My American Dream

When you talk about the United States people think about a powerful country, you think about Trump, you think about a land of opportunities, you think about expensive colleges, you think about easy schools, you think about guns allowed, you think about big malls and movie theatres, you think about different ideas and you think about different cultures which live all together.

When you talk about America or United States people immediately think about the stereotypes born from the American movies like High School Musical or Mean Girls. Actually for us, the United States are basically divided in New york and California. In Italy when you talk about Americans people will think about junk food like fries, cheeseburgers and donuts served in huge portions with huge unhealthy drinks. If they think about houses they will think about big houses with a swimming pool, a big kitchen with a high table and tall chairs and family pictures everywhere. When they talk about high school’s life, they immediately think about huge high schools with lockers, a football field and a drama club, a school where cheerleaders are mean and footballers are the most popular and good looking kids and where you seat in the cafeteria will determine what people are going to think about you. When Italians think about teenagers’ everyday life, they think about huge parties everyday with punch and alcohol everywhere, and they think about Prom. Exactly, the dream for each Italian girl is a date, and a gorgeous dress for this special occasion.

Another stereotype is that relationships among American teenagers are similar to Italians, probably because lot of movies which show lot of drama.

This is what I honestly thought when I chose the United States for my exchange program. When I first came here I immediately understood that almost everything I thought was not right. First of all here people do not hug each other to say “hi”, girls do not kiss on the cheek twice when they see their friends and boys do not shake their hands with their boy friends or kiss on the cheek girls. This has been the first “weird” think I found out, and it has not been easy to get used to.

When I walked in Oak Hill I realized that it was not like High School Musical, nobody was singing. I found out that, luckily, here cheerleaders are not mean, they are nice, and your seat in the cafeteria does not determine if you are a nerd, an emo, a druggy, or a popular kid.

The school was not exactly huge as it was in my thoughts, but it still had a football field. The think that I found was true is here Americans have time for sports because the school is a lot easier than Italian school where you do not have time to do anything except studying all day long (I swear I am not kidding).

Talking about the drama, there is probably more drama than there is in Italy, and especially is different. Here teenagers talk about their lessons, their cars and their jobs, we have more drama about parties and cheating.  Here relationships are for real forever, and for real everyone is dating and everyone know everything about everyone, even if I am not sure I like it.

Houses are more similar to the stereotypes we have in Italy, even if here in Maine they are not divided in blocks, but neighbors have been knowing each other forever.

Houses do not have a swimming pool but they are still big and with a big kitchen and family pictures everywhere.

American teenagers’ life is very different from what I imagined, they do not look older than they are, they do not have huge parties, their life is very different from Italian teenagers’ life, in fact we probably are more similar to the life you see in movies. But they play football, and they eat a lot of junk food. In fact when I left Italy my grandmother told me that she was worried for me because I was going to gained weight because I was not ready for eating unhealthy food. Like she said, in America there are huge portions of junk food, drinks and everything else.

And as last stereotype that I found that it is true is America as land of jobs. When I came here I saw jobs everywhere especially jobs for young people, in fact in Italy we do not have enough jobs for all teenagers.

Despite everything since I have been here I started knowing how nice people are here, how luckily I am to have had the possibility to start again, to let people know how really I am, without been judged for my past, I have been luckily for the amazing family who is hosting me, lot of my friends do not have a family who treat you like a daughter, and a host sister who helps you every time you are sad, and do not want to see you been sad because of guys. I would have chose this life again, even if I cannot go to parties like I did in Italy, I like going to the movie theater and to the mall with my friends and especially since I have been here I realized how much I am proud of my country, and how much I like talking about Italy and tell people that Italian sandwiches, fettuccine Alfredo, Italian sausages are not Italian and pizza is very different, and I miss it so so so much!

Photo by Thomas Hawk on Foter.com / CC BY-NC