A chance to reset my attitudes about the America I thought I knew
It’s been a long time since I posted on this blog. But I’ve recently returned home after an all-too-short visit to the United States, and have been posting on Facebook, and conversing a lot with friends there, and want to post something more formal here.
So, here goes.
Context
I’d been kindly invited by the Center for Japanese Studies at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon to give a talk about my research on social and environmental change in Japan’s rural agricultural regions. Of course, I gratefully accepted. Like everyone, I had been exposed to relentless media and social media commentary, that I took it as an opportunity to have a little adventure after the talk to see Oregon, meet some people, see some of its renowned scenery and nature, and find out first hand a little about what is going on there right now. This is a summary of my impressions about some of the people and places I encountered along the way.
Border Entry
I must admit, I had been a little apprehensive about going to the US, given the political climate and my own position as a “liberal”, as soft lefty environmentalists like me are called there. Prior to going I had heard about people being detained and was a bit worried, but I really needn’t have been. I admit that being British probably helped.
I had also seen discussion among some people about not going there till Trump was out of office. I was a bit ambivalent about that, but felt - and feel more confidently now - that engagement is better than not doing so, and that I shouldn’t be afraid to be myself. I figured that there would be a mix of people in Oregon, and especially Portland, and I would not feel out of place by not being MAGA. I could easily resort to playing the dumb foreigner, but I didn’t need to, actually.
I applied for my ESTA entry permission well in advance, and handed over all my social media accounts for the authorities to inspect. I didn’t doctor any of them and it would have been instantaneously obvious to anyone that I am anti-Trump and against most if not all of his policies, and quite vocal about it. I figured that I am only exercising my right to express myself, and they would respect that. I also figured that they are only looking for people who might present a danger, and those who might overstay. The second of those is more of a problem, because it invites the potential for screening based on racial profiling.
I got the ESTA within a few hours, I think, as it was waiting in my in-box the next morning. No problems there. The university I was due to speak at offered me an honorarium, and I had to fill in what seemed like unnecessarily long tax documents so they could withhold my income tax and pay me the whole amount. But I complied with that and all seemed OK. I admire the patience of the PSU professional services staff who have to deal with all that complicated paperwork, and field so many questions from people like me who don’t understand what they need to do. When I entered the States at Portland airport I was herded to the alien passports desk, and there were two agents and no other alien passengers waiting. Portland airport is beautiful, with an all wooden roof composed of sustainable timber from local forests.
The man at immigration asked me some good questions to try and suss out whether I was genuine, such as “Who invited you?” and “What’s your talk about?” and “They’ve got an interesting immigration situation in Japan, haven’t they?” I got through that quickly, and I was through to collect my bag and get an Uber to my hotel. It was probably the fastest I had been through an immigration and customs hall at any time in the last few years.
Portland airport is beautiful, with its wooden roof and interiors sourced from local sustainable timber.
Portland
Onto Portland. I arrived at my hotel at around 8pm, so I went straight out to look for something to eat and drink, and explore the area, which is sort of the city centre. I stopped to ask a waiter who was closing up his restaurant for some advice about where to go, and he told me about a “Dive-bar” nearby, which on this side of the Atlantic would indicate it was a terrible place to have a drink, but which meant to me that it might be an interesting first experience.
It was! There were all kinds of people there, including some black leather clad guys who’d rocked up on Harley Davidsons, a group of Latinos at the entrance with some large and friendly dogs, and a bartender who sounded like he was from Northern Ireland, of all places! I’m not sure how he felt about serving an obviously southern Englishman, but he was friendly and gave me some tips about the local brews. I love American pale ales, but I chose the pilsner as that looked like it would quench my thirst. They played great music, including Pink Floyd and The Beatles! All around the walls were aspects of Americana, which gave the place a wonderful vibe. I was already feeling settled, and excited.
