Customs Checkpoint

STOPPPPPPP!!!!!

All journeys have a starting point. As your official customs officers, we have the unfortunate task of telling you that you must return to the first post in August to properly read the blog. Got a problem? Talk to Ugresic, Kincaid, Hamid, or any of the many authors we have explored this semester about their frustrations with airports and customs regulations. Don't forget to keep your passport handy!

until next time...

Dear Blog-o-sphere,

Thanks for joining us on our ICS intellectual developmental journey. There have been moments of extreme frustration, epiphanies of epic proportions and conclusions and connections that we hope will be helpful for all our loyal followers. ICS has been more demanding on us than any of our other classes. It has required us to not only grasp theoretical concepts and contextualize them in the framework of this discipline, but also it has required us to share our personal experience and pull in information from all other areas of study.

Our frustrations in ICS 125 have been rewarded by ICS 200S. We have opened our minds to many different ways of envisioning and discussing both the world we live in and the world we wish to live in. We have been exposed to optimism and pessimism about the flow of goods and ideas throughout the world and have never been pressured to pick one world view. At times it has felt like we are on a a sea-saw constantly oscillating between different perspectives: east/west, optimistic/pessimistc, north/south, us/them, verbal/non-verbal, etc...

But ultimately, we are grateful for the opportunity we have been given to explore the world as well as our own belief systems. What ICS has succeeded in doing is making us so uncomfortable that we are forced to learn and try to find comfort through this process.

We have appreicated this extended time with the Quaker Rock and now wish to pass it on to the next class of ICS 200S students.


Ciao! Au revoir & Arrivederci!

Spitty (Haley Spitz) and Chaz (Charlie DePietro)

I see no Changez, I wake up in the morning and ask myself..

Found this interview with Mohsin Hamid while browsing the internet trying to find out how to pronounce Changez's name properly. While I think the class was able to understand many of the points rasied by Hamid, he explains the ending of the book, the way that it is received in different cultures and countries based on their interactions with terrorism, and the "empty gaps of the American perspective" which is deliberately left vague.

I love that the last thing we read for this class ended so ambiguously and forced each of us to look within ourselves to determine how we perceive the actions of the Pakistani...Also makes me wonder: is this book "a chilling thriller" or is that fabricated by an American perspective?

I also can't talk about this character without immediately thinking of this.

there's no place like home

"The Reluctant Fundamentalist" was a great story to end on. Not only was it a quick read, but also it was really interesting. Changez, who comes all the way from Pakistan to attend one of the most prestigious American Universities and takes a job with one of the top consulting firms in New York City, struggles with imposed identity. Since he stepped foot in America he felt like he had to compromise his own personal identity just to fit in. He was bombarded with pressures from all aspects of his life. Erica was his symbol of America, as she pranced around in her Mickey Mouse t-shirt, she represented what he couldn’t ever have, or be.

We see a distinctive transformation occur gradually. The first physical sign is the long beard. The mental transformation began before he left for Buenos Aires. It seemed like he had already made up his mind that he was done with it all and it was finally time to return home where he could be at ease and be himself. Then, he met Juan-Bautista (who was one of my favorite characters in the book). For me, Juan Bautista was like the voice of reason, you know, that little guy that stands on your shoulder and tells you the right thing to do (and Erica was like the little devilish figure, drawing him back to old habits and trying to make him keep trying to be American).

I think this story has a lot to say about identity and how we perceive ourselves. What Changez went through was a lot like mine and Chaz’ abroad experiences. We both struggled to fit in. We tried to alter our clothing to seem more authentic and we adjusted our accents to sound more local, but when it came down to it, we were both just American students, studying abroad. For Changez, no matter how hard he tried, he was bound to return home to the places he belonged.

So what does this say for Charlie and me? Was there any value in our European travels? Were our efforts of cultural acceptance futile? I think not! I think our experiences taught us a lot about ourselves and gave us the opportunity to see what it was like to be one of them (or at least try). I can only speak for myself, but I think my experience abroad made me proud of my identity. As much as I wanted to fit in, I did not hope to compromise my own identity to do so. And yes, I sighed a big breath of relief when stepped foot back in American and again felt like I was an “us” again. There is definitely something to be said for the comforting feeling of being home.

I guess Dorthy did know what she was talking about....

the day Jim became Marcus

We’ve talked about identity quite a bit, but today something really weird happened. Jim told us that his real name is Marcus. WHATT?? Why would you have people call you Jim if your name is Marcus. Well, Jim (Marcus) explained that his middle name (Jim) came first on his American passport, and so that’s how his named appears on ACES. He said that it has just been easier to go by Jim.


This kind of changed my perception of how important a person’s name is to their identity. Whether he was called Jim or Marcus wasn’t really all that big of a difference, but it got me thinking. What if my name wasn’t Haley? What if Charlie’s name wasn’t Charlie. Would our personalities be different? Would we act differently? Do we identify ourselves based on the name that we are given?


This also made me think about when I was abroad and my Italian professor couldn’t pronounce my name. The H gave him such trouble. It was slightly amusing to hear him struggle each day. Ahh-Lee. He would call me. It was silly. But it was interesting in a way. The hard H of my name was something that so clearly marked me as American and made me wonder about Jim. Did going by Jim make him feel more American or did it make him feel like he was an outsider?


