When I hear the term American, I think of baseball games in the hot summer sun, barbecues with hot dogs, hamburgers and lemonade, beaches lined with seafood restaurants and tourist attractions. I think of high school romance, Sunday night football and fast food, red Solo cups, country music and long, lazy days at summer camp. When I imagine the average American, I see someone with blond hair, light eyes and fair skin. Yet most of these things do not pertain to my life, despite my having lived in the United States since the day of my birth.
I am a vegetarian, so the only times I have eaten meat were accidentally, and I spit it out the moment I realized my mistake. In America, the beef industry is huge. In my culture, cows are considered sacred …show more content…
I wanted to have blue eyes, because I felt my brown ones were too basic and boring. Going to the beach every weekend, eating Big Macs, and attending sleepaway camp were also on the list of my irrational American desires. I have now gotten to a point in my life where most of these longings have been abated. Brown eyes can be just as mesmerizing as blue eyes, though I can still thoroughly appreciate blue eyes any day. Fast food is extremely unhealthy for you, and vegetarianism has been the force that has helped me avoid it. Going to the beach is super fun, yet I have always ended up with unflattering tanlines, salt in my mouth and sand in places that sand should never go. I still, however, want to go to sleepaway camp.
The more I think about it, I do not necessarily need to act a certain way or do certain things to prove that I am an American. Most of my ideas of “Americanness” come from television shows, movies, books, and other forms of media. Media messages do not equate to truth. I do not need to have a cookout every weekend of the summer to be American. I do not need to sit through (what I think are) mind-numbingly boring baseball games to be American. I do not need to eat McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s or KFC to be American. “American” is possible in more than just one
I am a vegetarian, so the only times I have eaten meat were accidentally, and I spit it out the moment I realized my mistake. In America, the beef industry is huge. In my culture, cows are considered sacred …show more content…
I wanted to have blue eyes, because I felt my brown ones were too basic and boring. Going to the beach every weekend, eating Big Macs, and attending sleepaway camp were also on the list of my irrational American desires. I have now gotten to a point in my life where most of these longings have been abated. Brown eyes can be just as mesmerizing as blue eyes, though I can still thoroughly appreciate blue eyes any day. Fast food is extremely unhealthy for you, and vegetarianism has been the force that has helped me avoid it. Going to the beach is super fun, yet I have always ended up with unflattering tanlines, salt in my mouth and sand in places that sand should never go. I still, however, want to go to sleepaway camp.
The more I think about it, I do not necessarily need to act a certain way or do certain things to prove that I am an American. Most of my ideas of “Americanness” come from television shows, movies, books, and other forms of media. Media messages do not equate to truth. I do not need to have a cookout every weekend of the summer to be American. I do not need to sit through (what I think are) mind-numbingly boring baseball games to be American. I do not need to eat McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s or KFC to be American. “American” is possible in more than just one