I have to admit, I noticed quickly that there are quite a few homeless people in Portland. Some of them were clearly in the depths of psychological and emotional torment and were on strong drugs - narcotics. Fentanyl takers were obvious from their trancelike faces, hunched over zombie-like demeanour, or their tendency to lie on the bare concrete in weird shoulder-dislocating positions. I saw two male-female homeless couples, one pushing a shopping trolley and another pulling a bicycle cart. The former couple seemed scared and not used to homelessness; perhaps they were recently dispossessed. While the other couple appeared more inured, and were drunk and having a loud argument on a street corner about something or other. There was a police car parked nearby with two officers, who were keeping watch, and it looked to me that it was more out of concern than suspicion.
I explored the city a bit more on a free day, ate at a typical diner I’d been recommended by the visitor centre, and met a science and environment journalist who wanted to interview me. I was really touched to see a couple of cafes, and the diner, give out free food to homeless people while I was there. The diner sat me next to one, who smelled quite bad (and I have a poor sense of smell). When it came to the end of his meal they even faked him paying by handing him a bill and receipt, though I was fairly sure he didn’t pay anything, in order to preserve his dignity I think.
I also explored Powell’s Books, which claims to be the largest independent bookshop in the world. It was HUGE, and I bought too many books; one about whales, another about forests (both set in the Pacific northwest), and another as a present. I had a long chat with one of the staff, and he seemed really proud to work there, and explained that Portland people are famous for reading a lot, which was gratifying to hear. They are also proud of selling new books at second hand prices, and I did think they were good value. So if you are ever in Portland, check out Powell’s Books!
Powell’s books takes up three floors of a whole city block.
My Talk
So, I delivered my talk at PSU on my second full day there, and I was so pleased at everything about it. The Center for Japanese Studies did a fantastic job of advertising it beforehand, and there were 140 people in the audience! It’s quite rare to get that many at a Japanese studies academic talk in a regional city in the UK. You’d be lucky to get 30 or 40. I’ve organised talks where there’s been one person!
I had been schooled beforehand about who was likely to be there: graduate and undergraduate students (a few needing to attend for credits), academics, and Portland residents, some of whom have links as benefactors to the university and the Japanese studies programme. Apparently Portland has a sizeable number of people with an interest in Japan, either as Japanese Americans themselves, businesspeople, and so on. The Japanese studies programme depends on these people to keep going and invite speakers; though most speakers are from the US and Canada, they do invite people from further afield occasionally. So I felt especially honoured.
The talk went well, and there were lots of very perceptive questions, and a lot of interest in the relationship between ageing and depopulation and the changing ecology and environment in rural agricultural Japan. They are a very knowledgeable crowd! Some were possibly Earth systems scientists, and I was on shaky ground interacting with them on climate and biodiversity change!! It lasted 90 minutes or so, and at the end there was a small crowd of people wanting to ask more. I tried to talk with everyone, but dinner was waiting.
We went to a nearby Japanese restaurant called Murata, run by a Japanese migrant who I presume is named Murata-san, his Japanese wife, with some Japanese American students as waiters. One was studying, or had studied, at PSU I think. The restaurant has been there for around 50 years I hear, and you can tell that it was a popular and well-established local restaurant from the quality of the food. Our waiter was super friendly (maybe a bit too much, though I know that’s an American thing). He really knows his fish, using Japanese and English names interchangeably, and describing the preparation in great detail. It’s rare to find a young man outside of - or even in - Japan that can do that so professionally. Murata-san must be a good teacher!
I really enjoyed the dinner. There were I think eight of us, academics and donors, and I told them I was about to go exploring Oregon, so I got lots of great recommendations of places to go and see, which prompted some interesting discussions about Oregon history, culture, nature, and so on, and I was touched by their generosity about my talk. They seemed to appreciate it and we talked a lot about the economic, social, ecological impacts of population change all over the world; bear attacks in Japan and what was the reason for it; and more. It was a great evening and the whole event is a memory I will treasure.
