Misperceived In America OR Camels, Leprechauns and the deputy-sheriff's wife, oh my

In that night, as part of the American marathon trip my friend Idan and I took that included seeing some thirty odd states in some two and a half months, we drove our way through Florida to get to Miami. Now, even the ‘See Florida’ campaign doesn’t include the area we were at that night. It was Florida, and yet – nothing to see. No mouse, no girls in Bikini (and sometimes without) on the beach, no space shuttles, not even elderly Jewish people who can’t figure out a voting ballot. Actually, there is probably a fairly good chance we were the first and only Jewish people in that town who didn’t rush through the town to get to Bingo night. It was November 1996.

We just got there driving straight from Atlanta the whole night. You see, we thought we came up with the genius plan of actually driving all night, checking into a motel in about 7am, get a night sleep, wake up, stroll around whatever town we were in, and get another night’s sleep for the price of one. So we were able to very Israelically-like ‘screw the system’ and get more out of it. Of course, we risked our lives by driving straight for some 14 hours throughout the night, but man – saving some $27 for a motel night was really worth it (it wasn’t that bad really – no cockroaches – even they had standards).

After the much recommended 4 hour sleep in the morning (after which, the plan didn’t look that appealing anymore, so we did this only about 5 more times that trip) and a stroll around town, we decided to do our laundry in the local Laundromat. Already, quite a foreign idea to us (we grew up where laundry came from cloth lines in the window or the yard – you know, like movies about the 30s in New York…); we walked in quite confused.

After much figuring things out and after sacrificing a couple of white socks to the pink gods, we put in another batch when a woman that seems around very early 20s with some 3 children started talking to us. Now, it’s not that I want to pre-judge, but it’s been some 8 years now, so I’ll post-judge. Feeling like walking into a movie, this woman (I want to say Charlynn here), seemed to be a Jerry Springer refuge. I could have sworn that there was a Yee-haw waiting to come out with any sentence. She was the deputy sheriff’s wife – I mean, you can’t make that up nor can it get better than that. One of her first questions to us was our religion, which I already found odd. You meet someone new and your first question is – ‘so… Muslim eyh?’ Or ‘so do you do the whole Vishnu thing?’

Anyway, my friend quickly responded we were Jewish. That triggered a response that I would recognize again in the future – a complete awe as if we just mentioned we were actually Leprechauns. In an amazing combination of a subtle and yet rude retreat she disappeared to another side of the Laundromat.

Idan and I sat waiting for the machine, watching the woman chasing what seemed to be continuously multiplying number of children. Much like Mickey Mouse in the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, each time she was able catch one child and stop him from wrecking havoc, the other two seemed to multiply and create even more chaos.

For two full load cycles, she was running around the place, passing us a few times, until she gave up on her trying, her children and her racism, sitting next to us hard of breath.”So… where are you from exactly, boys?” she asked as she was looking at her rascals running around.
“From Israel” I replied. This created a 180 degrees u-turn in her attitude. I don’t believe that in her mind there was any correlation between being Jewish and being from being Israel. At that point, her attention completely switched from her children to us.
“No kidding” she said thrilled. “Were you in the army?”
Part confused, part proud Idan said: “Yes. We were both in the army for three years”.
“So you had guns and shot A-rabs and all?” If this was a movie, it would have been too unbelievable and over-the-top.
She continued asking us questions about the army, manifesting an alarming knowledge of guns for a person who had never been in the armed forces herself.
After covering the army, she summarized it all with an enthusiastic “Wow, the army, huh?” We nodded quietly. “And when you go back to Israel will you be working not in the army?”
“That’s right”, I said.
And then, after this whole conversation, she asked a question that would in some ways define many future interactions I had in the United States. “So, do you use camels to go to work?”

Idan and I were both speechless. A first for Israelis anywhere. Idan tried to patiently explain to her for the next 15 minutes that Israel is very modern with highways, and Internet and financial markets and high-tech industry (and yet, the chosen people never mastered the Laundromat thing). But that was the equivalent of convincing her that us leprechauns were actually pink and tall.

Indeed, I witnessed different sophistication levels in different areas of the U.S. and with different people, but this experience - the disconnect in her mind between being Jewish and being from Israel, as well as her question, repeated itself in a surprising amount of times in different variations. Just the overall concept of it is enough to amaze – she did think we ‘go to work’. She didn’t ask if we work in the fields, or if we hunt Zebras in the wild. She did have the concept of some kind of Western-like work, but that we used camels to get there. And camels. Not horses, or even bicycles. Camels.

