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| The Wager of Raising a Child Abroad | The Wager of Raising a Child Abroad |
| (about 13 hours later) | |
| My 5-year-old daughter, Soleil, helps me choose a basket at the open-aired market in Millau, a small town in the Midi-Pyrénées region of Southern France. | My 5-year-old daughter, Soleil, helps me choose a basket at the open-aired market in Millau, a small town in the Midi-Pyrénées region of Southern France. |
| “Très jolie, maman!” she says, as I slip the leather handles over my shoulder and twirl. | “Très jolie, maman!” she says, as I slip the leather handles over my shoulder and twirl. |
| We amble between stands along the pedestrian street, stopping to buy some Roquefort, a bouquet of herbs, some vegetables and, of course, a fresh baked baguette. I run into a friend and show off my new panier filled with goodies. | We amble between stands along the pedestrian street, stopping to buy some Roquefort, a bouquet of herbs, some vegetables and, of course, a fresh baked baguette. I run into a friend and show off my new panier filled with goodies. |
| “I feel so French!” I exclaim. | “I feel so French!” I exclaim. |
| “Me, too!” My daughter agrees, which makes me laugh. Can she really know what it means to feel French? | “Me, too!” My daughter agrees, which makes me laugh. Can she really know what it means to feel French? |
| Given that she speaks three languages and has lived abroad for most of her life, 12 countries and counting within Latin America, Europe and Africa, Soleil’s had countless of these multicultural experiences. I imagine these memories compressed into thumbprints — the wood-burning parilla at an Argentine asada, the staccato stomp and silk shawl at a flamenco show in Seville — her mind a memory bank filled with cultural currency from around the world. Lately I’ve begun to wonder how this mélange of signifiers will shape her adult persona. | Given that she speaks three languages and has lived abroad for most of her life, 12 countries and counting within Latin America, Europe and Africa, Soleil’s had countless of these multicultural experiences. I imagine these memories compressed into thumbprints — the wood-burning parilla at an Argentine asada, the staccato stomp and silk shawl at a flamenco show in Seville — her mind a memory bank filled with cultural currency from around the world. Lately I’ve begun to wonder how this mélange of signifiers will shape her adult persona. |
| Will she even identify as an American? | Will she even identify as an American? |
| My daughter was born in Peru to two American parents, granting her dual citizenship; yet, carrying two passports hardly means she feels Peruvian or American. Meanwhile, it’s estimated there are over a million undocumented young people living in the United States, many of whom eat hot dogs and watch fireworks on the Fourth of July and might well feel American. So, what does it mean to feel American? | |
| Recently we spent 10 days in San Sebastián, Spain, and went on a self-directed pinxto bar crawl through the historic district. Pinxtos are Basque tapas, and the custom is to order a couple of small plates and a glass of wine or beer from one bar and then mosey on to the next. Try as we might, we couldn’t escape a single bar without ordering 10-plus plates and a bottle of wine. | Recently we spent 10 days in San Sebastián, Spain, and went on a self-directed pinxto bar crawl through the historic district. Pinxtos are Basque tapas, and the custom is to order a couple of small plates and a glass of wine or beer from one bar and then mosey on to the next. Try as we might, we couldn’t escape a single bar without ordering 10-plus plates and a bottle of wine. |
| This, I thought, is what it means to feel American. Pinxto barhopping requires a degree of self-restraint antithetical to Yankees, even for us, a downsized ex-pat family. Though my husband and I share a cellphone and a used minivan that fits all of our belongings, we still carry a supersized hunger for more with us wherever we go. At its worst, this translates into consumerism and fills oceans with plastic detritus. At its best, it’s a noble ambition that lands astronauts on the moon. So, while I want my daughter to buy fresh only what will fit in a basket at the farmers’ market, I also want her to dream big like the pioneers and luminaries our country holds dear. | |
| To add some valuable United States currency to the multicultural memory account, I’ve taken to curating memories for my daughter on our annual visits home. Last Fourth of July, we watched the Blue Angels tear up the sky with precision and grace above Lake Washington, followed by a spectacular display of pyrotechnics. Two years ago, we celebrated Christmas with a seven-foot blinking pine tree and a cascade of presents spilling across my sister’s living room floor like a Macy’s-wrapped snowdrift. This year, heaven help me, I’m planning a three-day trip to Disneyland with a rotating entourage of family members. | |
