The Michigan Review

Letter to a Host-Mom

by Tom Jolliffe

Greetings from the United States. Those golden-molten days of Spain come to me now and again in the sun’s touch and a swallow of beer, and for a moment I forget that I am here in our infant nation. Perhaps you wear your Michigan oven mitt now, preparing your paella or sausage soup! That you could cook for me now, Mati. On my shelf I see barbaric conditions that make me weep for your kitchen. Every day I eat candy bars.

You ask what happens here. Our nation’s president is an infant, too. In his recent testimony, he tried to explain away his earlier lies by saying it all depends on what “is” means. He lies without shame, yet his adult supporters are millions. They say “But he is human! And look what he did for me!” Now standards flee, and that which we called “character” is just some noise. So it is we have another chapter written by the guiltless society.

The University has been in session for one month now, and everything is as I remember it. In our loose-fitting jeans we cover ground purposefully, getting to our part-time job after the Calculus class that follows the student group meeting. New students walk eight together looking for night-time diversion, while other new people compete to earn the friendship of folks living in large houses near campus. (They say it is terribly disappointing not to be selected by those people whom you liked so much.) Our American football team is not so disappointing, but it does resemble the fallible squads from two, three, and four years ago. Everybody here says that the championship season last year was something to behold, a once-in-fifty-years sort of thing. Well. Good thing my sister tape-recorded every game. By the way, I never told you that our University mascot is the Wolverine. This small bear used to live throughout the northern regions, but I guess now they all moved to Canada.

It remains summer in Seville, surely. The youth spend nights in the plazas, singing and drinking, and talking, talking, talking. I recall congregating out-of-doors and the vital, glimmering scores of youngsters along the River Guadalquivir. And that electric Spanish moon! What that moon has seen makes one shiver! Roman, Islamic, and Catholic civilizations left fingerprints for all posterity on the Spanish aspect. Arab tiles mingle with Gothic buttresses right there downtown, right there by McDonald’s. The Spanish face is two millenniums in the making. But the fact that you can tell an American from one-hundred yards in Europe has nothing to do with physiognomy. It is rather personality, gait, volume, and posture that give us away. Whatever the locale, we feel at home; we are confident if mistaken; assertive if confused; curious if lost. Like you Spanish, we are proud. I bristled when you showed me how to peel my orange.

As you know, bristling is a peculiar habit abroad for American students. Touchy about certain issues, we suspect biases and prejudices in innocuous conversation. Words like “race,” “gender,” and “lifestyle” figure heavily in campus polemics; our University urges us to be particularly sensitive to these issues. The problem, Mati, is that we are so eager to admonish frank and earnest speech. When a Spaniard asked if there are many black Americans, the nonsensical American reply was, “Well, a normal amount!” Such is the narrow product of what is called the Politically Correct movement.

I don’t eat oranges much, and microwaveable burritos and tomato soup have replaced your delectable standards. You know, people ask me if I ate a lot of burritos over there;, Mati, how can you refrain from smiling when they are confusing the cuisines of two different continents! Anyway, as you can guess, I live in a house now on my own. Well, I do have seven roommates, but not one of those guys has done my laundry or even ironed it. You really spoiled me, you know.

Last week saw the annual Study Abroad Fair, where those of us who had been in Spain tried to encourage all students able to spend a year elsewhere to do so. The Fair had information about programs in Chile, France, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Czechoslovakia, among many other locations. You could say that the sun does not set on the Michigan empire, as our university has programs in every corner of the world. Inquiring students asked if grades transfer and how they can sign up. The person who asked "Do you have to live with a family?" deserved the dirty look I gave them. It is exciting to think about these kids making plans to live abroad for a semester or two. At the same time, it makes me jealous. You see their fresh faces knowing that soon enough that they will be assailed with a thousand impressions of a new society. They will miss their homes and think forever about their friends and families, but also will be walking about mouth agape, taking in their new situation, wherever that may be.

Well the prospect of graduating is making some seniors nervous, Mati. We are wondering where summer will find us. Will our job pertain to our studies? Have we studied hard enough for our favored post-graduate program to accept us? Will prospective employers appreciate our prior experience and our outfit? To alleviate these worries we get together with friends and consume beer after beer after beer. The other night I passed out on somebody’s car.

Mati, I need to stop here. You told me to “be good” when I got home, so I guess that means doing my homework.
Here's to a fair autumn, and that you have health!

One kiss,
Thomas
MR

This article was published in the 7 October 1998 edition of The Michigan Review (Volume 17, Number 2).
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