HYPHENATED
by Amy Clare Tasker
A Campuswide Honors Program Thesis
Supervised by Anthony Kubiak, Ph.D.
Professor of Drama, UC Irvine
December 11, 2007
HYPHENATED
Darkness. An empty stage. CLARE enters and goes far downstage to one side, a separate space. Suddenly honest, frank lights for her direct address.
The scene is a theatre and memory.
CLARE
Oh—Hi. Wow. Thank you all for coming. Um. Sorry, I’m not terribly, um. Ready, I guess. But who is, ever, ready. Ready for what?
Should I just start? Are you ready? You’re nodding, but you really have no idea what I’m gonna do so maybe you’re not ready.
Don’t worry, I’m a narrator, I’m not a performance artist. You can mostly know what to expect from me, and that’s the point. So, anyway, I’ll start. Ready or not, here I come. (she laughs nervously)
Okay.
She clears her throat. With a hand gesture to suggest this is a big announcement,
I’m English.
Well. No, that’s only sorta true. And you don’t believe that for a second, do you, because…well. Just listen to me. I mean, you are listening to me, so you don’t believe…yeah.
I should be good at telling this story by now. I’ve just spent the last 8 months in Manchester explaining myself. Or trying.
Here, I’ll tell you what I’ve told fellow students, people at parties, hairdressers—they have hairdressers in England, not…whatever we call them in the States. That’s one thing I never quite got the hang of. Stylists?
Anyway.
The conversation usually goes like this, after a couple of minutes of talking to someone in an American accent…or sometimes an English accent but then I get found out when I don’t know something that everyone in England knows.
They ask, “So where in America are you from?”
and I say, “Well. I was actually born near Manchester, and my dad went to this University. And then when I was four my family moved to California—”
“Oh, whereabouts in California?”
“—Right. I live with my family near San Francisco, but I go to school in Irvine. Um, Orange County.”
“Oh! The OC!”
“Yeah, it’s not really like the TV show, though…well, not all of it.”
“So why did you choose Manchester?” – That’s said with varying degrees of contempt, depending on how hard it’s raining.
“I’m doing a study abroad year here, writing a thesis. On, well, pretty much that, moving and stuff. National identity.”
Is that good? I think that’s about right for a beginning. It’s enough for now. It’s pretty much all I knew when I decided to spend my senior year in England, and you’re just here for a couple of hours. You’ll be okay.
So, I should probably…
Hello! Welcome to my undergraduate campuswide honors program thesis. Hyphenated.
You get it? Like British-hyphen-American, only there’s an irony there because no one ever says British-American, because, well, hm.
In a way a lot of white people in the States are British-American, and I just immigrated 200 years late.
I sound American, and I look American (whatever that means) and so I’m just American…whatever that means.
Until I kick up a fuss and say I’m not. It’s kinda funny really because there are people whose great great great great grandfathers fought for their freedom in the Civil War—the American Civil War—and they’re still called African-American. But I’m a first-generation immigrant, and I have to put up a fight to get my hyphen, to get anyone to acknowledge that I might have a complex cultural background that confuses the hell out of me—
It might be a little too early for this, these central ideas and, you know, concepts. But you do understand this is a thesis; I kinda have to have these big themes in here.
Plus, I think about this stuff.
Anyway, we’re long overdue for a scene. Sorry.
Oh man, where to start. Which story to tell…
I’ve done tons of research on my parents moving to California, cause of course I don’t remember, being four at the time. Their story is pretty interesting. But maybe the past should come out as I excavate the present. Dig through the layers as I figure stuff out about me from my research about them, well, us, my family.
Though I should tell you right now that there aren’t really any answers to be found. Just more questions.
I could make up some kind of chronology that suggests that I gradually came to some realizations throughout my year abroad. But I’m not really interested in telling you a story. Or, maybe I am, maybe I could tell you my life story by showing you what I’ve done this year on this project. But it seems so reductive, maybe even pedantic—not to mention very dry—to walk you through all the steps of my research and call that The Plot.
It might be fun to do this episodically, and make you piece together my history and heritage from seemingly random events. In fact, that’s pretty much what I’ve been doing, and this way you might feel like you’re digging up my past right along with me. It might be fun. It might also be just a bit pretentious. In fact, yes, it is. But, like I said, this is a university thesis.
Look, why don’t I just show you some times when I lived a bit and it made me think about who I am, and I learned something.
Maybe that’s all we can ask from a play.
Let’s start with the basic human need for community—after all, isn’t that where national identity comes from? A need to feel connected to people who live in a place that is the same as your place because of some imaginary lines that were drawn by people you’ll never meet, and who are probably dead?
A flag in the sand. But it means so much to us, somehow.
So. When I was five, I insisted we had a big American turkey dinner on Thanksgiving. There. Let’s do that one.
(She shouts into the wings) Okay, here we go!
(To audience) I’ll be right back.
She starts to leave and then comes back.
Actually.
I just thought—you need a bit more information.
This memory—I shouldn’t call them scenes, really—takes place in a tent. Clare—that’s me—is five. She has two sisters; you’ll meet them soon. I should tell you that they’re seven and three years old, in this scene. In this memory.
But they’re going to be played by actors who are adults. That’s partially because of the practicalities of finding multiple actors to play young Jane, adolescent Jane, and college-age Jane.
And partially because, well, even when you’ve seen pictures of your sisters when they were so young that you don’t remember them, and even when you know they must have been different when they were seven and three than they are now that they’re twenty-three and nineteen …
Even then, you can’t remember or even imagine who they were at that age, so you project a nineteen-year-old identity onto the three year old. Or rather, you project your perception of her nineteen-year-old identity…
Because, you don’t even have a sense of self that includes being three, let alone a sense of anyone else’s self.
At least, I don’t. I don’t remember being three, or five or seven. I don’t remember half of these “memories” that I’m showing you. They’re stories. Familial anecdotes. Pictures I’ve seen.
Maybe that’s why I call them scenes. And maybe I’m trying to remind you that this is a play, a thesis. A play.
Anyway, it gets a bit complicated, but that’s why there’s a nineteen-year-old pretending to be three.
It’s 1990, our first Thanksgiving. Jane is three. Clare is five. Sarah is seven. We’re in a tent-trailer, camping.
SCENE ONE.
MUM, DAD, SARAH, CLARE, and JANE bring on a chair each. They sit at the dinner table, eating Thanksgiving dinner. Table, food, plates, cups are all mimed. English accents. Perhaps CLARE has a hint of American in some words.
It is a memory; above all, warmth.
CLARE
Mummy, I don’t think the Indians gave the Red Coats any turkey meatloaf.
SARAH
They weren’t the Red Coats. The first Thanksgiving was in 1619—
CLARE
It’s our first Thanksgiving now.
SARAH
But the settlers weren’t the Red Coats. The British were the Red Coats.
CLARE
But the settlers were British.
SARAH
No, the settlers fought the British. But not until 1776.
CLARE
But the settlers were British! Mummy!
MUM
They were British when they came, darling, but—
SARAH
Right, they were when they came, and then later they weren’t and then they fought the British for America. When they were Americans.
CLARE
Know-it-all.
SARAH
I like history.
