I’ve been reading through recent entries and am so impressed by the ideas and experiences and stories contributors are sharing with us. While there are other projects on this theme–and I’m getting to know some of them, and will be meeting with another in Washington DC next week–I think we have something different, and important, going on. What we’re doing here is creating an ethnographic study of global perspectives on the United States. Not just saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’ in a survey (”Do you like America?”) but providing much more nuanced information, with real life examples to back up your opinions. Please keep ‘em coming!

Taste it for yourself, the definitive scholarly research project that inspired LoveUsHateUS.com: Berkshire’s Global Perspectives on the United States. This is an experiment - free Open Access publishing of a work we’re selling in print and as a database - we’re running with European colleagues at Exact Editions. Please visit Berkshire Publishing at Exact Editions and start searching your favorite topics. This is great for students, too.

The recent event that has had the most deleterious effect on global opinion of the United States is the Iraq War, but the US government handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans probably comes second. FEMA is the agency that was criticized so vociferously, and rightly. How extraordinary, then to see this story today today: “The Federal Emergency Management Agency staged a fake news conference this week, with agency staff officials, pretending to be reporters, peppering one of their own bosses with decidedly friendly questions about the response to the California fires, the Department of Homeland Security acknowledged Friday.”

“I don’t want to see poverty. I’m on vacation. I don’t want to think that these people don’t have enough to eat.” This is a quote from American tourist Helen Murphy of St. Paul (Minnesota, I assume), on vacation in Labadie, Haiti from a NYT article on page 4 of today’s paper titled “Beyond Mountains of Woe, a Haitian Paradise Beckons.” The article is about the pleasures of Labadie on Haiti’s north coast and how tourists who go there are sheltered and protected from the poverty and violence that is the daily life of most Haitians.

Having edited the just published Global Perspectives on the United States: A Nation by Nation Survey, I wonder if Helen Murphy or any of the other thousands of tourists who frolic at Labadie ever think about how their presence effects Haitians and their opinion of the U.S. She knows that Haitians are poor. And they are; Haiti is the poorest nation in the Americas and receives more economic assistance per capita than any other nation in the world. Haiti is also violent and political repression or revolt has long been its fate. Haitians wonder why we invaded Iraq to depose a dictator and encourage democracy while we have often stood by or even supported cruel Haitian dictators and have limited Haitian emigration to our land.

American use of Haiti as a resort while ignoring poverty and violence contributes to what many people around the world criticize most about the U.S. and Americans – our seemingly endless consumption of other places and their physical and human resources accompanied by a lack of concern about how our consumption effects those places and people.

This is from the BBC: “Annan chides US in final speech”: “No nation can make itself secure by seeking supremacy over others,” Mr Annan said, urging the US to respect human rights in its “war on terror.”

EJ, a regular contributor who is, I know, frustrated by our slowness in revamping the site, was kind enough to send a recommendation:

Karen, you should check the book “WHAT’S UP AMERICA? A Foreigner’s Guide to Understanding Americans” by DIANE ASITIMBAY (Culture Link Press).
Evelyne

This book is written for students and it’s really fascinating. Here are some of the questions it answers:

Why do most Americans leave home at 18?

Why are many Americans on diets but still overweight?

How do we judge if an American is just being friendly or truly being a friend?

Another I just came across, an anthropology textbook, is also worth a look: Distant Mirrors: America as a Foreign Culture (Paperback) by Philip R. DeVita, James D. Armstrong. Once we have a database set up, we can link to many interesting books, and perhaps even have discussion questions for classes or reading groups and bookclubs.

This comment, from a teenager in Texas, makes me feel that this project is very much worthwhile:

I am an American, and having just found this website I have to say I’m deeply embarrassed by many of the American comments on here, saying things like all other countries must be jealous and we are the greatest nation in the world. I haven’t traveled extensively - just to Canada and Western Europe - but I must say that in those experiences I realized how truly charmed my life is, for better or for worse. I hope I am not a “typical American”, and the one major note I hope anyone who reads this remembers is that not all Americans are fat, lazy, arrogant and stupid. Many of us actually pay attention to what’s happening in the world around us and strongly disagree with the government (even me, and I’m from Texas.) What is frustrating about this site is that I feel somewhat falsely persecuted by many of the comments about Americans, although in the general sense they are logical and probably accurate. I would just like to say , as an American teenager, that I have a deep respect and curiosity about the world, and although I think America has good qualities, I do NOT think it is perfect or even the best nation. With so many issues at hand I don’t know how someone can label a country “the best.” Thanks for your consideration. — Eva

I apologize to the readers/contributors who are waiting for an upgrade to the site. We are working out how to add a real forum (that won’t allow hackers to get to us, as they did before), and a place where you can suggest books and other websites. I think I’ve found a company that can help us with a system that we may also be able to use to offer teaching resources from our about-to-be-published encyclopedia, two big volumes called Global Perspectives on the United States. Thanks for your patience, and please don’t hesitate to send along ideas.

I’ve been told that this website is too rabidly pro-American, and there are certainly some contributors of the ‘Love it or leave it” persuasion, but what they have to say is mild compared to The Futurist: Who Hates America?. I came across this when looking for a survey I was told about that had more Americans than Europeans doubting capitalism. I need to write to the very reputable person who told me about this to get a link, because I’ve just been led down too many rabbit holes in the search. Here’s a little from this cuddly blogger:

In the US itself, 17% view their country negatively. I have claimed earlier that 8-10% of the US population comprises of active or semi-active fifth-columnists, who seek to undermine American strength and security, yet cannot bring themselves to openly admit this deeply held belief, nor move to another country. This survey appears to offer further evidence of this fifth column.

I didn’t realize that to some, a project like this makes us “fifth columnists.” Good grief, I didn’t even know that term was still used. I associate it with Agatha Christie novels and Cold War spy thrillers.

It isn’t only in the United States that citizens are fed-up about the Iraq War. Here’s a British jab, suggesting that an invasion of Mayfair, an expensive residential area of London, might be in order.

No one, it occurs to us, has yet seen fit to ask the most obvious question to arise from the death of Alexander Litvinenko, namely is there not an urgent and compelling case for military intervention in (at the very least) Piccadilly and Mayfair, given that substantially more nuclear material has now been found in the hotels, sushi bars and office buildings of central London than the combined efforts of the UN weapons inspectors and coalition forces managed to uncover in the whole of Iraq? Just a thought.

Diary, by Jon Henley, Tuesday November 28, 2006, in The Guardian.

I’ve just blogged about Americans’ thin skins at the Berkshire Blog and hope you’ll read that (amazing to find that Americans have always worried about criticism and even 200 years ago seemed to be excessively touchy) after giving me a hand with an editorial question. I was looking over an article for our Global Perspectives on the United States volume and found that at the beginning of each country article we compare the area of the country with something familiar to U.S. citizens and students, our states. Most readers will be Americans, and we very much want this work to be used in thousands of schools, but here’s what worried me: Greece was compared in area (hectares, btw) to Alabama. Just “Alabama.” I thought, and think, that it should read, “the U.S. state of Alabama.” We wouldn’t assume everyone knows every English county, after all. Maybe I’m being a little touchy myself here and I’m curious to know what you tthink.