Growing up in the 1980s, it was easy to believe that the United States
was the only country in the world, or at least the only one that mattered.
During the Reagan era of total cultural insulation and paranoia, Cold War
indoctrination was barely questioned. That the Soviet
Union was a jealous, constant threat to our national security was
a given. Africa was the beneficiary of
telethons and fundraisers, not the continent from which all humanity sprung.
Think “We Are the World,” “Man in the Mirror” and the AIDS epidemic. I didn’t
even learn of Lucy the Australopithecus until I went to college.
Part of my worldly ignorance during the “Me” decade can be
blamed on a parochial Lutheran education more concerned with churning out
students who can list the books of the Old Testament rather than master geography.
But upon reflection, there was also a
pervasive national arrogance that rather discouraged intellectual curiosity
outside our borders. We had MTV, Diet Coke and we were winning the Space Race.
Why bother with anything else?
In the mid-1990s, twin influences began to transform my
limited perspective. As a member of the Chicago Children’s Choir, I played,
rehearsed and traveled with a multi-cultural group of peers that afforded me
the opportunity to perform in countries as far-flung as Russia, Poland
and South Africa.
And it was as a student enrolled in Lincoln
Park High School’s
International
Baccalaureate (IB) Program that I became acquainted with curriculum and
texts outside the Euro-American canon.
Junior year, as part of a World Literature class, I was introduced
to novel entitled Things Fall Apart
by an African writer named Chinua Achebe. An Achebe obituary published today in
The New York Times provides the
following plot summary: “Set in the Ibo countryside in the late 19th century,
the novel tells the story of Okonkwo, who rises from poverty to become an
affluent farmer and village leader. But with the advent of British colonial
rule and cultural values, Okonkwo’s life is thrown into turmoil. In the end,
unable to adapt to the new status quo, he explodes in frustration, killing an
African in the employ of the British and then committing suicide.”
I am almost ashamed to admit that this book was the first
perspective suggesting that white imperialism might be other than a boon to the
infiltrated nation, to which I had been exposed. In the same way that primary
school education managed to juxtapose “Manifest Destiny” and studies of Native
American Culture while deftly sidestepping suggestion that one was responsible
for the annihilation of the other, so too did subversive Anglophilia ignore the
stains left by British colonialism across the globe.
I was never able to bury my head in the sand again, and I am
certainly a more well-rounded individual for it. Much as the biblical Adam and Eve became
suddenly aware and humiliated by their nakedness pursuant to eating from the
Tree of Life, so too did I grow embarrassed by bilingualism in my sphere of
influence that began and ended with Spanish-language segments on Sesame
Street. Achebe’s
work included a focus on the ways in which language can act as a barrier
between two cultures, or perhaps more malevolently, the ways in which
imperialist nations can leverage their tongues and customs to suppress the “other.”
This awakening dovetailed rather perfectly with the
1980s-era social arrogance and hubris I had only recently begun to contemplate.
Those nations with a command over the English language participated in
ideological reproduction and took their place in the international hierarchy. And
by what merit had that happened? Is there any skill involved in having bigger
guns and more Bibles? The French classes which were part of my personal IB
curriculum track thus took on a new importance. I did not want to be “that”
American anymore, the one who assumed that everyone in the world worth knowing
would speak in my tongue.
Young Americans in the 21st Century take
globalization for granted. The world has been flat for as long as the Internet
and cell phones have made neighbors of us all. The U.S. ability to set the world
agenda is no longer assumed to be part of the national birthright. Today’s youth are often enrolled in
learning institutions where white English speakers are the minority. As a result of many influences, including
immigration, it is estimated that 20 percent of our citizens speak at least a
second language at home. And though he cannot be exclusively credited for our collectively
growing cultural awareness and evolution, Mr. Achebe, who died today at the age
of 82, is directly responsible for one woman’s removal of the “American Way” from
an unquestioned pedestal.
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