An American in Paris or How I Bought A Murse

During my time in Paris last year, I experienced a sense of US and THEM. It is interesting to me how much the way that I dressed determined the way that I was perceived and how I was able to enact a high degree of personal agency in changing which line of the US/THEM I found myself standing in.

Upon my arrival, I stuck out like a sore thumb. As you can see from this picture, I was pretty American looking: with my backwards hat, fleece vest, baggy clothes, and overly enthusiastic facial expressions. I expected and initially embraced my American-ness; however, it started to impede me improving my French and making French friends. The longer I was there the more I wanted to practice my French and see if I was fluent. Most Parisians, seeing that I looked American, spoke to me in English. I finally broke down and asked my host family why they thought I looked so American. The answer: my clothes.

My clothes had been keeping me outside of the group of US and made me a THEM, just like the other “human kinds” Berreby explores in his chapter Understanding the Tribal Mind. Parisians would make initial judgments when they looked at me and they would label me as a THEM. Someone who couldn’t speak the language, who didn’t understand the culture: an outsider. I knew it was time for a wardrobe make-over. I had to become a THEM, no matter what.

It was a struggle to try on my first pair of skinny jeans (both literally and figuratively) but I noticed a change in the way that people approached me when I traded in my GAP blue jeans for my H & M black ones. There were less sideways glances and noses in the air when I got on the metro or when I walked into my classes. Next I traded my bulky backpack for a Longchamp briefcase (affectionately nicknamed the “murse”) and lastly I abandoned my Northface fleeces for a more mature black military-ish peacoat. By my last few days in Paris, I had completely transformed (my long hair also fit in with the bohemian teenagers I became friends with). I felt Parisian and I felt like a member of the group of “US”, fully embraced by other French people: no dirty looks or mocking American accents. It felt great to belong again.

Then I experienced a reverse culture shock upon my return to Duke in January. I came back to all of my American friends, some who stayed in Durham and others who were abroad as well, and I noticed that I looked like a THEM again. My transformation was ill-received: how could I wear my skinny jeans and v-neck t-shirts amongst a fraternity of pastel polos and khaki shorts? Instead of adjusting myself like I had in Paris, I explained to my friends that this is how I dressed, that my time in France was important and that I liked feeling European. The feeling of being a THEM faded and I was welcomed back into the US. “The feelings that you belong is something that comes and goes” (Berreby 214) and it might have meant that my “murse” didn’t belong, but just as I have been an US before I left for France, I still was when I returned. I took control of the US-THEM code, just as Berreby says that each individual has the power to do, and I was able to maintain an US feeling even though I might have looked like a THEM (and I still might). These groupings of US/THEM can be artificially created and the differences that the mind (and the eye) sees may not be as much as a reality as we think on first glance.