All Across America

[nibot]

It is abundantly clear, if not yesterday then today, that there is not just one America. I hear that there are two Americas, a Democrat (with a big "D") one and a Republican (with a big "R") one, and they sporadically ask "Whose country is this?" when they're talking about what they want this country to become. I've heard, too, of the "Culture Wars," described in the media like some Roman holiday, complete with gladiators and an inevitable shakespearean reënactment. But there cannot be just two Americas. The Parties lump together the strangest groups, who would never have each other over for dinner, and who would not nod to each other on the street. So there could be three or four Americas, perhaps, and the real answer, doubtlessly, is that there are 294,673,820 Americas, and many more that have been and yet more that will be. Yet somehow all these Americas get lumped together into two, and these two lumps grow further and further apart.

It occurred to me this afternoon that what this country needs is a giant room-to-room. A "progressive," a "mixer," a get-to-know-each-other event on a national scale. This is what we have when we all move into a dorm together, when we don't know anything about each other yet, knowing we're going to have to live together, we want to make friends.

It's a common thing for a student at an American university to spend a few months or a year living in a foreign country and pretty much everyone agrees that it's an incredibly worthwhile thing. What about a domestic exchange program? Spend a semester in Kentucky or Alaska or Iowa. Work on a farm, or in a hospital. Find out for yourself what makes Kansas tick, why farm subsidies are a big deal, why the blue states don't see what the big problem with same-sex marriage is, why red states think trickle-down economics is a good idea. Expand Americorps to be the "Domestic PeaceCorps" that it was supposed to be. And so forth. We could have a program like AFS that arranges home-stay exchanges for high school students within the United States. Spend a year in high school in a different state. Or in a different part of your own state. Exchange between Los Angeles and the Central Valley, between San Francisco and South California. Call it 'homeland exchange' and the neocons will hop on the bandwagen like it was their own.

Comments

[rebbyribs.livejournal.com]

I love your idea. I feel like I got some of it by growing up in a rural area, and then going to college and grad school in different areas. But I would've loved to have had a year away from my family in high school and had a chance to live with different people.

[hukuma.livejournal.com]

The cynicist in me will point out that college attendance in the big-R america is significantly lower than in the big-D one. And that most of my friends who've spent time living in red states developed not so much an understanding but rather a desire to leave.

[nibot.livejournal.com]

Yes.. that's why I think it would be better in high school. I think university environments would be much less diverse than high school homestays, but would probably be worthwhile, if even for other reasons. I even think it would be nifty if undergrads in UC could spend a term on another campus.

[janviere.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'd be one of the ones who developed a desire to leave, even though my stay was short.

Doing this in high school sounds terrible. Don't you remember how cruel high schoolers are?

[nibot.livejournal.com]

Between my family and shamster's, we hosted exchange students for three out of our four years in high school, and it was a great experience.

[janviere.livejournal.com]

Exchange students from other countries are exotic and cool. Different thing.

[fanlain.livejournal.com]

I grew up in an area that acts like a red state in a rural, low income, all white area (with a couple blacks, but it was clearly treated as an all white area). I left that to go to small town, rural university that had no francishes but had ppl who came from middle class backgrounds, not like what I came from. And then I left that to fly to California with nothing - no job, no money, no one I knew here, nothing. And suddenly I found myself making lots of money and living a middle class life and learning the spoils and pains of white collar life.

I can tell you that there are a lot of false perceptions about "the other side" in all areas of American life, and i honestly doubt a giant room-to-room is the solution. I think ppl who move around and mix at any age is the solution b/c it offers something more tangible than a theory about the way others live and are like.

I have long thought that social workers should do this too, in order to understand what it is like to live in a poor to low income environment and understand the challenges and stress that low income familes go through.

I also believe that low income families like I came from (ok so it was a blue state - PA - but it acts like a red state in the area I came from) would do well with learning what white collar life is really like and also what it's like to go university.

[util.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of exchange programs within the U.S. However, I think it's just the people who already agree with you and not the ones whom you hope to reach who would take advantage of such programs.

[nibot.livejournal.com]

But people are still meeting -- it doesn't matter so much where. Of course, total immersion is likely to be a more total experience, but having a visitor from afar is an educational experience too.

[chris-acheson.livejournal.com]

I like this idea.

I think a large part of the problem lies with the media and the political pundits. What John Stewart said on CNN's Crossfire makes a lot of sense. People like Bill O'Reilly, Al Franken, and Ann Coultier really are hurting America by relentlessly bashing their opponents. They drive us apart, and keep us from finding common ground with each other.

[tjernobyl.livejournal.com]

When it comes down to it, one of the main reasons I favoured a Kerry victory was that they'd all shut up for a little while.

[roxymartini.livejournal.com]

ooh Ooh OOOh. i want to go to texas. (=

i noticed that democratic voters are mostly along the coastline. maybe we just have special water. hrm.

[janviere.livejournal.com]

http://house.style.net/usa.jpg

[roxymartini.livejournal.com]

why are you awake and not online? silly girl.

[heike.livejournal.com]

I did my exchange program after college. I never understood the South. All I learned was I didn't want to live there.

What I did notice about North Carolina was that it has a large influx of people from the North and the population isn't mixing. There is still a very much 'Us versus Them' mentatlity of people who consider themselves locals compared to those who moved here 10-15 years ago. Fo one side the War of Northern Agression is still a current topic, and the town of Cary stands for 'Containment Area for Rich Yuppies' (i.e. Northerners). This seems to be changing more with younger people who go to college, but not in rural NC.

I don't think this is a problem of understanding economics and how it affects various people, what the biggest divide in this country is today is religion.

[shamster.livejournal.com]

Two years of mandatory community service work outside of one's state somewhere in the USofA. Think of it as a peaceful draft that takes effect once one graduates highschool or reaches the age of 18.

[kari-marie.livejournal.com]

There is a college exchange program, where you pay tuition for the school you are enrolled in and attend another university somewhere else in the US for a year. I always thought that sounded neat.

coming from a republican...

[ragnus.livejournal.com]

It occurred to me, after reading this post, that I've never really lived anywhere that's not ultra-liberal. What if I'm taking some things for granted? What if not everyone is as tolerant as people in berkeley? It's easy to see the flaws of liberal idealogy when you're surrounded by it everyday, but what if the other end of the spectrum is even more repulsive?

I really like your idea of exchange program across the nation.