CLARE
Are we going to become Americans and fight the British too? I don’t want to fight with Grandma and Grandad.
MUM looks at DAD. DAD laughs.
DAD
No, love. Not unless Grandma and Grandad get red coats.
SARAH
Or if they start taxing us on the tea they send us. Then we’d have to go to Boston and chuck it in the sea. I learned that, too.
MUM
Have you learned any English history with Mrs. Johnson?
JANE
I have a red coat!
MUM
Yes, you do, love.
JANE
Red my favourite colour!
CLARE
Then you’re The British!
DAD
Yes, and so are you.
CLARE
But where are the Indians? They were supposed to give us a turkey.
DAD
They knew we were camping, so they gave us the smaller kind.
SARAH
It’s very nice meatloaf, Mummy.
MUM
Thank you, darling.
CLARE
Like Father Christmas?
DAD
You what?
CLARE
Father Christmas knows we moved and we’ll still get presents, because Mummy filled out the form at the post office.
MUM
That’s right, love.
CLARE
The other kids are having turkey.
MUM sighs.
DAD
The other kids aren’t camping. You like camping.
SARAH
I like camping, too.
CLARE
Where are the Indians? I didn’t see them bring the meatloaf.
DAD
When you’re finished, you can go and look for them. You can ask the nice Ranger where they are.
CLARE and SARAH share an excited glance.
CLARE/SARAH
Please-may-I-get-down-from-the-table-I’ve-had-enough-thank-you.
MUM
Yes, you may.
CLARE and SARAH sprint offstage.
JANE
Wait for me!
MUM
Don’t go too far.
DAD
You go and watch them, love, I’ll clear up.
JANE turns her bowl upside down on her head and laughs.
JANE
All done!
MUM (to DAD)
Are you sure?
DAD
Go on. She’s all right.
JANE
Sticky!
MUM kisses DAD.
MUM
I love you.
DAD
I love you too.
MUM kisses JANE on the nose.
MUM
And I love you, too, even though you tip your bowl on your head.
JANE
Love you!
Mum goes.
DAD
Come on then, you messy little bugger.
JANE
I sticky bugger!
DAD laughs and goes to pick JANE up as the memory fades.
CLARE returns to her spot.
CLARE
I should clarify that this isn’t one-hundred-percent true. Some of it is, but most of it isn’t.
I did actually insist that we have turkey on our first Thanksgiving. And we were camping—we went camping a lot. My mum really did make turkey meatloaf, and mashed potatoes and gravy and everything. And we ate it on paper plates in a tent.
And Jane’s favourite color was red when she was a kid, Sarah really does like history. And my dad really does help with the washing up.
But everything else is made up. It’s a play. Jane still doesn’t say “bugger” now that she’s 19, and my dad wouldn’t really swear in front of a three-year-old. That was just a bit of fun.
More to the point, I highly doubt we discussed ideas like “becoming American” at the dinner table when I was five. But that’s the thing about memory, you have to fill in the gaps. No one knows what we talked about, so anything goes.
And this is a play, which means I can twist the stories around a bit to make them say what I want.
Let’s move on to another one. This one is family legend. Chronologically, in real life, it came before the scene you just saw. But that doesn’t matter. I wanted to start with Thanksgiving because it’s a bit more fun and it introduces you to all the characters. The time doesn’t matter. It’s episodic.
When we first moved, we lived in a short-term apartment complex in San Jose until we could find a more permanent home. This is our first night.
This scene is about missing people, and about trying to make sense of distance. You’ll see.
SCENE TWO.
CLARE goes steps into a new light, “outside the apartment.” As she speaks, MUM, DAD, SARAH, and JANE go to sleep.
It’s three in the morning, it’s February, our first night. Everyone’s asleep. We’re all very jetlagged, and exhausted from the long journey.
The stage floods with moonlight.
MUM gasps and sits up suddenly, alert.
She gets out of bed and looks in on JANE and SARAH, asleep. She fights panic.
She walks to the edge of the stage, to the “door” of the apartment.
CLARE
This is the front door. It’s wide open, at 3am.
For the first time, MUM sees CLARE, far downstage, outside.
CLARE
I’m outside. Just standing there, in my nightdress, barefoot.
CLARE stares at the moon.
MUM
Clare! What are you doing?
CLARE
Mummy?
MUM
Clare, look at me. (CLARE looks) Do you understand? Running off in the middle of the night makes Mummy very frightened.
CLARE (mildly surprised)
Oh.
MUM
You won’t do it again, will you.
CLARE
No, Mummy.
MUM
Let’s go back to bed, then, love.
CLARE
Mummy? Is that the same moon?
MUM
The same moon? Of course it’s—
CLARE
Is it the same moon as Grandma’s?
MUM
Oh.
CLARE
Can Grandma see the same moon now?
MUM
It’s daytime for Grandma now.
CLARE (giggles)
That’s silly.
MUM
It’s night in California, but it’s morning in England. It’s nearly lunchtime. Grandma’s making lunch.
CLARE
Why?
MUM
Oh. Because England is eight hours ahead of California, because the sun comes up sooner there.
CLARE
But why?
MUM
Because the aeroplane is faster than the sun and we went so fast the sun can’t catch up with us.
CLARE
Won’t it catch up when we stop?
MUM
No, darling, it won’t.
CLARE
Why not?
MUM
Because…the sun goes around the world, and when the sun is in England it can’t be in California, and when the sun is in California it can’t be in England. Because it’s too far away. It’s on the other side.
CLARE
Is the moon on the other side of the world, too?
MUM
Well, n— Yes, darling. So Grandma won’t be able to see it until tomorrow when we’re making lunch. But it’s the same one.
CLARE
So can I tell it something and it can tell Grandma when we’re making lunch?
Small pause.
MUM
Yes, love.
CLARE
Hello, Grandma!
MUM
Shhh. People are sleeping.
CLARE
But—
MUM
The moon can hear, you don’t have to shout, love.
CLARE
Oh. (to the moon, more quietly) And say hello to Grandad, too. We’re in California now! I saw the Golden Gate bridge!
I miss you. I don’t know when we’re going to Disneyland, but I’ll send you a postcard.
(to MUM) Want to say something to Grandma?
MUM
(to the moon) Hello, Mummy.
Pause.
CLARE
That’s good. My feet are cold.
MUM
Time to go back to bed now.
CLARE
Yep. Good night Grandma. Good night moon.
MUM takes CLARE’s hand as they walk back toward the house. MUM pauses at the door. CLARE scampers back to bed.
MUM (to the moon)
Good night, Mummy.
She closes the door, locks it… The memory fades. CLARE returns.
CLARE
“We’ll miss you.” There’s just no way to quantify it. Maybe that’s what it is. You can put a price on a new job and a new house and a good school system—they’re economic investments. They have numbers.
But how much is “we’ll miss you” worth?
But we’ve missed them. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. All our family. A new baby. We’ll miss his first steps when he takes them. What is that worth?
Like I said, there aren’t really any answers. I’m not sorry we moved. Being sorry is such a waste of time.
I will say, though, that missing people is always drastically underplayed in stories about people who go to new places in search of greater opportunity.
