You want to make the journey to becoming an American citizen. Have you thought this through completely? Have you assessed the reasons why you want to leave your home country? Are the reasons strong enough to encourage you to become an orphan without a true home?
America is a hard place to try to fit in. Nativism runs rampant in the country that was conceived by foreigners. To move to the United States, you must be strong willed with a personality that allows you to deal with isolation. However, this will only last two years – until you can prove that you are just as unhappy with the rest of the world as the majority of other Americans. It’s different for you having lived in other parts of the world giving you incite into how bad it can really be for humanity.
America is the land of the free and the home of the brave. Americans are slaves to politics and economy. They work horrific hours and yet it never seems to be enough. If you want to make it in America, as a foreigner, I would suggest capitalizing on the American fear of becoming a poor country.
Europeans may believe the Americans are arrogant and lazy. This is often not the case. There are generations of Americans that work sixteen to twenty hour days just to make the rent. Americans know what it means to work hard to achieve success. The unfortunate reality is for most the definition of success is the increased acquisition of tangible items. Many Americans want the material show of success; though achieving it is not the norm.
Most Americans are forgiving. They forgive political moves against us by other countries. They forgive their own politicians for decisions made not in the best interest of the common American. They forgive mistakes made by foreigners, so much so that they have no expectations of new United States citizens. Americans are not forgiving of acts of violence by foreigners on American soil. However, forgiving an American for an act of violence is not a difficult feat for other Americans. If an act of violence occurs by a foreigner, Americans blame the terrorist’s homeland. They rally together as if it is the ninth inning of the championship game and the home team is down by two runs. This rally of united front turns into retaliation – brutal and violent and often inhumane.
On the flip side, when two Americans commit acts against the United States the nation mourns. Collectively, they try to understand what went wrong with American morals. Don’t kid yourself though. This compassion or lack there of, is not about humanity, but instead about how the United States is viewed by other countries. It’s the difference between someone else’s children growing up to molest little children versus your child growing up the do the same crime. It’s the difference between “they are horrible parents” and “My god, where did I go wrong?”
If you are looking for a united country – people who love each other and accept each other despite all of our individual diversities, I would suggest staying where you are. Though, if you want to enjoy being a subgroup of many other national groups this is the place for you.
Americans are individuals; they will die being individualistic, they will fight for their right to be an individual. When that isn’t working quite the way it should, they will bash the values of the United States and protest that education and religion are not what they once were. All Americans long for the good old days, but do not really want to instill the stable and secure values of early America. Ironically, the best part of being an American is the freedom to oppose what the government is going to do whether the majority buys in to the ideology or not.
Americans are confused. In the abstract span of time, Americans are like teenagers struggling to figure out where they want to be in the future. They are struggling to put all the lessons their parents taught them, or didn’t teach them as the case may be, together in ways best suited to the future personality of the nation, even if that personality changes every four years. This is not necessarily a bad thing. How exciting could it possibly be for you to be a part of the shaping of a nation’s personality?
