exvj

We Brits are always saying how lovely France is but it's full of French people and what a pity.

I never thought like that as I quite like the French

This post isn't about France it's about the US.

I have been here three years plus some to-ing and fro-ing before. I am actually applying for citizenship at the mo !

I have a problem and it's really for the 'returners' as the USA forum folk would rip me to shreds and tell me to go home. Most of them are American

ok here goes. I like the climate where I am and the places to go and i can drive to Vancouver Canada in 3 hours and it's really nice. Things are cheap. It doesn't rain at all hardly where I am - low humidity. No traffic jams - lots of doctors and dentists and facilities. I fly to see my daughter and son and grandkids in the UK 4 times a year. I am retired so I have the time. My USC wife has the best job she has had in her life . Its safe and highly paid with no long hours. We live 1 mile from her work in a superb house all paid for. We have great benefits.

But Houston we have a problem.

I cannot stand right wing Americans or what they say or anything about them - and they hate me.
If I say that free speech should be modified so that hate speech is illegal (as it is in the UK and all the civilised world) I am called terrible names and get out of the country and even TREASONOUS.
That's just one example. I really am the opposite of these people who see themselves as hyper-nationalistic and hyper -patriotic.
I suppose the naturalisation has brought this to a head as there is so much ra-ra about it which is cringe - making to the average Brit.

I KNOW that there are plenty of liberal minded Americans and we have a liberal president for heavens sake. I know that plenty of Americans don't want to execute people and give 500 years in jail in solitary with no visitors and no chance of parole. I know that. It's just that the ones I come across in this area and all of them online are just blood curdling nasties in my book.

I used to shoot small bore rifles at Ilkley for many years and it was all quite genial. I shoot here and the other members glory in how they killed civilians by the thousand and laugh about it etc.

It really turns my stomach. I have thought about being a hermit and doing what the English do in France - have their nice sunny little cottage and ignore the locals. That's ok if it's a holiday home but I live here permanently

I badly need advice from people who have experienced this - where everything is great except the people and how to overcome it.

I listen to BBC radio 4 every day and the sheer decency and reasonableness of the people is in stark contrast to what I face here. I have tried not watching cable TV and that helps some.

The US is at face value, the most polite and smiling and helpful and generous place I have found - but underneath the attitudes are just plain blood curdling vicious towards minorities, offenders, foreigners, atheists, you name it - anyone who isn't the cardboard cut out flag waving white supremacist..

I am white and healthy and hetero and financially sound and I feel threatened if my opinions are not the same as theirs - imagine how it must be for the underdogs.

Will I make it here ? I have a great life except for the natives.

Cape Blue

Its a right-wing country - lets face it, the UK Tories are more left wing than the US Democrats. The naked patriotism and hoorah mentality is also very different from understated UK.

I suggest watching MSNBC, listening to NPR, finding some more like-minded people to socialize with - if you are within 3 hrs of Grouver you also have Seattle close-by. If you can't find them locally, you may have to move - perhaps into Seattle or Portland, normally the urban populace is more liberal and less USA! USA! USA! hoorah, especially the northern west coast cities.

If you are from the left-wing in the UK, you are basically a communist in the US and your opinions and attitudes are treated accordingly. Do remember, of course, that if you listened to "Daily Mail" radio in the UK instead of radio 4 you might also lament the attitudes of many Brits.

Jan n Neil

Amaricans are brainwashed from birth i,m afraid you are just gonna have to bite your lip or move on, not very helpfull i know but you wont meet a more nationalistic bunch (well apart from the Welsh) Bush was a madman but woe betide anybody who speaks against him cos he won the war against the Iraaac (long drawl) all on his own, and in the process kept gas below 4 bux a gallon which lets be honest is all they give a toss about

Neil

dunroving

Just keep telling yourself at least you don't live in Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Beirut, or ...

Some Americans are just like that and the best way to deal with it is to reduce your exposure to those kinds of people, or work on adjusting your own attitude (you can't change them, so try changing how you respond to them).

geeandtee

I sympathise completely.

I agree that you just have to bite your tongue and accept that Americans have a different view of the world. Don't forget, most TV news programmes pride themselves on delivering the World news in 60 seconds

We lived in a very redneck town. During the last presidential campaign there wasn't an Obama poster to be seen, except for one very large one and someone actually phoned the planning department to complain and demand it be removed. I found it ironic that, as a Brit, I had to remind the caller that the constitution of her country allowed for free speech.

It's not worth arguing politics with these people. Just watch BBC world news, read the British papers on line and enjoy everything else!

WARPed

I am having similar issues to you regarding the attitudes where I live and I suggest you do the same as I one day hope to do. Move. If you like the US and want to stay here then you need to find a more Liberal place to live. Your description says you live in the dry part of WA...maybe you need to move to the wet part. The weather might be worse, but you might be a lot happier. WA seems to be politically split by the Cascades. Go west young man and you may feel better about things....that is my eventual plan anyway.

Otherwise you have two choices, enter survival (hermit) mode as I have been trying or try to only engage in situations where such discussions will not com up. Ban yourself from many of the major news channels and websites except BBC news and MSNBC. I've found avoiding much of the American media quite soul saving when I am at my lowest. However, MSNBC actually gave me a boost the other day when It helped me regain the belief that there are American's who share the same opinions and beliefs as me.

Not all natives are as you describe although it can certainly feel that way at times. You just need to seek out the ones you like to be around.