Grown-ups are creatures of reason. They know that they’ll be sad leaving their parents and their homes, but there’s something irresistible about that word “opportunity.” They rationalize it. Everyone leaves home. Birds fly the nest, people move out of their parents’ houses…And their parents are proud of them for making more of themselves.
We were going to move anyway because my dad’s company was closing down. My dad was looking for a new job and the ones he found were in Portsmouth—in the south of England—and in California. We wouldn’t have seen my grandparents much anyway, all the way down in Portsmouth. 500 miles is a long way by English standards.
And as it turns out, we saw them less frequently but for much longer periods of time. They would come over for a few weeks, and then when my grandad retired, they would stay for 42 days, as long as the US will allow visitors. Eventually we added another room on the house.
We’ve missed England, too. It’s a tricky thing to explain, missing a country. But it’s the holidays and the pub food and the sweets, the tea, the accents, the BBC. The feeling of the people on the cobbled streets. The old men with flat caps. Someone saying “bloody hell” every once in a while. The sense of humour. The way the English spell “humor”—H-U-M-O-U-R.
Holidays at the beach in Scarborough, eating fish and chips in the car, in the rain. In August.
The sheep in the Yorkshire Dales, cuddled up with their lambs under a tree, or next to a dry stone wall. We always go to the Dales when we’re in England. My mum can’t take enough pictures of those sheep.
I think I should show you my parents now, as I imagine them to be when they were 30. Our first summer. In my research, I read through letters that my mum had written in 1990 when we first arrived—my grandma found them in a shoebox in the wardrobe when we visited last December.
Those letters have been so helpful for creating my parents.
Isn’t writing crazy? Creating my parents! Anyway, here they are.
We’re in the living room of our first house. We rented it from a really awful woman, but our neighbors were nice. One of them used to babysit us, and another one played the trumpet—not for us, but we could always hear it. I don’t remember much else, except the hideous orange shag carpet everywhere. Even at the age of five, I knew that was ugly.
And once I wrote Jane’s name on the wall in water-melon-flavor pink Mr. Sketch pen. My mum was too smart for me, though, she knew it wasn’t Jane and I got in trouble anyway. I still can’t figure out how she knew.
I learned to ride a bike in that house. Well, in the garden.
Anyway, that’s not terribly important, just a bit of history to give you the idea we lived there, really lived there.
I read in the letters that my parents used to order pizza on some Friday nights when my sisters and I had gone to bed. They’d rent Fawlty Towers on video—this was long before DVDs—and get a cheap bottle of wine.
I have no idea what they really talked about. But here they are.
SCENE THREE.
MUM and DAD have brought on some chairs which suggest a sofa. Again, pizza and wine etc, are mimed. Perhaps the “TV,” which is not seen, can be heard playing an episode of Fawlty Towers, or perhaps a flickering light is enough.
Mum is on the sofa, pouring wine into two glasses. Dad enters, with the pizza. He puts it on the coffee table.
MUM
That smells nice.
DAD
Mm. What’s the wine like?
MUM
Not bad.
DAD
What is it?
MUM
4.99 from Safeway,
DAD
Ha, ha.
MUM
Oh, sorry. 12.5%.
DAD
Give it here. (he reads the label) Napa, California 1988.
MUM
Oh, is that what you meant!
They laugh, and each take a glass.
DAD
Cheers, love.
MUM
To…the new house!
DAD
Cheers!
MUM
The new car.
DAD
Check
MUM
The new settee.
DAD
Check.
MUM
The fantastic school district.
DAD
Check.
MUM
The neighbourhood pool key.
DAD
Check.
MUM
No, cheers. Not check.
DAD
Sorry. Cheers.
MUM
Cheers.
Beat. They drink. Pause. They both sink back on the sofa and sigh wearily.
DAD
It’s nice when it stops.
MUM
Mmm.
DAD
I’m knackered.
MUM
Yep.
DAD
This moving-across-the-world lark is a lot more work than I thought.
MUM
You’re not joking.
DAD
Is it…worth it, do you think?
MUM
What do you mean?
DAD
Do you remember what we’re doing it for?
MUM
Bloody hell, Cedric.
DAD
Sorry.
MUM
It’s a great adventure. We’re taking the girls to Disneyland.
DAD
We can’t afford to go to Disneyland, Liz. We’ve just bought a car.
MUM
We’ll sort something out. We could go at Christmas, instead of presents.
DAD
I can’t wait for things to settle down.
MUM
I know, me too. All these things that should be big exciting accomplishments are just check, check, check, down the list of Things to Sort Out.
DAD
We’re doing all right, though, aren’t we? It’s a nice house, apart from the carpet. And sorting out the car is a big weight off my mind.
MUM
It wouldn’t be a great adventure if it was easy.
DAD
At least the girls are happy enough.
MUM
They’re settling down. It’ll be so much easier when Clare can start school. She needs to make some friends, poor thing. She just sat down in the middle of the pavement today, and said she missed Anna too much to walk.
DAD
Poor little love.
MUM
Sarah’s all right. She just gets on with things and buries her head in a book. And Jane is just as bright as ever. And as loud. I don’t know if she really understands what’s going on.
DAD
Just as well, really.
MUM
I suppose.
A pause. DAD sits on the edge of the sofa and starts to dish up the pizza.
DAD
Well, let’s eat this pizza before it gets any colder.
MUM (picking up the tape)
Which episode do you want to watch?
DAD
Let’s have a look. (beat) Oh here we go. “Gourmet Night.”
MUM
That sounds appropriate.
DAD
There’s something about Fawlty Towers, pizza and cheap wine that feels a lot like home.
MUM
When it’s raining I can almost imagine we’re in England.
DAD
Cheers to that.
They lift their glasses as the lights fade.
CLARE
It must have been so hard. I am just now starting to appreciate how hard it must have been. I mean, it was a colossal pain in the ass to move my stuff to England for my year abroad. I hardly took anything—a couple of suitcases. But they shipped furniture and summer clothes and books and toys…everything. Well, almost everything. Some of our stuff is still in various attics around England, mostly things like hair dryers and blenders which won’t plug in on the other side of the Atlantic. They had to set up bank accounts and get visas and green cards. They had to find a house and buy a car and live in the real world. It must have been terrifying. And it must have been so, so difficult. I never really understood how stressful The Great Adventure must have been. I was five, after all. More than that, my parents just took care of it and didn’t ever let us know how much strain they were under or how much they wanted to go home. But it must have been…a colossal pain in the ass, times ten. I can’t even put it into words. “Colossal pain in the ass” is the best I can do.
It was better once we all went to school. We got settled.
This is the part where I talk for a while and ask you to believe that years are passing and we’re growing up. I’d like you to believe that even though we came to California to live there for two years and then go home again, we don’t. We stay. It’s a lot easier than moving back. An object at rest, and all that. There’s never a good time to pack up and do it all again. We go to school in America.
I don’t remember much about school in either country, so Sarah will tell you. She was 2 years older than me. Well, she still is.
SCENE FOUR.
SARAH enters, and stands in a pool of memory light, separate from CLARE. SARAH looks at CLARE uncertainly. CLARE comes into the memory light and sits down with SARAH.
