An exchange year in small town USA
Do you believe in evolution?
At 17, our author, a left-liberal Berlin-based big-city girl, wants to go to New York — and landed amongst trump supporters in Minnesota. What now?
MINNESOTA taz | Gays and lesbians are disgusting, yells my new classmate, whose name I do not even know. When I refuse to tolerate that indignantly, she yells the sentence again through the classroom.
“You just do not understand it!” She cries.
“Maybe you just do not understand me either,” I scream back.
Mr Johnson, our politics teacher, looks desperately through the room. Never before has there been such a controversy in one of his classes. Not at all on this subject. “Maybe you just do not listen to us, Paulina,” says Mr Johnson after recovering.
I protest. But in reality, they are both right. Not in the matter, but in principle: It is my first day at the highschool, I am senior, thus in the graduation year. And I do not understand anything at all. And this is not about language barrier.
I spent the first 17 years of my life in Berlin. Attending a ecosocially committed progressive private school during the day I partied in Monbijou Park or at Admiralsbrücke, Kreuzberg, in the evening. A staunch vegetarian. When the question of whether I want to spend a year at a high school abroad arose, I thought: New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco? Here I come!
Diner, gas station, 99 percent white
It then became the center of a corn field, as we say here. Minnesota. 55 minutes drive from a real metropolis. At least one thinks here that Minneapolis is a real metropolis.
My city has 1,500 inhabitants. 99 percent are white. A long history of Scandinavian immigrants. A main street, as you know them from movies. Gas station, fire station, dinner, pizzeria, bar, then you are outside city limits again.
When the notification came where I would land, my parents had said, “Hey, crazy, spend a year in real America.” What they meant was not clear to me. But I still remember that I felt invincible.
And now I’m sitting in Mr Johnson’s class and I feel that the world belongs to me less than ever before. Why does not anyone here protest when homosexuals are discriminated against? Why is Mr Johnson silent? When I go home from school on this first day, I can not believe it. That’s what the US should be?
There are a number of so-called sensitive topics. Sensitive topics, where teachers are encouraged to enter into conflicts only if they do not harm the school and personal development of the students. Teachers should not take position. But this is very difficult to implement in the classroom, so that poor Mr Johnson often tries to avoid sensitive topics altogether. But sometimes things just take their course.
“Hillary kills babies”
I am placed in politics class next to Ashlie. This is the girl with whom I had the argument on the first day. Ashlie is very pretty, very socially engaged, very religious and has, as many here, very many siblings. In her case, there are ten.
As we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the presidential candidates, she only croaks: “Hillary kills babies.” Hillary kills small children.
I decide not to speak to her anymore.
Hillary is “pro-choice”, which is considered not at all good. Trump is “pro-life”, which is all great. To put it less US-American: Hillary is for legal abortions, Trump is against it.
No one else likes Hillary here. Nor President Obama. In the course of the school year, all we are talking about is what is good about Donald Trump.
The advantages of Trump
One time, Mr Johnson asks me to name the advantages and disadvantages of Trump in front of the class. I am particularly interested in the New York Times website, which every day describes him as mendacious, racist and incompetent. Therefore, I do not immediately recall any positive aspects of Trump.
“Well, difficult question,” I stuttered. “He is rich, perhaps he can give something to the population.”
Next to me, Ashlie begins to snort. And so loud that Mr Johnson did not get around calling her to speak. “The great thing about Trump is not that he could finance his campaign himself or give us some of his money. Why would I want money that I do not deserve? Money and material wealth are only really satisfying for me if I have earned it with my own hands. “
When talking, Ashlie gets louder and louder, and when I’m glad she’s done, she starts again. “Trump shows us that the American dream is reality. He proofs that we can achieve everything and do not have to be ashamed of our own opinions. With Trump, for once somebody is not trying to pretend to be a good guy.“ She really says that. Just like that. I swear.
Many of my classmates nod.
I feel like I’m in a parallel universe. I am no longer in Berlin, at my school, at which teachers openly express their political opinions and pupils do the same. I do not know whether teachers can do this in Germany, ours do it anyway. Here in my tiny village in Minnesota people around me aren’t green, left, against the AfD (rightwing German party mainly arising from anti Europe and anti immigration sentiments) and also with me on what is good and what is evil. What goes and what can not be done.
