Alaskan Bulgarian

Citizenship/Nationality In Vivo

Since we have a few comments under "It's a Generational Thing" that should be addressed, it was an astonshing coincidence that I chanced upon a returned Bulgarian on the bus home from Sofia this Sunday.

Her name was Maggie and she lives in Chicago with her parents and brother. She works at a department store and has learned to speak nigh perfect English since her family moved to America four or five years ago. Jeff, another volunteer, and I were sharing a bus on the way home to Bulgaria's frozen, isolated Northeast and we met her in that time honored tradition of being American. Even for Americans, Jeff and I have loud voices, and we were talking about a subject we both love: how much our lovable students can piss us off from time to time. The bus was almost empty and we assumed that no one else on it spoke English.

We'd reached a pause when a girl in her early twenties, turned around in her seat, looked at us, and asked "What are you guy's doing here?" I looked at Jeff, then back at the girl, and replied "huh?"

"I mean, you're Americans, right?" she followed. "What are you doing in Bulgaria?"

I assumed, at this point, that she was a Bulgarian who could speak English. So I lunged right into my usual explanation routine: "Well, we're teachers. I teach at a language school in Silistra. I'm from Alaska, in America, and we're just here helping out."

"But why'd you come to Bulgaria?" She responded. "I mean, it's terrible here. My family left and I can't imagine why anyone else would want to come here if they didn't have to."

After that came the standard Peace Corps volunteers speech. We asked where her family lived and she said they'd moved to Chicago, and that she was here on a two week vacation and would be getting back as soon as possible. The people she'd be staying with live in Silistra. After getting our histories all settled, we moved quickly into deeper conversation. She asked us about Bulgarians and our students in particular, and brought up the whole sterotyping/racism issue.

Maggie, of course, considers herself a Bulgarian even though she has no immediate plans on returning for a good length of time. And, she said, she had just recently started feeling American. She told us that when she started working at the department store, she didn't speak a lick of English and got by with nodding and grunts. As her language skills improved, she made friends, began taking ESL classes, and is now a properly integrated part of American society.

Her parents still don't speak English very well, but her brother has, apparently, gone quickly over the edge. "He doesn't call himself a Bulgarian much anymore," she told us. He goes to a university on the east coast, has no Bulgarian friends, and apparently speaks English without an accent. There wasn't a whole lot of pride in her voice about these developments. Her brother was succeeding, but she seemed to be worrying about the cultural cost.

"There's a lot about America I don't like," she told us. "I think the food is terrible. I hate American food." As well-adapted Peace Corps volunteers, Jeff and I have ready-made arguments against this little fumble. "Well, everybody hates McDonalds. But it offers fast food, and you can always count on the same mediocre stuff. It'll never make you sick, probably."

"And don't you like Chinese food?" Jeff jumped in. "And Italian food? What about pies? Don't you like pies? Apple? Cherry?"

Maggie collapsed under this assault and acknowledged that food in America is pretty good. Her problem, she told us, was with the fat and preservatives. She told us that she gained fifteen pounds in her first months in America and had only recently lost them again. We agreed that there were probably too many preservatives in things, but that's better than getting sick on half the food you eat.

After ten minutes of chat about American food, Jeff made an observation. "See. You've lived in America for four years and you're already American. You're not even a citizen yet but you could go to any part of the world, speak English, tell people you live in America, and be American. As far as anyone is concerned, you're one of us."

Maggie nodded, smiled graciously, and agreed that this was probably true. "But," Jeff went on. "I could live my whole life in Bulgaria. I could marry a Bulgarian, get a Bulgarian passport, pay Bulgarian taxes, and I would still never be a Bulgarian."

"Yes," she said. "That's true."

I brought up the thing I'd written, and we talked about the Turks in Bulgaria, who Maggie said should probably be considered Bulgarian, too. John Atanasoff, she told us, was a Bulgarian, end of discussion.

We went on like that for a while, alternately complaining about and praising both America and Bulgaria. Maggie had the fewest good things to say about Bulgaria.

Near the end of the trip, the conversation in a lull, I fell asleep and only woke up in Silistra. Maggie and I parted ways and we each went to our corners of the city.

But what we had talked about stuck well. She considered herself an American, and Jeff and I were more than willing to go along with that idea, probably because, as "chap" pointed out in the comments, we now share a common index of ideas and ideals. We were able to talk on the same level about things, and Jeff and I never felt a need to pull our punches about Bulgaria, as we would have with native Bulgarians. Maggie had American complaints and American dreams. She also had traces of Bulgarian culture obviously present, but that's more than acceptable in America.

Bulgaria isn't an irretrievably racist, prejudiced, or nationalistic country, but it is--at times--too exclusive. It often welcomes the money and prestige and praise of the outside world, but sees the outside world as a means to its own ends, not as collective it's willing to embrace. Of course, I write this next to kids playing Counter-Strike on American computers. Kids who will go home and watch MTV and a French feed of Cartoon Network. Something will click eventually, I'm sure, and I hope it doesn't click at the expense of all Bulgarian culture and language, but a general turn toward a universal acceptance of outside nationalities seems inevitable. One day Bulgarians will learn to accept the Turks, Greeks, Macedonians, etc. that live here as Bulgarians and not the "others," but it may be a long while off.

Posted by Rob at February 24, 2004 08:24 PM