Happy 250th birthday, America

It had been two years since I last visited the US and, like this past weekend, it was to attend the annual Economic History Association meeting. This time, the conference was held in St. Louis, Missouri, a city I had never visited and probably wouldn't visit if it weren't for the meeting. This trip also coincided with the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, marking a break from colonial status to self-determination and freedom. So what did I make of my brief visit back "home" (I will explain the quotation marks later in the column) in this very special year?

First, and most surprising, getting through Immigration and Customs at the airport was relatively painless and quick, even for my Dutch colleagues on the same flight and going to the same conference. Second, wow, the US is very pricey these days. I have already written about the cost of living here in the Netherlands, but I did not expect the sticker shock in the States. For one lunch between sessions, I ordered a single-patty cheeseburger and a small lemonade from the nearby Shake Shack. My grand total with tax but without tip: $14.92 (kind of ironic, no?), which apparently is a bargain; an affordable price for the graduate students who came along for lunch. 

Third, I had varied and memorable conversations with locals and colleagues. One was with a gentleman sitting on a bench in the St. Louis Gateway Arch National Park, who shared that he was onsite when the arch was completed sixty years ago and watched the keystone piece be lowered to connect the two halves of the arch. Another was with a woman sitting in the Walgreens pharmacy as we both waited to get the influenza vaccine (which is rather difficult to get in the Netherlands for the general population). She told me her one-year anniversary of breast cancer remission was coming up, and she was looking to celebrate with friends next month. Also remarkable was my friend who hoped to relocate from their US university to one in Canada and thus escape the chaos in American academia (e.g., funding and hiring cuts, decreased international students, DEI dismantling) and broader society. I said that I hoped to welcome them as a future associate European.

Perhaps most striking was what had changed in the past two years and what had not among my fellow Americans. They remain fast walkers and loud talkers, entrepreneurial, and astonishingly friendly, but also now angrier, more frustrated with everything around them, and hard-pressed with punishing work and eroding real incomes. Staff at the hotel, restaurants, and airports were uniformly generous with their attention and smiles, which I hoped was less mercenary (tipping culture) and more genuinely earnest and curious. I felt both a reverse culture shock being back "home" and nostalgia for people who sounded like me and readily accepted me as one of their own because of it.

You will notice that I keep putting quotation marks around the word "home", and it is because I and many others living in the Netherlands straddle cultures and identities. During my long layover at Philadelphia Airport, I walked around the concourses, picked up some reading from the free short-story dispenser, and saw some temporary art installations. One was called "Moon Shot", with whimsical sculptures made from reclaimed materials and an explanation of the work by the artist Arnab Gan Choudhury. Choudhury, an Indian American, wrote: "In my absence, [Kolkata] has changed, it has moved on and has now become a place I do not recognize... So how does one go back to a 'home' that no longer exists?" 

Reading this passage, I felt the same – while I can sound American, I find the country now strangely foreign. Maybe that shouldn't be surprising for a dynamic nation built by immigrants who have continuously shaped it through their ambitions and aspirations. The people who live there make it America and themselves Americans in the process, while I no longer actively participate in that conversation. Whether it remains a place I recognize or call "home", I sincerely hope the US can celebrate another milestone birthday for everyone seeking their dreams there. Happy birthday to you, America.

On Staff's Viewpoint, UU's employees share their views with the UU community. The economic historian John Tang is one of the columnists invited to write in this space. You can also read students' perspectives on Students' Viewpoint and click here to check out students' and staff's columns in Dutch.