Not anti-american, but against some of their attitudes.

[Lia Laura Puglesi]

I don’t think is right to say “people” or “some people are anti-Americans” as if “Americans” where all the same, a huge block of something homogeneous or a huge body where everybody is a kind of cell, behaving according to a smarter pattern or brain that transcend them. If that were the case, it would be very sad. People who behave in the indiscriminative way the German man Marianne met did, obviously have a problem. But on the other hand, It is not just people’s faults, as the media (especially the American media) has made everybody in and outside this country believe that Americans are all behind Bush, obeying and believing and supporting all what the guy says. And beyond the fact that this was my personal impression for a while, I can also tell you that this is what most of my friends from France, Spain Argentina etc. etc. feel, as well as the international media. I daily and intentionally read as many news papers from outside the USA as I can get  in Spanish, French, Eng!
lish Italian and Portuguese to see how the most poignant problems are being seen there and not to loose the big picture, the perspective, as it would indubitably happen if I just checked out the New York Times or the Jersey Journal. And that’s the vision that the media abroad has too. It is not casual that so many people feel this way. Maybe the USA is not doing something right after all?  That’s something to take into account when we go on the way. Beyond the discussion if politics are for the Camino or not (I personally would prefer to relax those days)  we have to be prepared to listen to others and try to understand as Marianne did with the German guy.  Also to be humble, not to be all the time thinking on an answer to drop as far as the other finish complaining. Maybe in what people say there is wisdom and truth and we can learn something about ourselves and the nations where we live. I don’t think that people around there are ‘opinionated”. Of course they have an opini!
on, and it is absolutely on their right,  as they are part of the world that is being affected for the current USA decisions.  Sometimes people have the impression that on the contrary, Americans are very opinionated about the rest of the world, a world that many of them don’t seem to have much information about. And that’s something many people here aren’t aware of.

The people in this board, as I said a couple times are especial. They are interested in knowing other cultures, languages, history and have lots of love for the human kind and are very aware they can transmit knowledge and submit opinions BUT ALSO that they are not the only ones with that right. And that is a fundamental difference with what most people outside perceive from other Americans they have met in their lives: they go abroad and they try to TEACH (!) people in their own countries what is the best way to do things, live their lives, and face problems. They step over all the knowledge and culture that people outside there have. Knowledge that has been built up during thousand of years in some cases. Isn’t THAT to be opinionated?  Unfortunately that’s the experience that most inhabitants of the world have with Americans, I am afraid to say. It is definitely true in Argentina and Bolivia and Peru and it is pretty accurate among the people I know from France and Spain, !
which all together may make around 200, from all walks of life and political ideology. THAT’S EXACTLY WHY I SAID IT IS SO IMPORTANT FOR AMERICANS AT THIS POINT TO DO THIS PILGRIMAGE. As if they are special people, -as I like to think they are-, they will have an open hearth and mind that will make other pilgrims and Spanish and French residents see that not ALL Americans are the same. That not all Americans hide or go back to his or her country when there are problems. (In Mendoza there were big problems with the Americans that were living and working there illegally, mainly teaching English at Schools, as they left in the middle of the finals exams when the crises arose. Many of them just FLED AWAY without even paying their rents!!!!!)  It is very important that pilgrims become some sort of good will ambassadors. It is not necessary that they do anything especial that haven’t consider before, as a part of this “ambassadorship”, but being kind and honest is the best way to m!
ake the point  that  airing opinions about “you, the Americans” is senseless.

My husband is American, and he is also Jewish. And it has been very difficult for us in the last 2 years face the annoyance of Argentineans AND MOST SPANISH SPEAKING people that we have come across outside the USA for his American origin. No everybody is interested in listening and knowing that HE DOESN’T AGREE WITH THE FOREIGN POLITICS OF THE USA.  It has been hard because people HERE, of course, consider him (us) less American as he doesn’t support the war in Iraq. It has been hard because many Jewish people feel they are not true Jews if they don’t support the invasion of Palestine and the war in Iraq, including many members of his family.  I even have crazy people around that get upset with me because the Italians have voted Beluscconi as the prime minister!!! ( I am half Italian)  what do I have to do with that?  And I hardly ever mention my mother’s last names in front of some susceptible Spanish folks because they are all Basques! What do I have to do with all this ha!
tred?  But aimless and unspecific hatred come from people that cannot think well.  I come across weird people all the time, is part of my profession. But I always try to separate them from the country they come from, from the rest of their co-nationals; and if I ever feel very pissed off, I try not to behave in consequence and not to hate  “al the French” “all the Americans” “all the Argentineans” “al the Italians”



As a pilgrim, I consider my self an ambassador for peace and acceptation ( I hate the word “tolerance” tolerance means that you have to “tolerate”, still in tension, certain person because you just have to, even when you would prefer killing him/her). I have not few hard times when I really feel annoyed with most people in the world, as I feel they do not to take the responsibility for change and improvement in their hands. Most delegate the responsibility of defending such big country like the USA to a small group (that isn’t in its best shape, but that’s other story), instead of trying to improve in the everyday lives their relation ships with their neighbors. And then, they go abroad and they want them to treat them well?. Americans can not worry about their own safety and leave the “wonderful Spanish and French people” they met in their pilgrimage to Compostela, the people in Argentina they were living with, in their own.  Specially when this is not Argentina and France !
and Spain war but it will affect them as much -if not more- as it will affect the USA .   And that may happen to cross the thoughts of many people will find on the road, and everywhere else.



How can we expect people feel otherwise when you have a political leader paraphrasing Jesus : “they are either with us or against us”!???  Is not easy to cope with that,!!! especially if you want to have NOTHING TO DO with whoever is saying those words and those who support him. And who don’t want to have anything to do with it, suddenly become the enemy, as they “are not with us”. THAT’S  violence. (not to mention a big of a megalomaniac problem)  We have to go out there and stop thinking just on what is convenient for us and what is happening here.

We should get our hands dirty in the Galician seashore, maybe help the farmers with their labors one day, now that they are having trouble with the lack of transportation and many workers can not get to their jobs. And talk to the people who suffer and perhaps asking also for forgiveness in the name of others from our homelands that are less understanding.  I did that when I went to the border with Paraguay many years ago and they were very surprised but they received me a little better. (Argentinean killed lots of Paraguayans indigenous in a terrible war and they still call us “los cuero de chancho” )



Well, all this was to say that I understand how people feel outside as it has been many times the way I feel too, and THAT’S one of the reasons why I am going to Compostela now. To show that I am not just an Argentinean, with Italian and French-Spanish Basque blood who lives in the USA,  who is married to an American Jew who doesn’t like the way that people are being killed in the Middle East in his name . We are HUMAN BEINGS that beyond and over their backgrounds and nationalities are going to meet their friends and walk peacefully, enjoying nature and some of the good things that human beings have made, and maybe befriend with other pilgrims and residents and show them that we are just HUMAN BEINGS, like them, struggling for survival and trying to find a little of rest and happiness.  If in the way we can drop -and help others drop-, some prejudices, much better. If not… “tant pis”   is not going to be “Mi pérdida”, and I ‘ll try not to be so disappointed.



Well, thank you very much for your patience. Now I have given most of my reasons to go out and about.



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