Exploring Oregon
My journalist friend told me that the coastal area of Oregon is more MAGA, and the inland elevated and drier - sort of desert - area is more liberal, though an academic friend told me the opposite! I suppose that indicates to me that America may not be as geographically divided as outsiders might assume. I chose the former, mainly because I wanted to see the redwoods, and go camping, as I am a seaside lad at heart, originally from Sussex here in the UK (I often ask myself why I settled in Sheffield!).
Next day I got my car, loaded up, and set off. The people I encountered over the next days were lovely, and I had some decent conversations about the US and UK, Europe etc. All of them kind, generous listeners and could laugh at themselves and America. I had a great discussion with a waitress in a restaurant in Depoe Bay about beer and the Pacific northwest. She recommended I go out whale watching with the local boat, which I did. She also told me that she’d heard about the Japanese dock which had taken more than a year to float over from Misawa to very close to where we were, but didn’t know what happened to it. While we were chatting we could see frequent whale spouts from the restaurant window, but when I eventually got out there, we only glimpsed a couple of grey whales’ backs and a few spouts behind waves. It was quite a choppy grey day, and the swell was quite high.
So, all in all I met some lovely warm people, which to be honest after my other encounters with Americans in their native habitat was not unexpected. My one concern was the homeless situation in Portland, which shook me a little. I experienced a lot of kindness, no overbearing authoritarian officials, and no heated MAGA discussions.
My only real MAGA moment was when I had to check in to a motel because of heavy rain and deliberately subjected myself to two hours of Fox News TV, to experience it first hand. That was revealing, as I saw first hand how much current affairs is manipulated. I saw how opinions Fow News likes are presented as facts, then facts it doesn't like presented as "he said she said" or worse, relentless attacks on and ridiculing of the Democrats and their supporters, presentation of Trump as the natural choice, and window-dressing of his failures as successes and victories. No doubt there are other channels that do similar in reverse, but I was quite surprised at how one-sided Fox News is, and its stark, simplistic black and white representations of complex and nuanced issues.
Oh, and I met two old geezers in big wide hats in a huge dirty noisy pickup who helped me a lot with refilling the tank on my car in a remote filling station where the staff seemed to be absent, and as the self-service system there is different from what I’m used to. I was getting a bit worried because the woman in the shop / cafe next door (there were only a handful of buildings in the “town”) had said she couldn’t help me as she had only moved there two weeks ago, which left me wondering “Why would anyone move here?”). And there was a very helpful woman in the Jedediah Smith Redwoods state park visitor centre who understood my time constraints and what I wanted to see, and gave me a detailed route to walk which included everything. And many more wonderful people besides.
Oh, and the quality of the roads was superb, considering what we have in the UK. Smooth surfaces, proper clear painting, good signage and danger warnings etc, and no jams at all, except in Portland.
What did I learn?
America is bigger than Trump, and its people show that every day in their kindness, charm, and warmth. Media are so focused on personality politics and exaggerated polarised simplistic presentations of people and issues these days. In the UK it is so hard to get a handle on what is really going on in America, and to understand what it is actually like there.
I realised that Trump and MAGA are largely media constructed phenomena. Because I was a visitor, absorbed at first in delivering my talk, and then later camping while travelling, I didn’t have much of a chance to consumer American media. Insread I spent my time in my own present time and space. Although I didn’t realise it at the time, or at least until I had to check into a motel, it was refreshing not to hear his distinctive drone, or see his orange-clad face. I elt better for it, to be sure.
I hope you got this far, because the main thing I came away with is that it is important to engage, and that a smile, an upbeat demeanour, some intelligent and respectful discussion, and a good shake of the hand, go a very long way to holding us all together in the face of some very difficult and frightening challenges. But I respect those that choose not to go there, for their own reasons. I’m lucky. I am a white British man with a modest academic reputation. Others are not so blessed.
I loved my short visit there, and the opportunity that PSU gave me to engage, more so than I had expected, and partly because it gave me a much neeeded chance for a reset in my own attitudes.