Lothianlad

An American guy here in Edinburgh once told me that in the USA the British Conservative party would be regarded as a limp wristed load of left wing Commies. How can that possibly be true! Bloody hell.....the Americans need to know what's going on here in the UK right now and it's only a Coalition shandy in charge.

exvj

It's lovely that I am able to connect to Brits who have met the same problem and understand where I am 'coming from' as they say.

I know that converting 300 million people to my personal culture is impossible. It's like trying to convert a Jew to a Moslem or vice versa.

I think the advice on here is that I need to seek out new worlds and new civilisations where people don't think it's ok to shoot illegal Mexican children because 'they have no rights'.

Seriously there are people around here who think that and say that.

My wife is from Milwaukee and describes herself as an enthusiastic and committed liberal, but some of the stuff she comes out with would be national front stuff in England. Throwing people out into the street to starve because they have been unwise is some decision. It's all just so unforgiving for a country that describes itself as solid christian.

She wants to move to the Chicago area one day to be within driving distance of her family in Milwaukee (she has the homesickness and I am 8 time zones different ?). Suits me as it will be more cosmopolitan and i can get to Manchester (the Manchester) direct in 6 hours something.

I think this 'going home' forum is great as many of us 'go home' in our minds even though we are not doing that soon physically. It's a place where we can voice our fears and our dislikes about the new country without being ripped apart by the citizens of that country.

It's entirely the same in Canada and NZ and Australia and the USA (and England ?)- the natives will juice anyone who arrives and wants to change something.

Actually the majority in the US (in the cities at least) want to progress to a more just society, but their voices are small and drowned out by the nasties.

In the UK, the gun club was non political and there was a cross section of society. In the west of the USA, the gun club is not far from a Central American death squad militia. They have a shrine which is the club notice board. It has an American flag draped over it and targets consist of Moslem women in burqas. The US President is portrayed as a 'magic negro' with horrible caricatures.

I reckon I should disengage but it's the only social life I have as I am retired. I can go any day of the week and mix with people but their attitudes literally make me feel nauseous at times. It's a problem.

The children at Hiroshima deserved it and all the Vietnamese children they killed and laughed about -- and how the arabs head exploded etc etc ... sickening.

If it was just the gun club I would do something else but this stuff is pretty ubiquitous here. If I went to the gym they would be talking the same stuff.


yep you have it right - I can't survive in that environment and I have to get an alternative life.

ExKiwilass

Come to Vancouver

Plenty of lefty commies here.

robin1234

Let's face it -- there is one big difference between the USA and other countries such as Canada, the UK, France, Spain, new Zealand, etc. I know this because I visit Canada all the time, and even though it superficially looks just like the US, it feels completely different..

The USA is at the absolute apogee of world power. It dominates the world militarily, economically, and in other ways, and has done so for the entire life-times of every American now living. It dominates more thoroughly than Britain, Spain, the Ottoman Empire, Rome or any other world power in history.

I don't want to opine whether US world domination is a good or a bad thing. In selfish, material terms, for me living in the US as a US citizen, and for Europe living under the benign umbrella of US world power, I guess it could be a good thing...

But it does determine the arrogance of Americans that you describe .. and our perception of that arrogance, as outsiders living in America. I'm a citizen, but I made the conscious decision to remain an outsider. I refuse to be a pet dog soliciting belly-rubs from the imperium....

robin1234

Just to add to the above, I also made the conscious decision not to own a television, to only listen to Public Radio, CBC radio & the BBC. Also, I avoid American popular culture. I don't watch American movies, and in general I don't read American books (I work in an academic library so have as many second-rate, pre-1950 British novels to read to last me a lifetime )

exvj

Wow you give me hope !

I have gone through mental turmoil doing this citizenship thing because I know that the culture gap is something that I could not bridge and I don't want to bridge.

You can imagine the kind of sarcastic comments that would come out of the mouth of a Yorkshireman watching US cable TV and it has caused problems with her indoors as she is secretly as nationalistic as the rest.

Yes, when I get the blue passport I will see myself as a citizen of all of Europe and the UK and the US and I will self confirm my English identity and cling to that and judge the world through that prism.

I won't try and introduce the concept of fairness and tolerance to the Americans any more than I would stride into a church and try and convert them to atheism.

I can understand now why Pakistanis come to the UK and live in their communities for 35 years and don't speak one world of English at the end of it. Why there are 500,000 Brits in Spain and most of them don't speak Spanish

I would like to integrate but I am going to have to select the individuals carefully - and even then I must remember they were brought up in a classroom with a flag and an eagle and hands on hearts repeating a pledge from the time when they were in nappies. To the Brits, that has shades of Nuremberg and the Hitler youth - but it's seen as the very opposite here.

50% more Germans than Brits have emigrated to the US over the years so we shouldn't be surprised it is different despite the common language.

It's interesting to see the perception of the Americans about the Brits - it seems to revolve around snotty and frilly. It's true that I introduced toilet brushes and air sprays to a household that had never known them !

Hey ho - think I will have to get a different life

robin1234

Yeah I never attempted the toilet brush. That was a bridge too far.

exvj

As the French say of the English - 'You shxt well and eat badly, we eat well and shxt badly'

I reckon these stereotypes are not without basis

robin1234

Talking about school, the way they teach American history here is a bit odd, takes some getting used to. Oh say can you see... minutemen...all that creation myth stuff, that really reminds me of Nazi Germany with its Horst Wessell, burning the Reichstag etc. They never seem to mention murder & expropriation of Loyalists, tarring and feathering (i.e. torturing) of government officials by so-called "patriots" etc. And like Nazi history, much of it involves untruths;
"Britain supported the Confederacy in the Civil War."
"The US won the War of 1812" etc