SARAH
I remember bits and pieces of school in England. I remember the long walk up the path from the road to the door of the school, with a long fence and one of those switchback gates that’s two pieces of fence overlapping but with a gap to go through. There was a playing field at one side and sycamore trees along the edge. I remember picking up the leaves—or pods—and throwing them in the air because they spun round like helicopter blades when they came down. I also remember swallowing a piece of rock candy sideways while playing over there and making my throat sore.
I was in Mrs. Rose’s class for first year—she was in a portable classroom, I think, not in the main school. I wet my pants because I was too shy to ask to go to the bathroom and she laughed. Not in a mean way, really, just a sort of old lady “oh dear not again” way.
I know I was in school concerts and things. I had to dress up in red tights and play the finger cymbals at one point. And Mummy made me a clown costume on another occasion. I think we sang “All Things Bright and Beautiful” at school—it’s a hymn! That’s okay in England. I know we had assemblies but I don’t really remember them. The headmistress’s name was Mrs. Clark and she used to wear her glasses on top of her head.
I don’t have any unhappy memories of English school. I don’t really remember comparing it to American school, or missing it, even though I didn’t like American school at first. I went into Mrs. Davis’s 2nd grade when we came to Pleasanton, and she was this big garrulous American woman. We all had to sit on the floor with our reading books and everybody had to take a turn reading out loud. Something about the Statue of Liberty, I think. When it was my turn, I completely refused—several times over. I didn’t want to call attention to myself because I was so shy and I sounded different than everyone else. I probably ended up causing more fuss because I was so adamant, and Mrs. Davis made me sit inside at recess.
CLARE
I remember having to say the Pledge of Allegiance, and not knowing the words. Then, when I was older, I would mouth the words, and cross my fingers behind my back. When you’re a kid, that means that you’re lying. Because I didn’t see why I had to pledge allegiance, to the flag, of the United States of America.
I didn’t really know what it meant, because no one understands what “the republic for which it stands, indivisible, under God, with liberty and justice for all” means at the age of 6. I always felt like I should say “amen” after it, because we said “God,” and because it was one of those things that you don’t understand that grown-ups make you say anyway, and I guess I associated that with the hymns we sang in school in England. And prayer in general. Even at that age, I was faintly aware that I was being indoctrinated. But now is not really the time for a rant against religion and nationalism. I guess my point is that I felt pretty false pledging my allegiance to this flag. And now I don’t even know the words to the British national anthem. I just know that it’s called “God Save the Queen” and it’s sung to the tune of “My Country Tis Of Thee.” (she sings) Sweet land of liberty, God Save the Queen.
A confused silence.
SARAH
Can I go now?
CLARE
Yeah. Thanks, Sarah.
CLARE and SARAH stand and hug. SARAH goes. CLARE returns to her light.
CLARE
I think we should flash forward now. I want to consider the question, “is it worth it, do you think?” Even though there’s really no answer to that.
There’s no way to see who we would have become if we’d moved to Portsmouth instead. My accent still would have changed. We’d be Southerners, which, in Yorkshire, is just as foreign as being Californian. Only less exotic. My grandparents tell the green grocer that “this is their granddaughter from California.” I doubt they’d include “Portsmouth” in my introductions if I had become “from” there.
I think my grandparents think of my sisters and me as being “from” California. And in other ways, they’ve always wanted us to stay English. We always put on our English accents when we visit. It seems like the polite thing to do. I always feel more polite when I’m speaking in an English accent.
Once, we went out for a pub lunch with some family friends, and we all dressed up a bit—that’s English! Or maybe just old-fashioned.
I wore a black skirt that was ruffled in layers and had bits of fabric hanging down to create an uneven hem-line. At the end of lunch, one of our friends noticed that my skirt was “raggedy” and said as much—as you’re allowed to do when you’re eighty. His wife came to my rescue and told him it was the fashion and that we were young ladies now—you’re also allowed to say things like that when you’re eighty.
I’m not entirely sure where this next bit came from, perhaps a connection between fashion and the US, or perhaps it was related to something I had said earlier over our fish and chips. In any case our friend said, “It’s a shame you’ve all become American.”
That was a few summers ago, but I have still not shaken that scene and sentiment from my mind. Standing in the car park of the Fox and Grapes, being told that a) I had become an American, and b) it was a shame. And c) that I was a scruffy dresser.
I don’t remember what I said back to him. I probably laughed. What else was there to do? This was before I had really started thinking about this project and national identity. But something about his comment bothered me. Perhaps because something about his comment was…true.
Maybe we have become Americans.
Whatever that means.
I hope that doesn’t sound like too much of a cop-out. “Whatever that means.”
I actually have thought about this, and really the best I can come up with is that I just don’t know what it means to be American. Or English.
I can think of a several differences between Americans and Brits, in terms of behaviours and ways of thinking, speaking, working, playing…being…
Most of the time, people just are. One thing or the other. Which is why we have loads of art and academic essays from people who don’t fit perfectly into either category. We’re confused.
But most of that literature comes from people who aren’t readily accepted as “Americans,” people who don’t necessarily blend in with the archetypal “American” image.
You know, baseball-loving, red-white-and-blue-wearing, pick-up-truck-driving, PTA-attending, barbeque-flavor, all-American people.
There are some fabulous books, plays, essays, and articles about conflicting nationalities written by Cuban-Americans, Mexican-Americans, African-Americans, Chinese-Americans, Korean-Americans, Japanese-Americans, the list goes on.
And they all describe the phenomenon of not feeling part of America because of their race and their roots, and not being accepted when they go “home” because they’ve become “Americanized.”
The summer after my freshman year of college, I took a really great German Literature course on Romantic Fairytales. The woman who taught the class had been adopted from Korea when she was very young, and she didn’t go back to Korea until her mid-twenties. She said people would ask her how it felt to go “home” to Korea, and she just wouldn’t have an answer for them. She was from San Diego. But somehow she was expected to recognize or identify with Korea.
America would not own her. She was Korean. But when she went to Korea, she didn’t belong there, either. She had grown up in America.
I expected to recognize England. I wanted so much to step off the plane and say, yes. I know this place. Here is where I am from. It’s such a powerful thing, to be from somewhere.
But I didn’t magically know Manchester. There was no spark of recognition. I didn’t even understand the bus system. I could barely figure out which side of the road the bus was driving on, let alone where it was going, how to get on it, or which coins would satisfy the request for 60p.
But.
I’m not part of this hyphenated community, either. I’m not like my Korean-American professor. There’s no such thing as British-American.
America will own me. I can present my white skin and my California accent to the country, and everyone will say, yeah, okay. She’s American. She’s in the club.
I fit their image. So I don’t get a hyphen. I don’t need a hyphen.
I’m just some whiney white girl trying to convince you that I have a culture. That I’m not really baseball-loving or barbeque flavor.
Whatever. I didn’t have to learn another language when I got here. No one looks at me like I have no right to be in the country. Congress isn’t constantly thinking up ways to keep people like me out of America. There’s no wall being built to secure the border with England.
I’ve never been discriminated against because of where I happen to have been born.
I’m not like Chinese-Americans or Mexican-Americans. So what if I don’t feel like I’m home when I go back to where I was born? Who does? So I’m not completely English.