Also, while I’m on the topic of identity and abroad, since Chaz went on a whole long schpeel about his murce (man purse) and how it made him feel so in the French circle, I should probably tell you about my attempt to fit in while I was in Florence. I thought that the only way I was ever going to look, act and feel like a local was if I wore a leather jacket and a scarf. So, I set off on the journey to find la giacca di pelle perfetta. I searched long and hard, until I stumbled upon Massimo. I tried on probably every jacket in the store. It had to be perfect. It had to make me look Italian. Two hours later, I immerged from the store clad in leather, kissing Massimo on the left then the right cheek, “Ciao Ciao!” I said to him. And as I strolled through the leather market back to my apartment, I finally felt like I was one of them. I waved to the venders as I normally did, but this time they responded to me in Italian. I guess there are a lot of things that contribute to a person’s identity. For the Fiorentinas, the leather jacket meant I was one of them.


I guess for Marcus, going by Jim makes him one of us (Americans).

Tin-Tin in Iraq in ICS

We discussed "Tintin en Irak" in my French class today, it reminded me of ICS, because I think that a lot of what we talk about is the way that the accounts of the same event differ across Eastern and Western culture. This is a comic about war in Iraq from French perspective. How a story changes when it is told in a foreign language and a less traditional media…

The story was published illegally and can only be found online. You can read it in French here. How do YOU think this version of the events in Iraq compares to the way that Americans construct the war?

being a tourist

I just finished reading Kincaid’s “A Small Place” and I have to say, I feel a bit uneasy. It reminded me of a vacation I took with my family on a cruise a few summers ago….. CLICK HERE while you read about my Kicaid - like experience...

We just docked in the St. Maarten. The sun is shining bright and there is not a cloud in the sky. Our Monday Morning itinerary gave us a brief description of the island’s history. But I was most excited for the full day excursion of snorkeling we had booked months ago. All the travel books said that we would be missing out if we didn’t take the opportunity to go visit this beautiful reef. We got off the ship, and we were immediately directed over to the staging ground for the group tours. After checking in with the group leader, we made our way to one of those big conversion van taxis. The engine roared and we were on our way. The roads were windy, run down and most likely would not pass code back home, but hey, it all seemed to add to that rustic feeling; the feeling of being away, so far and distant from home that it was a nice change of pace. I took the window seat so that I could have a clear view of the scenery. The first thing we passed was a school. There were some children playing outside. The game was unrecognizable, but there was a ball, and lots of jumping and screaming. They looked like they were enjoying themselves. It all seemed so perfect. Next we passed a shanty looking strip; our taxi driver informed us that it was the center of town. I took note of some of the stores. There was a small grocery store, a bar, and a liquor store among them. Everything seemed so simple and pleasant. It was not built up like back home; there were not strip malls, or big shopping centers.

We arrived at a beach. It was beautiful. It was dotted with chairs and umbrellas. In the distance I saw a tiki bar. I could see the bar tender pouring a frozen drink into a coconut cup. It was glorious, exactly what I had been looking forward to: some much needed rest and relaxation. I looked around and saw that the beach was populated by other white, American tourists like myself. My family and I spent the day swimming and snorkeling through the crystal clear water, gawking over the colorful fish and coral. It was a breath taking experience.


Before heading back to the ship, we walked through the straw market, admiring the wonderful hand woven purses, the vibrant hand painted pictures of sun setting over the tranquil beach. My mom walked over to a man at a booth in the corner to take a closer look at a piece of art that caught her eye. After bargaining with him for a minute or so, she walked back over to me, satisfied with her purchase. I walked down the next aisle, and shiny silver ring caught my attention. It was different, tropical and I knew I had to have it. I too entered into negotiations with the woman behind the table and returned to my mother satisfied.

Later that evening as we set sail for the next island, I began to think about Kincaid. Her description of the tourist really got me thinking. Did the women behind the counter really think I was an ugly thing, an ugly, empty thing, a stupid thing, a piece of rubbish (17). Did the women behind the counter really think I was strange, did she really laugh at me behind closed doors, did she think I had bad manners did she dislike the way I spoke (17)?

Come to think of it, I did feel a bit uneasy as I pulled my wallet out of my purse to buy the ring. The look in the women’s eyes was envious. Come to think of it, maybe Kincaid’s analysis was right. Upon first read, I felt she was a bit outlandish and attacking with her accusations against me, the tourist, but as I thought more and more about it, it became much clearer. I had no intention of doing it, but it was clear that I had done exactly what she had described, exactly what I had hoped I wouldn’t do. I had become the ugly, empty thing. As I walked through the aisles of the straw market, I realize now how absent minded I was. It was as if my mind was in another place; I was in vacation mode. I was an intruder on her land. I had come to her home to vacation and get away. But for the woman behind the counter, as Kinkaid describes, every native everywhere lives a life of overwhelming and crushing banality and boredom and desperation and depression, and it was clear that she hated ME for it.

So, I became sad and frustrated. I began thinking about the moment in the market when I felt uneasy and why I felt that way. It was unintentional, but it was natural. I felt the division between me and her, us and them. I was a tourist in her home. I was different. My skin color, my language, my clothing. I was the outsider. Berraby would say that I was only an outsider because that’s how I perceived myself, but I think it was more than that. There was a clear division. Our exchange confirmed that no matter how hard I tried to avoid this distinction, the boundaries were clear and not imagined.

But, Kincaid’s rant was attacking and accusing, and made me feel like a bad person. Was I really empty and ugly? Ultimately I came to my own conclusion: this whole us and them thing, it does exist, it is natural. We use our similarities and differences to interact with one another. The lady in the straw market may have hated me, but she was also grateful that I was an outsider, and that I had come to her island, her straw market and her stand and bought her silver ring. Maybe having outsiders isn’t such a bad thing.