Do you believe in evolution?
In Berlin I say: homosexual marriage is self-evident, the evolution theory is true, a women’s quota is important, welfare is super, God does not exist, but global warming is a real and great threat to mankind.
In Minnesota I can not say anything like it. Actually we never speak again as directly as in that first hour, we circumvent it.
We write a paper on the Big Bang in biology class. When Ashlie strikes out all the questions and simply writes down the story of creation from the Bible, she gets the full score.
Another girl at our table asks: “Do you believe in evolution theory?” “Well, at least she is more realistic than the theory of creation,” I reply. The girl never greets me again in the hallway and does not even seem to see me anymore.
When Ashlie learns this, she grins. “The people here are not used to hearing something like this, Paulina,” she says. “And do not believe I want to hear it. But I think you’re interesting. “
The thing with Ashlie has developed unexpectedly. I am trying the first months really hard to find some connection, let alone friends. Everywhere are invisible walls. It becomes clear to me that if I insist in my different positions, I will also remain outside the community. That means alone. Because there is no one else. At some point I am done, I have consumed my energy and only listen silently when someone says “Hillary for prison 2k16.”
A football game as a new beginning
But then, on a Friday evening, Ashlie calls me unexpectedly and asks if I would like to go to a football game. I had given her my number because of a joint presentation.
Football? With Ashlie? But since I only have dates with Netflix, I say yes.
It is my first football game, our high school against the school of the closest coffin. The ultimate in week end for the whole area. The school band plays, it’s really not bad. The football jocks are considered hot all over the school. The audience scream “Let them bleed”, let the opponents bleed.
After 20 minutes I am also riled up. „Wir machen euch fertig, ihr Arschlöcher.”
Ops. This has probably slipped me out, in German, but people around me are all excited. “Arse-Loch” is one of the two German words that everyone knows. The other is „gesundheit”. Spontaneously, a small chorus, roaring „arse-loch”, emerges.
And so I find connections. From now on I am called “The German”. But I’m in. And even if Ashlie is not in the “asshole” Chorus, because her religion forbids her to curse — from that day on, we begin to get along better and better.
You can not be a chooser here
“Paulina, if you do not share my opinion, then try to take them seriously and understand who I am,” she says. Sounds a bit too pastoral to me, but I can not really be as vocal as in Berlin.
Besides, I like Ashlie.
For the first time, I have a friend with whom I do not agree at all about our view of the world, about how it is, and how it should be. We make it American and just do not talk about it anymore. Since politics class is over, that works fine.
I see now all the positive things about Ashlie. She’s very thoughtful. She does not constantly care about her looks like the others. She feels most comfortable when she is inconspicuous. Her mother is super nice; When I am with them, she cooks me with the greatest experimenting pleasure vegetarian food. The eleven children seem to be handled by her on the side.
Pray for Brussels
At the weekend I go to the church sometimes, otherwise there is not much god do. After the terrorist attack in Brussels, I get the idea to pray for the victims and their relatives. I immediately call my mother crying, “Help, what if I come back and are totally different?” A homophobic nun or something.
She thinks it’s impossible, but I’m not so sure.
I realize that I really did not understand Ashlie at the beginning, just as she and Mr. Johnson had said. There is only one homosexual couple in our village. When I see them for the first time, I also change the road. This is not because they are homosexual, but very, very scruff.
But for many, they are the only homosexual couple they’ve seen in their lives. They think they are all equally negligent.
Over time, I note that most of my friends have never left the United States. Some not even Minnesota.
“Do you have electricity everywhere in Germany?”
“Are you Germans always drunk?”
“What language do you speak in Germany?”
These are not questions which are asked only once.
It is true that the US is very focused on itself, but it is also quite difficult to get out, geographically. Big country. Mountains, sea, everything there. Many have never been confronted with another language and have therefore developed a subconscious fear. The fear of being misunderstood abroad or not being able to make sense is great and is promoted by the media.
Fox News is running all day
“What man’s mentality in American history would be compared with Adolf Hitler?” Asks Mrs Bellter. The class’s answer comes immediately: “Obama!”
