

But that moment got me thinking. When you go abroad, you’re supposed to have this moment of cultural enlightenment in which you open your eyes to the seemingly endless world that has existed this whole time outside of your college bubble. Undoubtedly I have had many such moments. My most profound realization, however, has been almost the opposite of my expectation.

Perhaps it’s merely a remnant of my eight years of adolescence under George Bush, but I have found that I instinctually try to distance myself from the ubiquitous “Amerikuh” image overseas. It wasn’t, ironically, until I studied abroad that I decided that it’s okay – sometimes even great! – to be an American. If anything, my tendency to go on and on about the wonder that is California – which, I don’t care what Sarah Palin claims, is just as “real” as any other part of America – is an indication that part of me has an immense love for my home country.

I guess my subconscious is more clairvoyant than I give it credit for. How else do I explain the fact that in my pre-departure book shopping I gravitated towards a book of essays about each of the 50 states (a book that, since I arrived here, I’ve had trouble putting down)?

At the risk of sounding trite, I suppose it’s possible that what I’m supposed to learn over here is how to accept an identity, affiliation, whatever you want to call it, that I’m not always comfortable with. These days, Ireland, where it is commonplace to see men in tweed caps who look like they belong in a 1920s photograph, sharing the street with a gaggle of girls donning Abercrombie & Fitch outfits and too much make-up, is coming to terms with its multi-faceted character (Yeats and Hyde must be turning in their graves).

Maybe I should leave behind the idea that to prove you’re not the typical American tourist, you must reject everything American. Every place, even the drop-dead gorgeous Emerald Isle, has its good, bad, and ugly, and I guess it’s time I learn to embrace ours.

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