For the record – Idan tried to explain to her that both of us actually never rode a camel in our lives. Now that I think about it, it wouldn’t be so bad – probably take care of a lot of traffic problems and the west’s dependence on oil. You think maybe this is the secret of Saudi Arabia and all – using Camels instead of cars and selling all that extra oil to the west?

We eventually left the Laundromat and had some crazy / interesting story to tell back home. But that whole experience was the first in a long sequence of such encounters. In many ways, this is how many Americans – sophisticated and ‘sophisticated-challenged’ still see myself and others – camel-riding foreigners.
Riding camels to work? A few years later in Israel I ended up driving an old Subaru to my University and to work. Kind of ironic...

Naturally Blogging in America – OR, Why?

From as far back as I remember, which is weird as I’m not sure what I had to eat for lunch today, I had the impression that I would fit in in America – I felt closer to the philosophy, the liberal values, the chances, the sky (and therefore the limit). I’m not sure why – who does? And yet, I didn’t really become American by just landing in Boston. Not even close. I wasn’t exactly Israeli either - an immigrant, a foreigner; that floating existence between here and there. Locked between one world and another – just like Patrick Swayze in Ghost (only I still have a career).


That’s also the treatment I got. Unlike most Israelis, somehow when I speak English it doesn’t sound like I have marbles in my mouth. I do have an accent, but just not enough for anyone to recognize where I’m from. So I’m usually placed by Americans in that highly specific geographic region of the world – ‘the rest of the world’, or ‘not here’. In the past eight years I’ve been a Mexican, an Iraqi, a Russian, an Arab and many others - a true citizen of the world. A mild accent and not being completely white will do that to you. But thank God, or congress, my wife is a U.S. citizen and therefore I had the privilege of starting the process of becoming formally an American, what the powers call - naturalization. I don’t want to over stretch this now, but this is a process that puts the ‘tic’ in bureaucratic (one that is attached to one’s neck and sucks the blood directly and efficiently from the vein). This is a process that puts the preparation for the Apollo 11 mission to shame. Columbus reached America without a steamboat faster than this process. There’s a good chance that Haitians and Cubans who try to swim to the U.S. shore actually choose that option instead of going through this experience.


In the citizenship test, as part of the trial by fire initiation to become an American, the correct answers to the question: ‘Name some benefits of becoming an American’ are: ‘Travel with a U.S. passport’, ‘Obtaining government jobs’ and the ‘Ability to petition close family members to become U.S. citizens’. Well, I already had a passport, I never planned on ever becoming a cop or secretary of agriculture, and my mom is here a lot anyway. Conspicuously enough, voting and affecting the government is not listed as one of those benefits. Maybe this has to do with the 2000 elections – voting is not a benefit for any American.


There I was thinking: would that day of becoming formally a citizen make everything different? Would I become an average American all of a sudden? Would I start saying wrong things to my wife and buy flowers and jewelry to apologize for that? Would I feel different? Would I leave the swearing-in ceremony some 30 pounds heavier? Would I forget all geography? Or would baseball look so much better? All signs pointed to no. So the whole official process didn’t look promising – a passport wouldn’t have done it.


For years, I went through this vicious circle of hell of the formal naturalization. Fast forward (in warp speed), and finally in 2005 I became a formally naturalized U.S. citizen. But do I really feel natural here now? Is there another way to be part of it all? Do I need a secret password? Can I ever belong here? How do I get there? Can I get there from here? What’s with all the questions? And if Mickey’s a mouse and Pluto’s a dog, what is Goofy?


So why am I writing this? There were a few million other immigrants coming to the U.S. in the past few years, a few of them actually legal. Some of them not through tunnels, and a full dozen without bullets zooming over their ears by Southern Arizona self-proclaimed vigilantes. Couldn’t all they have written a blog about being in America? Why do I need the narcissistic potential attention of people peeking into my life? Well, for one, I am formally an American now, and as I don’t drive an SUV that sucks the life out of Earth itself, I need to do something to keep my natural citizen status alive. And secondly, I write this mostly for me, (considering the off-chance that anyone other than me actually ever reads this). Maybe I’ll never feel really totally natural. Maybe no person living outside the caves does. But maybe I’ll figure out if that’s possible at all.


So come with me on a magical journey across America (relax and don’t contact me about that - I don’t have any drugs!). In this journey we’ll explore the innate and learned cultural, psychological and anthropological differences between people around the world and how they compare to Americans. We will peel the layers of these differences to get closer to the core of the truth - that with all these differences, all people are the same – all people everywhere are hilariously ridiculous.