| To quote Jacques Derrida, “we are all mediators, translators,” constantly interpreting the implicit. So, what message might my daughter tease out of these encoded thumbprints? Will stunts performed by the Blue Angels impart our military’s commitment to excellence or a might-makes-right ethos? Will Christmas in the States inspire a generosity of spirit or just a frenzied — and sometimes fatal — consumerism? And will Disneyland foment wonder and imagination or just exorbitant spending on a hot summer’s day? Most likely, all of the above. Culture is a prism that colors our identity in myriad ways. | To quote Jacques Derrida, “we are all mediators, translators,” constantly interpreting the implicit. So, what message might my daughter tease out of these encoded thumbprints? Will stunts performed by the Blue Angels impart our military’s commitment to excellence or a might-makes-right ethos? Will Christmas in the States inspire a generosity of spirit or just a frenzied — and sometimes fatal — consumerism? And will Disneyland foment wonder and imagination or just exorbitant spending on a hot summer’s day? Most likely, all of the above. Culture is a prism that colors our identity in myriad ways. |
| Of course, there’s no guarantee these annual experiences will make my daughter feel like an American when she grows up. I could be raising an American replicant, like the android “Rachael” manufactured by the Tyrell Corporation in the 1982 movie “Blade Runner.” While Rachael can produce photos and recall memories of her childhood, she is largely impervious to the nostalgia they’re supposed to evoke. Tyrell had implanted the memories, which originally belonged to his niece, in Rachael’s mind to convince Rachael of her humanity. At first the implants succeeded, but in the end their falsehood fails her, and she is challenged to find her own identity and meaning in life, knowing she’s a replicant. | Of course, there’s no guarantee these annual experiences will make my daughter feel like an American when she grows up. I could be raising an American replicant, like the android “Rachael” manufactured by the Tyrell Corporation in the 1982 movie “Blade Runner.” While Rachael can produce photos and recall memories of her childhood, she is largely impervious to the nostalgia they’re supposed to evoke. Tyrell had implanted the memories, which originally belonged to his niece, in Rachael’s mind to convince Rachael of her humanity. At first the implants succeeded, but in the end their falsehood fails her, and she is challenged to find her own identity and meaning in life, knowing she’s a replicant. |
| As a mother, I worry about this outcome. Will my daughter reflect back on her all but implanted American memories with the same cool detachment? Sometimes I imagine her as an adult looking at a picture of herself at age 5, flanked by Mickey Mouse and her cousins, trying in vain to emotionally connect to a family heritage that dates back to the Mayflower but doesn’t feel like her own. Our sense of belonging — whether to a family or a country — is greatly based in shared memories of collective experience; hence our commitment to extended visits in the United States and weekly Skype calls with relatives. But what if our efforts aren’t enough? | As a mother, I worry about this outcome. Will my daughter reflect back on her all but implanted American memories with the same cool detachment? Sometimes I imagine her as an adult looking at a picture of herself at age 5, flanked by Mickey Mouse and her cousins, trying in vain to emotionally connect to a family heritage that dates back to the Mayflower but doesn’t feel like her own. Our sense of belonging — whether to a family or a country — is greatly based in shared memories of collective experience; hence our commitment to extended visits in the United States and weekly Skype calls with relatives. But what if our efforts aren’t enough? |
| Will my daughter grow to feel like an alien in a family full of foreigners, adrift in the world with no place like home? Or will her unconventional position outside the wider context of culture, this alterity, connect her to an even broader community? | Will my daughter grow to feel like an alien in a family full of foreigners, adrift in the world with no place like home? Or will her unconventional position outside the wider context of culture, this alterity, connect her to an even broader community? |
| In a 2013 TED Talk, “Where Is Home?,” the writer Pico Iyer, a British national of Indian heritage who hangs his hat in the United States, refers to the 220 million people like himself (and my family) living “outside the old nation-state categories” as “a great floating tribe” representing “the fifth-largest nation on earth.” “Soon,” he says, “there will be more of us than there are Americans.” | |
| I prefer to picture my daughter as a member of this growing mosaic, defining her unique self between the interstices of culture while finding our shared humanity in the overlap. | I prefer to picture my daughter as a member of this growing mosaic, defining her unique self between the interstices of culture while finding our shared humanity in the overlap. |
| So, for now, with my basket in one hand and my daughter’s little palm in the other, we’ll continue to walk the world in search of people, spaces and moments that move our soul and gather them into a living piece of art, a bricolage of memories called home. | So, for now, with my basket in one hand and my daughter’s little palm in the other, we’ll continue to walk the world in search of people, spaces and moments that move our soul and gather them into a living piece of art, a bricolage of memories called home. |
| This, I think, is what it feels like to be a citizen of the world. | This, I think, is what it feels like to be a citizen of the world. |