Holding Our Breath
On Travel, Perception, and a Nation Living on the Edge By Theodora Filis Americans aren’t clueless or indifferent right now. We are in a constant fight-or-flight mode—waiting for something to break or finally change. I’ve seen how we appear. I know what we carry. And I don’t think the world yet realizes just how close to the edge we are. Having traveled across Europe for more than twenty years, I’ve often encountered the familiar stereotype of the “stupid American”—a shorthand used to describe tourists who are loud, entitled, incurious, or dismissive of the cultures they visit. At times, I admit, I slipped into the local language when Americans were nearby, not out of shame but out of discomfort. Too often, I watched fellow travelers treat ancient places as backdrops rather than living histories, measuring their value by convenience or entertainment rather than by attention and respect. For a long time, I thought this behavior was just ignorance or arrogance. But over the years, I’ve r...
