Thoughts for the Hometown Newspaper

This week I was contacted by my hometown newspaper, the Green Valley News and Sun. They wanted to write an article about the scholarship I won, and since I'm from the area they asked me for a few paragraphs about my experiences and ideas I think are worth sharing. It's a difficult task. How does one write about their travels and ideas without being pretentious, naive, or just boring? In the midst of final exams here at Boğaziçi University, I wrote this down:

I always wanted to travel, but I could never afford it. In high school I worked hard so that I could get a scholarship for college, and when I accomplished that it opened a lot of doors for international experiences that I’ve tried to take advantage of.

When I left Rio Rico High School for Arizona State University, I certainly didn’t imagine I’d be teaching in China or doing research in Turkey. But traveling has been an extremely important part of my education, an element of my personal development that I think everyone—Americans in particular—should integrate.

I think it’s a legitimate criticism that many Americans do not seek a genuine understanding of the rest of the world. As such I feel a particular responsibility to represent my country positively, which can be challenging. When American society or politics comes up in conversation with foreigners, I try to explain what I can and defend what I feel I should. Nevertheless, one can learn many truths about their home by looking at it from the outside, and it’s a view I recommend.

One such eye-opening experience was attending my Turkish class last summer alongside an Iraqi refugee. He lost much of his family in the Iraq War. He had been a doctoral student learning chemistry in Baghdad, but now he was running a failing photography business in Istanbul—he hoped improving his Turkish could turn things around. There was no animosity between us, which is a testament to my classmate’s character, but the disparity in our paths to the same place was enormously humbling for me.

My travel in East Asia was also highly rewarding. China and Singapore are countries that have achieved great success with political systems and cultural temperaments very different from ours. I think these differences produce a knee-jerk uneasiness for many people, but I believe someone who spends some time there will be impressed. My students and my friends were intelligent, hard-working, and caring individuals. Almost everyone had real optimism about their future, as they probably should. Plus as a tourism destination, I don’t think China can be beaten.

Regardless of where one goes, I think traveling gives perspective. You leave your home, and it’s completely the same as before you left. You arrive in a new country that takes no notice of your existence. That combination makes you independent and free, but also lonely and vulnerable. For me nothing captures how small the world has become like crossing the globe in a day. And nothing has made me appreciate history as much as staying at a hostel on a thousand year old road in Suzhou, China, or sitting on the steps of the “New Mosque” in Istanbul, Turkey, which is a century older than my country.

For high school students in Santa Cruz County, I would only emphasize that many opportunities are available to them, and that coming from a small town or a rural area is not a limitation. If anything in the smaller pond it’s much easier to be the big fish. Also, just by virtue of living in the United States, a student has access to so many scholarships, loans, and grants that can make their lives more adventurous. If you have passion and a plan, the opportunities come to you.