If I wanted, I could be American. I could belong here. America will own me, what the hell is my problem?
I don’t know, maybe this doesn’t have to be as big a deal as I’m making it.
Maybe I have no right to complain. If I want to be able to fit into a nice neat box, I could be American. Fine, problem solved.
But.
I’d pretty much have to disown my family. And the part of me that still believes a good cup of tea solves everything. I’d have to come up with another excuse to lather on the sun cream an inch thick in the summer, and to not eat spicy food. I’d have to give up Boxing Day—the day after Christmas when you eat sausage rolls and play with your presents, and don’t take the tree down.
And my sense of humor. That’s probably the most British thing about me.
I don’t think I could disown my sense of humor. Americans dismiss the British sense of humor as weird or full of itself or too intellectual. And the British look down on the American sense of humor as immature and dirty. There are a few things that translate between the two. John Cleese and acutely embarrassing situations are the only examples I can think of, off the top of my head.
I’ve definitely kept the “British” sense of humour. Oscar Wilde is funny. Eddie Izzard is funny.
Will Ferrill is not funny. Sorry. People falling down and soiling their pants is not funny. “Anchorman” is not funny. Stupid is not the same as funny.
Wit is funny. Puns are funny. I’m trying to think of examples in American culture. I think “The Simpsons” is very funny. And “The Daily Show.” Satire is its own thing, though.
I’m not explaining this well. Humour is such a slippery concept.
Maybe it’s better to show you what I think is funny. Here is my family, at dinner. We eat dinner together and have hour-long conversations. That’s pretty English. Or maybe just old-fashioned. But don’t worry, this scene isn’t an hour.
We’re very funny. We crack ourselves up. Which is a very American expression, come to think of it.
CLARE shouts off into the wings.
Oi! Dinner time, you lot!
MUM, DAD, SARAH, and JANE enter, bringing on 5 chairs. The family sits down to dinner.
SCENE FIVE.
CLARE
We’re much older now. I’m about to graduate from high school. Jane is 16. Sarah is 20.
CLARE nods goodbye to the audience and settles into the scene. The family enjoys the pun-run immensely, relishing the challenge and the reactions of the others. We can only just hear the lines above their laughter.
JANE
Oh, salmon?
DAD
Don’t panic, I made you some chicken.
JANE
Mmm, thank you!
CLARE
Picky little bugger.
MUM
Salmon is good for you. It’s got oils and omega-threes.
SARAH
Sounds a bit fishy to me.
JANE
Yeah, you could get Salmon-ella.
CLARE
Is that on the Sturgeon General’s Warning?
DAD
Oh, very good. Did you learn that in school?
SARAH
Oh, not that same old line again!
MUM
Are you lot finished yet?
CLARE
Oh, no, we’re still casting around for more.
SARAH
Oh, reel-y?
DAD
If all the puns have a-bait-ed, I’ll dish up.
SARAH
I’m feeling rather gill-ty now, I started all this.
MUM
Don’t worry, I think we’re getting to the tail end of this one.
JANE
Oh, no, we’re not, we’re hooked.
DAD
It’s enough to make anybody whale!
CLARE
Yeah, we just keep spouting them out.
SARAH
We must have done about fifteen in a roe.
JANE
On a scale of one to ten, how do you think we’re doing?
DAD
There’s no plaice for puns like that here.
MUM
Can you pass the carrots, please, Clare?
CLARE
Aw, Mum! That’s not a pun!
MUM
You’d be singing a different tuna, if you’d made a nice dinner and everyone else would rather sit around punning than eating it.
JANE
Okay, caviar we about done now?
CLARE
Oh, cod, that was a stretch!
SARAH
We are floundering a bit.
DAD
I was going to say that! I’m absolutely gutted.
SARAH
You must be squidding me!
CLARE
I had an inkling you would say something like that.
MUM
All right, enough.
JANE
Aw, don’t be crabby.
DAD
Okay, shell we give this up now.
MUM
Yes!
CLARE
Okay.
A collective sigh of satisfaction. They eat.
SARAH
It’s a very nice dinner, Mummy.
MUM
Thank you, darling.
CLARE looks up at the audience.
CLARE
Yeah, we do that for fun.
The scene fades. The family takes the chairs offstage. CLARE moves into her own light.
CLARE
I’m trying to think of a way to connect that with a sense of purpose, to give you at least the illusion of a cohesive argument. It would not be entirely accurate to suggest that all, or even most, English families sit around thinking of clever things to say about fish.
But I think we do enjoy these “pun runs,” as we call them, because we’re English. I’ve given up making puns with Americans. They just don’t appreciate them. In the American sense of humour, puns are “lame jokes” but really, they’re tricky to pull off, especially in quick succession like that. You have to be pretty clever to make the language work on two levels. The puns aren’t funny because they’re all about fish. They’re funny because the conversation continues and has its own story, even while we’re talking about fish.
Okay, now that I’ve killed the humor by explaining it to you…on with the show.
You’ve probably noticed by now that I speak with an American accent with you, but my family speaks English at home. As in, in our house. And when I’m travelling abroad, I speak in an English accent. Because, well, forgive me for dragging politics into this, but wouldn’t you want to avoid sounding American abroad these days?
I speak in an English accent with my grandparents, because I think it makes them happier to think of me as English. I often think about my nationality in terms of how other people see me. It’s all about presentation.
I usually speak in an American accent at home…I mean. In California. In the town where I live.
Anyway, just be understood.
To CLARE’S surprise, JANE enters and shares CLARE’s narration light.
JANE
I always ask for water in restaurants and I have to repeat myself a couple of times before the waiter shouts, “oh! Water!” and runs off to get the order in. I don’t really manipulate or think about my accent. I just talk and see what comes out. I think accents are pretty indefinable. If I have one at all, I have about three. England, California, and now a bit of Oregon, since I started going to college up there.
CLARE
When I first got back from my year abroad, I went down to Southern California for my friend’s graduation. I tried to keep the English accent—partly as an experiment for my thesis, and partly because I had been speaking English with my family since I had arrived home and I wanted to try to reconcile my voice’s split personality once and for all.
It would be so nice to be consistent!
But in two minutes, I switched back to the American accent I’d spoken with for the four years I had known these people. I guess I didn’t want to reinvent myself. I didn’t want our relationships to change.
That same summer, I was doing a couple of internships in San Francisco, and I decided to speak in an English accent in the theatre. It was a career move more than an attempt to cling to my heritage. I guess I figured people would remember me. “Clare? Clare…Oh! That English girl! Yeah, let’s give her a job!” But after a while I decided that I’d have to distinguish myself some other way, because I just couldn’t hold the English accent against the need to fit in. The accent lasted about two weeks, and then I realized that I was concentrating so hard on how to speak that I couldn’t think of anything halfway decent to say.
SARAH enters and pushes into the narration light.
SARAH
I remember being the center of attention at school because I sounded different and I hated that. Even the big kids in the 5th grade came up to me at the bus stop and asked me to say something “in English.” After that I think I assimilated pretty quickly to avoid attention. I don’t know if I switched back to English when I came home. It was probably an incremental transformation that we grew used to, not a sudden change.
