See You Next Summer, America
I can only hope for the best in the meantime.
May 30th, 2020.
My mom and I are cruising down the highway. I’ve been staying at my parents’ place in my hometown during the lockdown. We’re now heading to my apartment in Quebec City to get my summer clothes. I didn’t expect to be gone that long, but here we are. A heatwave struck the province a week before, which is extremely unusual at that time of the year. But what is usual this year anyway? Today, though, the weather couldn’t be nicer. It feels like we’re on vacation.
“I feel like going on a trip to the U.S.,” I tell my mom. Because to me, going to the U.S. comes with summertime.
She shakes her head, a little smile on her face. We had talked about going on a package tour like we did the year before, this time going to Detroit and Chicago. Of course, with the pandemic, we had to cancel those barely-existent plans. It’s already quite difficult to travel within Canada, let alone crossing the border…
And that night, I start to pay closer attention to what is going on in American cities.
Virus or not, there is no way we‘re going to travel to the U.S. this summer.
I’ve been to the United States about a dozen times. I’ve travelled mostly with my family, but also on two school trips. The first time, when I was six years old, I went on a camping trip with my parents and I barely noticed I wasn’t in Canada anymore. The last time, right before my 24th birthday, I went on a package tour with my mom to D.C. and Pennsylvania. In the meantime, I’ve been to various other places on the East Coast: Maine, New Hampshire, Boston, New York City, New Jersey, Florida… Everywhere I’ve been, I’ve collected great memories. From being an interpreter to my parents to getting pooped on by a seagull at Hampton Beach, through visiting the small coastal towns and being mesmerized by the Manhattan skyline at night.
I have to go back, that’s for sure. I have yet to see Louisiana, Texas and California. I want to go on that trip with my mom to visit Chicago and Detroit. There’s still so much I haven’t seen with my own eyes.
I have met Americans from all over. Before the lockdown, I was working in a museum in the old part of Quebec City, a very popular touristic area. I’ve done the test last summer: in a single week, I’ve met Americans from 26 different states. This included Alaska!
And while they might have a bad reputation internationally, the overwhelming majority of American tourists were very nice to my colleagues and me. I’ve seen people trying to greet me in French and being apologetic for not being to take the conversation further in my language, I’ve seen people eager to learn about our history and culture, I’ve seen people spontaneously interacting with each other over their home states and their ancestors. But I’ve also seen people express their disappointment and anger with what was going on in their country. The administration, the division, the incessant bickering on all platforms… And sometimes, I couldn’t help but smile a little and tease them: “Well, right now you’re in Canada. You’re allowed to relax.”
Most of the time, I couldn’t bring myself to tell them that the division and the self-righteousness were starting to infect our own social discourse as well. I didn’t tell them that I had to scribble over “MAGA” messages left in our guest book more than once. It was not a political statement from my part; in fact, it’s because we didn’t allow for political statements in the museum that I had to do this.
But that never made me feel uneasy. I’ve come a long way.
Why wouldn’t I want to go back?
I’m not sure most Americans get how much we see of them.
Even people who are not particularly interested in American culture and politics are constantly being bombarded with American media. Music. TV shows. Advertisement. Movies. Sports. Fashion. On some of those, people slap some French dubbing or subtitles in a poor attempt to make us forget that it’s not our own, that this comes from an entirely different country with an entirely different context.
When I was a kid, watching American cartoons and TV shows made me think that secondary school would be hell. I thought there were going to be the popular kids and the losers, and that I’ll end up being part of the losers and getting stuffed in a locker. But then, my secondary school experience was much more nuanced. Then, I grew older and started using social media. On Twitter and Tumblr, all of the negative aspects of American society were shoved down my throat, and for a lack of better judgement and knowledge, I had to believe. There was something so fascinating and scary about being a witness to so many debates. It made me think that hate was everywhere south of our border, and it made me glad to be but a lonely spectator to the chaos.
A chaos that was well-represented, but maybe not representative of what life was like in the United States, or how the American people were actually thinking and acting in their actual, everyday life. It made me believe that Americans were those self-centred, bigoted jerks. There are problems in America just like there are problems where I live, but of course, this shouldn’t be the only significant thing defining a nation and its people.
However, you can always count on the Internet to exacerbate the bad and dismiss the good.
Should I write or should I just let it go?
I’m white. I’m Canadian. Like most of my friends, who all put that freakin’ black square on Blackout Tuesday.
Why? What’s our place?
I’ve seen the footage of George Floyd’s death. I’ve seen on social media the peaceful protests, the riots, the police beating people in some places and standing alongside them in other places. I am outraged and sad and humbled.
I’m not sure most Americans get how much we see of them.
And we all think we know, but most of us don’t. We haven’t sat in your schools, studied your systems, read every part of your history, voted for your representatives, paid your taxes. As much as we are listening, watching and trying to educate ourselves, it’s still very difficult to comprehend what racism has done to the American nation. As a French-Canadian woman, I can assure you that my nation has seen oppression, but it pales in comparison to what Black people have been going through throughout the history of this continent.
All around the world, we see, and we feel like we should be doing something, but what exactly? There have been protests in Toronto and in Montreal in support of movements in the U.S., but to me at least, it still feels… Weirdly distant.
What’s our place?
We all want to voice our opinions, we all want to show our support to bring sustainable change, we all wish for everyone to be heard and for the violence to end. But as for us who do not live in the U.S., we are miles and miles away. At the end of the day, we are not the ones who get to choose.
I watch the news and I pray. This might not be much, but this is what I do. I think about all of those Americans, of all origins and all ages, that have been through our museum. I hope they are all safe. I know that the same overwhelming majority of Americans that were nice to me do not have to blame themselves for the issues plaguing their country. Though I hope they choose to be part of the cure and not the disease, if only by being kind to each other.
As for me, I will surely travel to the U.S. soon enough. I can only hope that I will get then to visit a country that will have changed for the better if only a little bit. We don’t know what will happen in a week, or in a month, or especially in six months. But I can only hope for the best.
See you next summer.