Tuesday, September 30, 2008

It takes a second to wreck it/ It takes time to build


I got this little bit of fun with photoshop in an email today. And being in Italy, reading about the collapse of the US economy from abroad has been really surreal. More than just surreal, it's extremely sad.

It's literally everywhere - the main story on all the news programs here, the cover story in every paper. It's hard to ignore (not that I'm trying to), and lately it's got me thinking about my years in school learning about America's promise as the Land of Opportunity from all my social studies and US Politics textbooks. I guess I always felt like I was given a little extra insight into what all that means because after school was done, and when I finished all my studying, at home I'd hear stories from my dad who came from Ecuador and my mom's parents who came from Italy about how America fulfilled that promise. At the end of the day, I was the beneficiary of their American Dream. Their hard work, their sacrifices, their struggles, and their successes gave me the strongest foundation, put me through college, and taught me the most important values in life - family first and success through hard work.

So to see that same economy and that same country that's done so much for and given so much to my family - to see it failing in a way that makes it easily comparable to the pre-Great Depression era - it's just staggering, really.

I'm loving being in Italy, and I'm loving every new twist and turn here in Bologna - but interestingly enough it's made me even more proud of where I come from. So although there's not much other than desperation coming out of the news story about America these days, I hope the country gets back on track so it becomes more like the home I remember growing up in.

2 comments:

nicole aka gidget said...

Thanks, GC, it's good to hear some encouraging/nostalgic words on the subject.

Anonymous said...

I am sure it will get back on track, history is repetition but patience is required. You have a very nice blog.

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