Over the last 10 years or so I’ve made an effort to switch back and forth, especially when Grandma and Grandad have been over to visit—to avoid my American accent being remarked upon! But I think my English accent is more natural—that’s the one I use I’m when reading to myself. I like sounding English better than American. When we come through airports, I’m much happier to hear English accents at passport control or at the baggage carousel. American voices seem loud and self-important and invasive to me.
CLARE
I try very hard not to be the stereotypical “obnoxious American,” especially when I’m abroad. In case you’ve never met one, which I doubt, the “obnoxious American” speaks in a loud, nasal voice, shouts at waiters in restaurants, refuses to wait his turn, answers his cell phone in the movie theatre, drives too fast, and doesn’t realize he’s annoying everyone else.
Once, I went to Starbucks with Jane—that’s pretty American—and we overheard this woman on her cell phone asking a friend what coffee she wanted. She shouted, “You want a decaf, light, caramel frappucino, no whip, and a dash of WHAT?”
I kid you not.
My accent is the most concrete way to distinguish between “being” English or American. On a day-to-day basis. And if my accent is pretty easily manipulated, so is my nationality, or at least the way I present my nationality. Which maybe is the same thing.
I won’t bore you with the theory, but I’ve been reading up a bit on nationalism as a concept, and it’s basically all propaganda and creative map-drawing. So nationality itself is really nothing at all. But the force of people’s loyalty to nations, or hatred of nations, and the feeling of belonging to a nation are not to be taken lightly. I mean, yes, it’s complete bullshit. But it’s the bullshit on which life and politics are based, and have been for thousands of years.
Comforting, isn’t it?
There’s a great line in Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town, when the narrator is talking about the American Civil War, and he says of two dead soldiers, “though they’d never seen more than fifty miles of it” they got it into their heads that the United States should remain one country, and they “went and died about it.”
Nationalism is pretty powerful stuff. It’s the stuff that wars are made of.
And it’s totally illogical. Why should someone in California care about something that happens in, say, Florida any more than something that happens in Mexico, for example? Just because the US national borders include Florida but not Mexico? Mexico’s closer. But Mexico is not “us.”
It’s pretty crazy.
Anyway. If politicians manipulate the idea of nation for their own purposes, why should I be surprised that I choose whether to present myself as English or American based on…convenience?
When it’s convenient for me to fit in with my classmates or collegues, I can be American. When it’s convenient to blend in with English students, I can be English. I was in a play in Manchester during my year abroad, and no one in the audience knew I was “from” California because I have a solid English accent when it suits me. But I read to myself in an American accent—and they say that the way you read in your head is your “natural” accent.
Do I manipulate my accent to suit me, or do I do it to make things easier for other people? I suppose a little of both—other people are usually much more comfortable (and less inquisitive) when I’m either English or American. And that makes me much more comfortable because I hate having to explain myself all the time.
So in any case, I can present myself as either, and people sort of know what to expect of me based on the nationality I choose. So it means something. But what? It’s half-defined: assuming that vague generalizations can be made across groups of people based on national identity—and I would argue that they can, or at least, they are—everyone knows vaguely what Americans are like, but what does it really mean to be one?
More to the point, when did I become one? And can I unbecome one?
During my year “abroad,” on the many and various occasions when I would explain my life story to people—the 30 seconds or less version, chronicling when and where I had moved—they would always listen to the whole story, and then, with enviable certainty, say either “well, you were born here, so you’re really English.”
Or, they would say, “I guess you’ve been there so long you’re an American now.”
I’m not really allowed to be both, or neither. It makes people uncomfortable. Strangers have no problem deciding what nationality I am, so why am I still so confused?
I bet you could tell me what nationality I am. I can’t think of any better way to find an answer. Soul searching doesn’t seem to be working so far.
By a show of hands, who thinks I’m English?
Who thinks I’m American?
Both?
Neither?
Okay, who didn’t vote? Yeah, I’m kind of with you guys.
I guess, legally, I’m both. I have two passports.
That was a pretty big thing for my family, getting our American citizenship. I don’t think I really understood what it meant at the time. No one really wanted to. But it was the practical thing to do. The green cards were expiring. I was 16, so I got automatic citizenship when my parents took the test and pledged their oaths. Sarah had to go through the process separately, though, because she was 18 by the time my parents got through the 435 days of waiting for a response from the INS.
SCENE SIX.
MUM, DAD, SARAH, and JANE bring on 5 chairs. They make a living room. CLARE joins them.
DAD
Okay, good. How many stars are there in our flag?
MUM
Our flag?
DAD
The American flag. I’m just reading the questions, love.
MUM
Fifty.
DAD
Right. How many states are there in the Union?
MUM
Fifty.
DAD
What color are the stars on our flag?
MUM
White.
DAD
What do the stars on the flag mean?
MUM
Fifty stars for fifty states.
DAD
How many stripes are there in the flag?
MUM
Oh, enough about the damn flag. 13 stripes, red and white, and they stand for the 13 original colonies.
DAD
Okay.
MUM
It’s too easy when you read all the questions in order. Skip around a bit.
DAD
All right. What do we call a change of the constitution?
MUM
An amendment.
DAD
Right. What date is the Day of Independence?
MUM
The 4th of July.
DAD
Independence from whom?
MUM
Great Britain.
DAD
Who elects the President of the United States?
MUM
The people.
SARAH
No, it’s the electoral college.
MUM
Oh. But the people tell them how to vote, right?
SARAH
Well, yes, but technically, they can vote however they want.
MUM
Weird. Okay, electoral college, then.
DAD
For how long do we elect the President?
MUM
See! “We” elect the President! That college one is a trick question.
CLARE
Mum, you can’t say that to the INS.
SARAH
It’s a four-year term, maximum of two terms.
DAD
Right. Who helped the pilgrims in America?
JANE
The Indians! They made them turkey meatloaf!
DAD
Come on, please be serious. They only ask you three of these questions and if you get them wrong you have to wait and take the test again.
JANE
Sorry.
DAD
What is the name of the ship that brought the Pilgrims to America?
MUM
Boeing 747.
SARAH
The Mayflower.
DAD
According to the Constitution, a person must meet certain requirements in order to be eligible to become President. Name one of these requirements.
CLARE
Male, white, Protestant, and old.
SARAH
He or she must have been born in the United States.
DAD
Where does freedom of speech come from?
MUM
The mouth.
CLARE and JANE laugh. DAD hands the paper to MUM.
DAD
Okay, fine, you read the questions.
MUM
What were the thirteen original states of the US called?
DAD
Oh, that’s the hardest one. What’s that sentence? Very Many Nice Men Came Running Down North Street, Not Needing Police Guards.
MUM
That’s gibberish.
SARAH
It’s a mnemonic device.
DAD
So: Virginia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maryland, Connecticut—running—Rode Island, Delaware, North Carolina, South Carolina—not needing—New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Georgia.
SARAH, CLARE and JANE applaud.
MUM
Very good. Why did the Pilgrims come to America?
A silence. MUM is visibly upset.
DAD
Oh, come on, love.
MUM
I just don’t see why we have to do this.
