Nowhere Nationalism

It is American to choose. It is American to make informed decisions. And it is American to be an independent thinker. Or so I am reminded by a certain news channel, propelling its patriotic spirit in star-spangled style. But why stop at the news media, in honor of July 4th, nationalism is being touted with extra pomp by virtually everyone this week: car dealerships, furniture stores, even clothing outlets are urging individuals to spend in the name of freedom. Rather than being isolated ideals then, choice, information and independence--the red, white and blue of American psyche, perhaps?--seem to be necessary ingredients in order to produce what may be the ultimate symbol of American nationalism, consumption.

Which brings me to a question I've always wanted to tackle...am I a nationalist? I am actually far from being a legitimate one though on occasion I certainly (and guiltily) crave the connection, reflecting the sort of 'neurosis' that the scholar Benedict Anderson depicts in his discussion of imagined communities: "nationalism is the pathology of modern developmental history, as inescapable as 'neurosis' in an individual with the same ambiguities attaching to it...and largely incurable." The mutated strain of nationalism that I'm plagued with, then, is especially incurable, primarily because it promises to be an unresolved, lifelong sickness.

My symptoms are the most severe when I undergo a procedure I repeat almost biannually: bleary-eyed, nauseous and sluggish, I shuffle through a serpentine line at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, struggling to regain feeling in my legs after a 13-hour flight from Osaka, Japan. Fellow travelers and I are brusquely herded to the appropriate counter—marked with a neon sign that screams, "Visitor" and snapped at if we step out of place. More often than not, getting to the end of the cue means speaking to a gruff-voiced officer who raises his eyebrows at my Indian passport, embossed with a stamp of Japanese permanent residency and an American visa.

On many an occasion, attempting to explain my fragmented background has nearly led me to miss my connecting flight, and it is at times like these I most desperately wish I had a simple answer to "where are you from?" I yearn to be yoked to a single nation, rather than claiming lukewarm allegiances to a handful.

Despite being born in Kobe, I was shuttled to my parents' home country of India when I was approximately 40 days old. Since that trip, my family and I took at least 15 more, deliberate but futile efforts on my parents' part for my younger sister and I to cement a formidable relationship with a nation we would only vacation in. If nationalism is, in fact, about being recognized and being understood and if language is the principle mechanism through which this process of recognition can take place, I would certainly be unable to feel that visceral connection to India—or anywhere else, for that matter.

Up until I started elementary school at an Anglican establishment in Kobe, I spoke a combination of Gujarati and Japanese, awkward and abrasive to a stranger, but pure comfort to me. Gujarati was eventually demoted for British English, and then its twangy counterpart when I switched over to the American international school,promising because of its ability to guarantee admission into a university in the U.S.

Because of my incessant exposure to the international school system, I was increasingly isolated from the Japanese community at large, further contributing to my gaijin or "foreigner" status. It doesn't help that Japan's inconsequential minority community hardly has a place in shaping its political identity in the first place. Besides the Chinese, who make up 0.4% of the nation's population, 98.5% of the country is ethnically Japanese, leaving me and my family in the company of 0.7% "other" nationals.

Discouraged by the lack of national identity and voice I found in both India and Japan, my attention is now turned to the US, where a few years of hard work promises to grant practically anybody the right to (superficially, at least) participate in the patriotic rhetoric of "we, the people".

I'll watch the fireworks next Friday, not quite sure of what to make of "independence" on a Manhattan rooftop, clutching a chilled brew in one fist and what I hope will be a warm hand in the other. Rather than naively hoping to feel an instantaneous connection, however, I am slowly accepting that I'm just adding another nation to the ever-growing list of places I will eventually feel estranged from, further fueling my desire to belong.