Long time, no blog! I have been so busy this summer I have really been slacking in the blog department, but I’m back this week in honor of America’s birthday. With the Fourth of July being this week, and the political climate of our country right now, it has really got me thinking about one question. What does it mean to be American? This has become quite a loaded question. 

Living abroad has definitely given me a new perspective on the answer to this question. Two years ago America was the only home I had ever known. Every other culture was foreign to me, and I never imagined I could integrate into a new culture and feel so at home in a place so far from the life I had always known. For the first time in my life, I was the immigrant. I was the person who didn’t speak the language. I was the person who didn’t always understand the cultural norms. Moving abroad changed something within my core. Now I struggle to feel at peace in either setting. I feel constantly torn between two homes and two cultures. When I’m in Italy, I miss America. When I’m in America, I long for Italy. 

When I first went abroad I saw so many things in Italy that I thought were so much better than what we were doing in America. Why isn’t life like this back in America? I think as Americans we have gotten so wrapped up in the polarized environment of the U.S. that we only see the negatives in our nation. However, the longer I was abroad the more I realized that, even though we get a lot of things wrong, there are also a lot of things we do right in America. 

Back home, the concept of the “American Dream” is dying among my generation, and I thought this was a universal sentiment. I learned quickly that this is not the case at all. I recall one conversation I had with a girl while waiting in line at a bar. When she learned that I was an international student from the United States she said “You’re crazy! Why would you leave America to come here? If I had my papers, I would never leave America. I love it there.” Hearing a foreigner speak so positively about the U.S. honestly kind of took me aback for a minute. After all, we’ve kind of gotten a bad wrap in recent years. In that moment I realized that I live a life that many people still dream of experiencing. 

Acknowledging that the American Dream is still alive does not mean that you have to agree with or support the current administration. That’s the beauty of our nation. We can disagree and protest out loud. Another especially impactful conversation I had abroad was with a guest speaker in one of my classes. She was an Italian journalist who was arrested by the Taliban while on assignment in Afghanistan for speaking in the street. Yes, you heard that right. She was arrested for simply speaking in public. In 2025, it is illegal for women to speak in public in Afghanistan, as the Taliban considers women’s voices as something intimate that should be saved only for their male relatives. The fact that this level of oppression still exists in the world today is almost unfathomable to me, but it is very much still alive. The journalist also explained that much of her investigative work in Afghanistan had to be kept under tight secrecy because the women who were a part of her research could be killed by the government if it was discovered that they were receiving an education. In this moment I thought about the fact that I am able to go to college every day and even protest against the government ON my college campus. This concept is something that Afghan women could never imagine as reality, but we take for granted daily. 

While it can be easy to get discouraged and disheartened with American politics, hearing these stories made me grateful to call the United States my home. When did we allow the American flag to become a symbol of hate? A lot of young people see the American flag as a symbol of hatred, racism, and bigotry, which makes me sad. Isn’t allowing the bigots to claim the American flag as a symbol of their hatred letting them win? It’s time that Gen Z reclaims the flag as our own. In my opinion, that is the ultimate power move. If you are out exercising your right to protest, wave the American flag. Let’s, as a generation, reclaim the flag as a sign of unity, change, and optimism. It is because we are young Americans that we have the right to be loud and create the change that we want to see in our country, our government, and the world. 

If you’ve read this far, I would love to hear your take on what it means to be American. Leave me a comment below and let’s continue the dialogue. Wishing everyone a safe and happy Fourth of July! 

Xoxo,

Emma