DAD
Because we either get citizenship or we have to renew the green cards. Because we’ve lived here long enough that we’re eligible to become citizens. Because it’s a lot easier for the girls to get jobs and go to college and rent houses. And we can vote for the mayor of Pleasanton, and the school board. Look, we don’t have to give up the British citizenship. It’s a no-brainer. The best of both worlds.
MUM
Yeah.
The scene suddenly changes to a bright spot on MUM.
MUM
I was looking after my mum in hospital, in England, when our numbers finally came up and the INS called us to complete the process of becoming citizens. I flew back to California and we went to San Francisco to take the oath. Cedric has two middle names and he had only put one of them on the paperwork, so when we arrived and checked in, the INS official wouldn’t let him through. Even though he had his driver’s license and everything. They had to do his paperwork again because it didn’t match his other official documents. But they wouldn’t let me wait for him, because there was nothing wrong with my paperwork.
So I had to go through the whole ceremony on my own. It was horrible.
MUM stands with her right hand on her heart.
I pledge allegiance, to the flag, of the United States of America.
And to the republic, for which it stands.
One nation, under God, indivisible
With liberty and justice for all.
The light fades on MUM.
CLARE
Now, I understand what it means. It means things have changed. It means we don’t kid ourselves anymore that we’ll move back to England. It means we’ve promised to side with America if there’s ever a war between Britain and the US.
I didn’t ever say it. I was a shoo-in. Automatic. Like the kids who were born here.
During the ceremony, I sat in the balcony and watched as my mum took the oath. Even though I was 16, I crossed my fingers behind my back.
Maybe I haven’t become an American after all.
Having two passports sure is useful, though.
JANE
American citizenship is sort of a practicality. It means we can have a say in what is going on in the country and the town where we live rather than just having to put up with it. But I don’t think we would have become citizens if we’d had to renounce British citizenship.
I remember not wanting to do it because it felt so final at the time. Maybe I thought it would mean we were different from Grandad and Grandma. I’m not sure. Daddy did explain the practicality of it though. Things like if we ever needed to have Grandma and Grandad come and live with us, we would only be able to do that if we were citizens. So I think I thought about it more as a thing we should do rather than an acknowledgement of permanent residence in California.
DAD
The government was beginning to make legal moves to deny benefits to immigrants – even legal ones. Even green cards eventually expire and have to be renewed, and even as a green card holder you can fairly arbitrarily be thrown out of the country. Like I said, it was a no-brainer.
SARAH
I don’t think it was really a conscious decision on my part at least, to deliberately apply for U.S. citizenship. Mum and Dad decided that they needed to do it, and since they began the process before I turned 18, I was automatically included. It seemed a practical thing to do, and at the time I was taking Civics in high school and was very much aware of how important voting was, so it seemed a right to apply for citizenship so we could vote. Honestly, I don’t think it’s any more than a piece of paper that gives you permanent legal status and a few extra perks like voting and standing in the short the customs queue at the airport. There’s a lot of ceremony that surrounds it, because people who are born in America are so proud of their country and being Americans. I think the palaver is sometimes more to show respect for the importance the Americans place on citizenship than to show how much the new citizen values the “honor.” Citizenship can stand for as much or as little as you want it to. Just because you have to swear allegiance to the country of citizenship doesn’t mean you have to abandon the old country. Political allegiance is one thing and cultural allegiance is another. I have a U.S. passport and I can vote, but that doesn’t mean I have to watch American Idol or go to monster-truck rallies.
If war broke out between America and England, we would have to support the U.S.—but that’s a highly unlikely possibility, even for our current president. I think at 18 I took the consequences and requirements very literally and narrowly. I needed the piece of paper, a) because everyone else in our family already had one and b) because I needed a passport. I didn’t think about what citizenship entailed for the majority of people who apply for it! It’s almost a sacred ritual, especially to the Americans, who are picky about who they let into the club and how. I had to fill out paperwork, get fingerprinted in one government agency building, go for an interview in another. There are a hundred questions the interviewer picks from—you have to know all the answers, even though you are only asked three. I guess I saw that as U.S. history and civics homework. I think the interviewer was almost treating the questions like a formality—I was young, white, English-speaking, and polite. Not suspicious or threatening—bang! Approved. I actually already had a U.S. passport, because there’s a loophole about if your parents are citizens and you apply before you’re 18 you can have one. So when he asked to see my passport I showed him both—English and American. I forgot that a normal person applying should only have one! He obviously knew about the loophole, because he just waved the U.S. one away and looked at the British passport. It was very casual.
I don’t see it as giving something up, because we have dual citizenship. We can still be English and have American citizenship—we can still drink tea and vote for President. That whole chuck-the-tea-in-the-harbour-symbol-of-monarchical-repression is so 18th-century. We can still recognize our history and heritage and ooh and aah at the Fourth of July fireworks. We’re connected to England by birth, family, and intellect, but we’re connected to America because of physical locality. I think I give my American citizenship the practical respect it deserves, but I don’t imbue it with patriotically-colored symbols of greatness and honor. Maybe that’s taking it for granted; maybe because nothing has really changed from being a British citizen, in the sense of personal rights and freedoms; maybe because I don’t like the whole “my-country’s-better-than-yours” red-white-and-blue attitude that comes with it. Let’s impeach the president and declare San Francisco an independent republic run by Nancy Pelosi! With liberty and justice for all.
The lights change and the family takes the chairs back offstage. CLARE returns to her light.
CLARE
So we became American. Citizens.
The United States a country of immigrants—no one is really from here. I guess it’s a question of drawing the line somewhere, between first-generation immigrants who consider themselves visitors to the US, and families that have lived in the country for a hundred years, two hundred years…
But what about American Indians? The only sub-category of hyphenated Americans whose label is American first and a qualifier afterwards. It’s not the same as Chinese-American, African-American, or Mexican-American. American Indian. Native American.
We have all these sub-categories, but just saying “American” doesn’t encompass all of these people. What does “American” mean just by itself? Does it mean baseball-loving, red-white-and-blue-wearing, pick-up-truck-driving, PTA-attending, barbeque-flavor? Does it mean 1940’s Norman Rockwell characters? Does it just mean… white?
Native American. Native, from the Latin word for “born.” A born American. That, I can say with certainty, I am not. I am a native Brit. Whatever that means. “Oh, so you’re really British, then. You were born here.” Britain will own me, too. What is my problem?
My problem is that neither one is completely true. If I let America own me, I’m denying my birth and my family, all the things that happened before I was born. If I let England own me, I’m denying my education and my friends. All the things that happened after I was born.
Dare I say, nature and nurture? But even that isn’t completely accurate, because I was raised by British parents. So it’s not as simple as just saying I’m English by nature and American by nurture.
I can certainly pass for American. If I have the right accent on—like something I wear—no one knows I was born in England unless I tell them. But I didn’t watch American TV shows when I was a kid. I don’t watch them now. I know about Sesame Street because it’s part of the culture, because I’ve heard people talk about it. I don’t think I’ve ever watched it.
I’ve been educated in America, which counts for a lot. I’ve been taught about the California gold rush, and how the federal government works.
I say “rahther” instead of “raather.”
I can pass for American, mostly. Maybe just a weird American, or an American who was “deprived” of TV as a child.