As I spend more time with my American friends, I also realize where they have their political opinions from. In most households Fox News runs all day. There are constantly drawn comparisons between Obama and Hitler. As I experience it, Trump has practically sprung from this television news transmitter.
Example: On Monday we are sitting in our psychology class with Mrs Bellter. The educational promise is: college level. But it is the first hour and I am still close to sleep.
“What man in American history would be compared to the mentality of Adolf Hitler?” Asks Mrs Bellter. The answer comes immediately: “Obama!”
Immediately I am wide awake, but Mrs. Bellter just laughs. It is a rhetorical question, which she places only to her own and the amusement of the class.
“What is the problem with Obama?” I ask.
Everyone is laughing at me. As if that were really a question.
But, well, stupid: “He wants to give everyone health insurance.”
And “He wants to take away our weapons.”
There is no need to say more.
Hunting is here the hobby number one, the fear of the withdrawal of beloved guns great. My host parents had also pressed a gun into my hand immediately after my arrival.
Health insurance is unfair
When I tell them that in Germany all are insured, because there is a health insurance obligation, they are not at all enthusiastic.
“This is totally unfair, that people who do not work at all still get the same insurance as someone who works day and night. If I had worked hard for my wealth, it would be unfair if I did not have a better health insurance, „ says my host dad.
In my politics class in Berlin, we would teach him that he falls for an ideology that is designed to preserve class differences. In Minnesota, I accept that my host parents have a different notion of justice. And also of freedom. “It should be my decision, if I conclude a health insurance,” says my host mother. “There is no free man when the state does everything.”
I answer: “For me justice is when all have equal opportunities.”
Sometimes I feel like I’ve landed in a country where a dog’s life counts more than a Muslim’s. At lunch, people are often talking about fear of the IS and refugees. “I can not believe that Obama wants us to get refugees. I do not understand why other countries can not take them, “says my friend Paul.
Exactly, says everyone.
When I show in a moderate tone that Germany has absorbed nearly one million refugees, and that almost all no other country takes responsibility, it becomes quiet. “Maybe we should take a few from Germany,” Paul says. In the near future, no one dares to talk about the refugee crisis in front of me.
“Be careful, there are lesbians in Minneapolis”
When we go to the city for shopping, we are schooled by the adults beforehand. “Be careful, there are lesbians in Minneapolis,“ they say. Another time, Ashlie’s mother says, “If you see Muslim-looking people at the mall, you’ll get out right away.”
First you do not know whether to laugh or cry. But the truth is that since 9/11 a huge fear of terrorism has been haunting Americans. And the fear they associate with Muslims and thus also with Muslim refugees.
Even at my village school there are weekly terrorism protection exercises. Then suddenly it echoes from the loudspeakers: “This school is on a lockdown. Teachers, please secure your areas. “Then the light is settled and the door closed. All the students must sit under their tables and stay there for a while. Terrorism is probably the greatest fear of people here. “We have to arm the teachers,” Mr. Johnson says at every opportunity. He often forgets that he is not to have any political position.
With my host family I also visit American cities. According to my standards, in New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C. everything’s OK”. Same as our big cities. The way people think and talk, it reminds me of my life in Berlin.
But I realize at some point what all had meant with real America. To a large extent, the USA is not New York, but what I have experienced. People living in villages between cornfields.
What really nobody should know
And now something strange happened. My American school friends go to college, most of them in Minnesota. And I am back in Berlin, and my friends here say: “Fortunately, you have not become so American.”
But I’m not sure.
If one of my German friends is now talking about “the Americans” and about how stupid these idiots are to choose Trump, I say, “You do not understand that.” I tell them that maybe they would vote for Trump if they had been brought up somewhere between corn fields with completely different values.
I very much hope that Hillary Clinton will be president. I hope so too for those who want Trump. But when I think of the people there, I do not see any stupid idiots in front of me, but people who like Trump and have brought me to the point of being able to treat others respectfully, even if one thinks fundamentally differently.
No one in my school can know that, but I can even imagine being in a relationship with someone who votes CDU (Germany’s major center right party and party of Angela Merkel).
Paulina Unfried, now 18, is a student
