America could use a clean slate

International travel inevitably brings them: those moments when it becomes so obvious how interconnected our world is that it's almost surreal. I've had these moments in nearly every country I've visited. In Spain it was the night that I found myself in an Irish pub in Madrid, conversing with an Irishman in Spanish (because we had a hard time understanding each other's accents in English) when "Born in the U.S.A." came screeching through the speakers. In Egypt it was the Britney Spears playing on taxi radios, and in Greece meeting a St. Louis Blues fan on an interisland ferry.

But what I witnessed last weekend goes to the top of the list of surreal international experiences. We had a long weekend, so a group of us volunteers decided to travel to Iquique, a small coastal city north of Antofagasta. Its casino, beaches and huge duty-free zone called the Sofri makes Iquique a popular vacation spot for the locals. The Sofri, with its 1,500 import stores, adds an international flair to Iquique that is absent in Antofagasta.

One evening, our group wandered over to a free concert being held on the beach. On the small stage was a hip-hop group performing mostly in Spanish. One of the singers was wearing an American flag tied around his neck as a cape. On the flag was a huge, painted-on dollar sign. We arrived just in time to see the end of their set, at which point the singer untied his flag/cape, ranted for a bit about American consumerism and influence in particular and globalization in general, then torched the flag in front of the crowd of young Chileans.

First, I want to emphasize that this is not normal Chilean behavior. Although President Bush is not very popular here, most Chileans are still able to clearly distinguish the U.S. government from the American people and our ideals. But, thanks primarily to our actions in Iraq, the high levels of anti-Bush hostility occasionally transmute into more dangerous anti-American sentiments.

Though I have yet to feel unsafe here in Chile because I'm an American, I do at times feel uncomfortable and self-conscious about the fact that President Bush has created an image of Americans as arrogant, unintelligent and selfish. I feel cheated. Rather than having a clean slate on which to form my own impressions, the reputation of President Bush precedes me wherever I go, and the first thing I have to do when meeting someone is to undo the damage he has already done.

However, one last detail about that scene on the beach gives me hope. As our flag lay smoldering on the sand of Iquique, the young Chileans, dressed in Tommy Hilfiger and sporting Yankees baseball caps, finished their Coca-Colas and Lays potato chips and resumed listening to a type of music invented and perfected by black inner-city kids in the States. There is time to salvage this relationship, but I am afraid we don't even care that it is in trouble.