But I don’t know much about Oliver Cromwell and the British Civil War. I had to ask what an “MP” is—if you’re curious it’s the English version of a representative for your district in the House. It stands for…huh. What does it stand for?
You see? This is something that every English person just knows.
Member of Parliament. I had to look it up.
I can’t pass for English quite as well. My accent is from Absolutely Nowhere, England. It’s vaguely Northern, because I say “dance” instead of “dahnce”. If I try, I can throw in a bit of Yorkshire. But Nowhere, Yorkshire. It’s not an accent from…Leeds, for example. But more than the accent, I don’t have an English attitude. I don’t think the way that English people think.
In American schools, they teach you that you can do anything you set your mind to. And, come to think of it, that was always reinforced at home.
American schools encourage students to dream big, and don’t really worry about what will happen when the real world gets hold of us. I tend to agree with that approach though, even if it gives us an overinflated sense of possibilty, entitlement, even self-worth. Even if it maybe sets us up for disappointment later on. I for one, am glad I was not told at the age of 10 that I couldn’t do what I wanted when I grew up. Or even at the age of 22.
I’ve been cautioned that drama is a difficult way to make a living. But no one’s ever told me flat-out I can’t do it.
English schools are a bit more, shall we say, realistic? Down to earth? I think Eddie Izzard, a British comedian, says it best in a sketch about a career advisor coming to talk to his class, and saying “look, you’re British, so just…scale it down a bit.”
I’ve lost some of the English cultural values, my dad says. I’ve absorbed much of the American expectations about life—the sense of entitlement and opportunity.
But my parents—my British upbringing—has steadied me a bit. Starting with less, you value what you have more when you get it, and you have no sense at all that you have any form of entitlement to things.
The very idea that I may be able to make a living from Drama as a career is very un-English. I mean, I’m aware that it won’t be a walk in the park. But it can be done. So that “doubt” is itself in some ways a “loss” and in some way divides me from the English.
That confidence is one of the things that drive Brits—and the rest of the world— nuts about the Americans. Because it’s often interpreted as arrogance. And if we’re honest, it often is arrogance.
DAD enters and stands in his own light. He speaks directly to the audience.
DAD
On average, Brits are happier or more content with their lot in life, though they may grumble a lot, whereas Americans tend to suffer if they miss out on any of their personal potential—and in many ways have more angst because of this. Maybe having an English view of life and American practical benefits provides a best of both worlds: a world in which expectations are often exceeded.
One of the conundrums of parenthood anywhere, not just in the USA, is wanting more opportunities and benefits for your kids, but worrying that too much in early life leads to high expectations in adult life that may well never be met. You only have to look at Hollywood kids to see this effect in the extreme.
CLARE
I guess as we draw to a close, they’re just going to jump in and help me. We’re getting too deep into the central ideas now to keep disguising my points as scenes. By the way, if you’re still bothering to figure out “when” this is, I think we’re probably in the present now. I’m 22, just come back from a year abroad in England. Sarah has graduated from college. Jane has just finished her freshman year.
MUM enters and stands in her own light.
MUM
Don’t forget about all the English things we still do. We make traditional Christmas cake—what Americans would call fruitcake, only it’s delicious, coated in marzipan, and no one tries to pass it off the following year as a gift to someone they don’t like. We used to have tea parties with fairy cakes for birthdays when the girls were young. We played with sparklers in the back garden on the 5th of November to celebrate Guy Fawkes Day.
SARAH and JANE enter, and CLARE moves into a memory light with them. They become children, dancing and chanting the traditional rhyme.
SARAH, CLARE, JANE
Remember, remember the fifth of November,
The gunpowder, treason, and plot,
I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, ’twas his intent
To blow up the King and Parliament.
Three score barrels of powder below,
Poor old England to overthrow;
By God’s providence he was catch’d
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, make the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!
Hip hip hoorah!
CLARE, SARAH, and JANE separate and go to their own narration spotlights.
DAD
And we’ve changed a bit by being in America for so long. I don’t know if we’d ever move back or not. But I think, if we did, we could fit in again without too much effort. We’re still English. Brits who happen to live in the US.
MUM
I still miss my family, and I still miss England. But I don’t belong there anymore.
DAD
I guess it’s a cultural anchor – which resists much of the American vanity and obsession with wealth and appearance. The soul of England has much to do with collective “suffering” – we’re all in the same boat, with relatively lowered expectations—which means that folks are generally happy even without the Hawaiian vacations, Dream Home, new sports cars…
Financial security is not a big deal—unless you don’t have it. Yes, it was worth it—moving to America—without any doubt in my mind whatsoever. I would certainly do it again and I think Liz feels the same. It’s clearly becoming harder now with our parents getting older and with young nieces and nephews so far away…but we’d have much of that to deal with anyway living in the south of England, and less money available as a practical tool to help.
CLARE
When I went on my study abroad program, I automatically got travel insurance, which included, as they called it, “repatriation of remains.” So if I had died during that year, the insurance company would have paid to ship my “remains” home. I remember thinking at the time that it was pretty ironic. “Repatriation: To bring or send back a person to his or her own country or land of citizenship.”
I was repatriating myself at the beginning of my year abroad by going back to England. I know it’s awfully morbid, but I have to wonder where they would have sent my remains. Probably back to California, since that’s where the insurance was from, and where my next of kin were.
But where would I want to be buried? Would I want my eternal resting place to be in England? Or California? I don’t know, it’s far too morbid to think about.
I just wanted to mention it because I think the idea of repatriation is pretty interesting. Is it repatriation if you’re just bouncing between two of your own countries or lands of citizenships your whole life?
JANE
California isn’t home exactly—its a location. For the same reason, England isn’t home either. Home is a place that you return to—where family is. Somewhere that is familiar and comforting. College makes you feel like a nomad—always going back and forth and not really stopping in a place long enough to call it anything meaningful. Just “my dorm.”
Home is the house where my family lives. The house just happens to be in Pleasanton, California. The address isn’t what makes it home. California is merely the coordinates of where home happens to exists in time and space. Home is a feeling. But the place could be anywhere as long as it evokes that feeling.
SARAH
Home. It seems like a cheesy cop-out to say that there really isn’t an answer. But I don’t think you can avoid cheesy cop-outs when you’re talking about these crazy, ill-defined concepts like “home” and “identity”. At least saying that there isn’t an answer is better than saying “home is where the heart is.”—What? In my chest with ribs and lungs and stuff? Don’t be silly.
CLARE
In all my time in England working on this project and trying to figure it out, I still don’t really know what that word means. There’s a “home” button on my keyboard that puts you back to the beginning of a line. Where you started from.
The lights begin to fade on the family as the spot becomes brighter on CLARE.
Where did I start from? I started with “I’m English” and then told you it wasn’t true.
And it’s not. And it is. And you see, nothing’s really changed in the last hour. I told you there weren’t any answers.
But in the end, does it really matter? It’s all nationalistic make-believe anyway. I get to choose which customs line to stand in at the airport. And whichever side of the Atlantic I land on, the person who stamps my passport always tells me, “Welcome home.”
I’m English. I’m American. I’m nothing at all, and something else completely separate from both. I guess I’ll live with it.
CLARE shrugs. Her spotlight fades.
End of play.