Down From the Farm

Ruby L. Holloway '78 has spent half her life abroad, following her father, a retired Air Force major, around from post to post. Though she spent most of that time with other Americans, in American-funded schools on suburb-like American military bases, she and other students who have lived abroad but undergone a less intense American experience share two beliefs. They all eapressed a desire to leave the United States again--for at least some sustained length of time--and all claimed the ability to view American society from a detached perspective.

Young Americans who have been reared abroad can't go home again--at least not feeling the same as when they left. Their physical removal from America hasn't necessarily alienated them from the society--just given them a more fluid definition of what home and citizenship are. Whoever wrote that song about not being able to stay down on the farm after seeing Paree was at least partly right. Except the underlying reasons for this feeling are not only wanderlust. They range from dissatisfaction with some elements of American society to the development of a commitment to another culture.

Usually children grow up abroad because their parents are there for job reasons. And the parents' occupations and attitudes have a lot to do with determining how large a does of the country's culture they receive. In their conversation, Harvard students who have lived abroad referred to each other by their parents' occupations; a "foreign service kid" was distinct from an "oil kid" or from a "military kid." But no matter where they went or how they got there, most expressed a more positive view of the American life abroad then at home.

Schooling usually took place with other Americans and the elites of the country in which they were living, either at American schools abroad or top-flight prep schools of that country. Life on the military bases seems to have given the least day-to-day contact with local citizens. Whether contact was confined to the elites or to other Americans was up to the individual, the students claim. And though almost all had servants while abroad and lived among the upper-classes, they are quick to say that they were not exploitative, or Ugly Americans.

Roommates Ann Couppi '79 and Valerie Moore '79 are foreign service kids, each having spent about nine years in the Near East. The four walls of their room in Thayer Hall are covered with posters, rugs and prints from Pakistan, where their parents are still stationed. They graduated last year with American high school diplomas from the International School of Islamabad that had an American curriculum, celebrated American holidays and fielded athletic teams in American sports with chearleaders. Seventeen of the 19 seniors in their graduating class now attend American colleges.

"The American community there is pretty self-sufficient," Couppi said. "It's up to you if you want to stick to Americans or not. Some people associated closely with the Pakistanis and some felt like Americans in exile."

Moore said some Americans there regarded this country simply as the"Land of the Great Home Leave" (foreign service officers are allowed time at home every two years) or described it in strictly material terms--the stereos, jeans and consumer goods they could buy here.

Neva Seidman '78 lived in Africa for the past 71/2 years where her college professor parents went with the idea of "teaching themselves out of a job." She's engaged to an African and after graduation plans to return to southern Africa--hopefully to work for the Mozambican government. Especially in her later years, she had fewer and fewer contacts with whites. Parts of her commitment to Africa stems from politically-active South African expatriates she met there. Her contribution, she says, like her parents', will be in the form of service--thus Seidman says, she should get an advanced degree or tangible skill to bring back.

"I'm more conscious of my commitment to Africa, though a commitment to this country is there," she says, adding, "maybe because I have no right to my commitment to Africa."

But an American who had an externally foreign existence can also choose the other direction; a life that is more typically American than not. Before Harvard, Jeffrey Scott '77 had attended only one year of an American school. He lived in a suburb of Paris where his father worked as an international lawyer; his American contacts were limited to his family, Boy Scout troops and summer vacations every two years in California. Scott wants to get a law degree and eventually enter American politics. Even though living in France gave him the viewpoint that "people are people are people," it made him more conscious of his nationality.

"Americans are viewed with hostility in France," he says, "From the outset, I felt it there." Scott says his sense of being an outsider was his "Damocles' sword" or "the clouds in the sky." "You can't feel it or see it most of the time, but you can always sense it," he says.

These feelings intensified during the mass strike and student riot that began in 1968. Scott says that every day, he received either subtle or overt peer pressure about the Vietnam War. During these years, he says, he was popular and adjusted in school--he was elected class president and spoke French without an accent; but gangs would scream epithets like "Yankee Murderer" or "Imperialist Dog" at him.

Scott says he is still fond of France, but living abroad "makes you more conscious of being an American. Anyone who says it does not is full of horseshit."

None of the students forgot they were American, partly because they were not allowed to by their parents or host country. Most stressed that they were, at least in some sense, patriotic. While some were vehemently against America's foreign policy, most felt compelled to defend it when abroad simply because they were questioned on it constantly.

"I don't regard America as 'my country, right or wrong,"' said Valerie Moore. "I can look at American objectively, but I was constantly having to defend it."

Lisa Jones '79, who has lived in Paris for the last three years, says even among her friends she was sometimes labeled "The American." "If you had no feelings of nationality before, you develop them," Jones says.

In Paris, Lisa Jones associated primarily with Africans and West Indians. "Black and white Americans don't mix here or abroad," Jones says. "When a black community is there, blacks are drawn there. I felt a kinship towards them [the Africans and West Indians]. Our color bound us together." She would sometimes pose as a Moroccan, Arab or South American to avoid anti-American feelings from Prenchmen she would meet on the street.

Holloway said, "I felt more comfortable in Panama than many white Americans. The Panamanians, black and Latin, treated you differently. They'd say, "She's black; she's one of us."'

But Valerie Moore says, "overseas, you were black incidentally. You didn't forget you were black, but there was more interest in the person."

Most of these students came to Harvard for what they term "the typical reasons"--the reputation, academics, parental pressure. Many though at least briefly of attending college abroad but those who attended American schools were automatically directed toward American colleges, and for those who didn't it was often difficult to transfer into a system they weren't prepared for.

Most of these students did not admit having experienced culture shock on their return to America or to Harvard. They say they are experts at adaptation, acting one way in America and another way abroad. To Holloway, who has never spent more than four years in any one place, Harvard seems like "just another assignment." It may be habit, an expression of chic, a youthful fixation or something wrong with American society that makes re-entry seems less than totally desirable to many. It may be significant that these particular students, many of whose parents are connected with government service, have these feelings about America. Or they may just have a more acute sense of vision gained from their experience abroad. They feel they haven't lost a homeland but have gained two.