Fotografo de Bodas, Santiago

January 21, 2009

Living outside the U.S. will open up your eyes to the culture of another country, that’s for sure. Most people spend more time learning about their new place of residence than they ever did learning about the history of where they grew up.

When I came here on study abroad, I took a ton of classes on Chilean culture and society because it was so interesting to me. I learned here, that so many things are not what they seem upon first glance. And this has made me question even the most normal things in my day to day life here. When a man leers at me on the street, I often start thinking about the roots of machismo. When I hear stories of racism against Peruvians or classism against anyone that has dark skin, my mind automatically jumps back to the indigenous abuses and rapes that occurred regularly in the fundos when Chile was first conquered.

In short, I’m now hypersensitive and overanalyze everything.

So, I wasn’t really surprised when I started searching for answers about cultural habits in the U.S., that I had previously never noticed.

We went to a basketball game. Almost all the players were black. I couldn’t tell who were the coaches from my nosebleed seats, but it looked to me like they were all white. I think there were three refs and if I remember correctly, two were white. The vast majority of fans were white. Orlando Magic, Rich DeVos, actually from my hometown area of Grand Rapids, is the whitest white, filthy rich old man you can possibly imagine. The Magic were playing the San Antonio Spurs, whose chairman is another rich, old Caucasian man.

A quick google search showed me that the NBA is actually lauded for having more diversity than any other men’s professional sport. That being said, in 2008, there was ONE African American owner and 40% of the head coaches were black. 40% sounds pretty high until you stop to think that somewhere between 75-90% (depending on who you ask, I couldn’t find definite info for 2008) of the players are black. So why aren’t African Americans reaching the upper echelons in the business world of basketball, if they’re good enough to play basketball?

Lots of people have studied racism in sports much more thoroughly than I have. This topic has clearly been around for a while. I’m not the first person to notice. It’s obviously a huge issue, and even with the first African American president, we still have a long ways to go. But, my point wasn’t really to show that racism in the U.S. still exists (DUH), rather to point out out how much more aware of it I am now when I go back, after a few years of living in Chile.

I’ve started looking at my surroundings with a more critical eye, no matter where I am. Has this happened to anyone else after spending some time abroad?

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7 Comments

“It’s obviously a huge issue, and even with the first African American president, we still have a long ways to go”

I couldn’t agree with you more on that and I’ve heard a lot of people say things that make me feel like I have to remind them of that.

And not like you didn’t just say it but it’s totally disgusting to see how racist the NBA and then a closer look into any other U.S. institution yields very similar results. One of my favorite books ever is called Savage Inequalities that, among other things, talks about racism in the education system–i recommend it highly.

I also agree that living in a different country makes you reexamine your own country. Living in Chile has really affected my perspective on all things social and political.

Also, I definitely notice I think about stuff like that more and I find myself comparing classism with racism and contrasting racism in both countries. There was never a dull moment when I was home and my best friend from my study abroad program, my family, and I were all talking about Chile, the U.S. and Obama and I thank my experience here for my input in the conversation.

Comment by Isabel — January 21, 2009 @ 12:35 pm

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I used to think Chile was a homogeneous. Now that I’m back in Minnesota for a while, i realize that people here all look alike. In fact, when I got off the plane I thought that I knew everyone because they all looked so familiar.

Comment by Sara — January 21, 2009 @ 2:05 pm

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Totally agree. I think that here in Chile I am very observant because it’s a different culture and I see things that Chileans don’t see because they’re so accustomed to it being a part of every day life and existence. Having such a critical eye has not only helped me to analyze US culture, but also to point things out to Chileans that they had never even thought about before but was staring them right in the face.

Comment by Abby — January 21, 2009 @ 2:47 pm

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I think living abroad, at least in a place like Chile where people talk really openly about politics, definitely forces you to reexamine your own country. Some of the questions I’ve had here, including questions about racism in the US, don’t allow for an easy answer. I don’t know if that’s something I would have just started to do on my own, though, as a result of sharpening my analytical skills while looking at Chilean culture or if I only do it now because I have people making me take a harder look at things.

Comment by Emily — January 21, 2009 @ 3:25 pm

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Live next door to an average black neighbour and then revisit this topic. Plenty of whites are racist but even more blacks are.

Comment by Anonymous — January 21, 2009 @ 5:00 pm

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Actually traveling/living abroad usually made me think the US was far and above less racist than I do when I’m here.

Teaching with TFA made me hyper aware of racism, though.

While teaching I wrote a letter to my college History of Baseball teacher explaining why I thought he should stop telling students that the collapse of the Negro League was actually its greatest success (saying that integration of MLB was the best thing that could have happened). After some thought and seeing the decline of baseball with inner-city youth, I began to realize that integration was a huge failure to most blacks in baseball. Why? Mostly because the Negro League owners were incredibly brilliant. Absolutely. They are the ones who conceived of stadium lights (bringing us nighttime baseball) and minor league baseball as a scouting tool. But they, of course weren’t integrated with the collapse of their league…

And, yeah, there are still not enough African-American baseball owners or managers to this day…

Jayna

Comment by Anonymous — January 21, 2009 @ 6:59 pm

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I definitely spend more time analyzing things about the US since living abroad. Race is one issue. Sadly it seems that prejudice of some sort is a world issue. Some of the things people have said here really catch us off guard regarding differences between the more African influence in the north and people in the south. In Vienna, we heard a lot about remaining prejudice against Jews there. Then of course there is good ol’ KY and once you get out of the larger cities it is scary. They are all for African Americans as long as they play basketball. So sad.

Most of my analyzing goes more towards health issues. I feel like I have more answers about our problems in the US after moving away. I also know solving them is nearly impossible. An expat experience is just positive all around.

Comment by Lori - Blondie in Brazil — January 23, 2009 @ 2:40 am

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