From the Outside Looking In

Friends at school in Peru <3

During our class discussion today, my mind flashed back to memories in which I experienced the thoughts of foreigners regarding the United States. Most of you probably don't know this, but I lived in Peru last year for 11 months. It was there where I experienced firsthand the many different views that foreigners have of our country.  First off, Peruvians tend to think that we as Americans like to show off.  Many of them think that our involvement in so many of the wars around the world is unnecessary and frivolous. They are also somewhat intimidated by our strong military and economic power, which unfortunately causes many of the Peruvians to place themselves below Americans regarding self worth. During my time at school in Peru, there were several incidents in which my peers would make jokes about the "grandness" of America. For example, almost every time that a plane flew over my school, someone would say something like, "Oh my god! The US government is coming to get Madeleine and bring her back home!" Everyone would laugh, but it is obvious that these jokes were based off of some belief or stereotype about our country.

US Embassy (Lima, Peru)

The US Embassy in Lima, Peru was also a hot topic of discussion. Everyone, adults included, would make jokes about the size of the it. I'm not going to lie, it is rather large. To say that it's big would be an understatement. The US embassy covers an area of about 2 blocks. Lets make a quick comparison. The Chilean embassy in Lima is a small office building that kind of resembles a house. As you can probably guess, the US embassy is kept under very high security, and my best friend in Peru (Andrea Martin) says that, "They [the US embassy] check people like every Peruvian is carrying a bomb."

I think that many Americans don't realize the affect that our country has on the world. Even though we are number 1 and we should be proud of that, I think that we need to take into consideration the feelings and thoughts of other countries as well. I think it is interesting that we look at ourselves as the "good guy" while maybe in other countries we are thought of as the "try hards", "over achievers" or even the "bad guy". How do you think that our actions as a country make the rest of the world feel?