Last week, I introduced myself, a bit about my background and introduced you to Developing America. This week I want to explain more about the vision statement of Developing America:
“Developing America is a multimedia non-profit dedicated to documenting the transformative experience of going abroad for US Millennials and building a like-minded community of people dedicated to honing a more globally relevant identity as an ever-developing nation.”
This statement is built on a few basic premises.
The first premise is that going abroad changes you, whether you are abroad for a week, a month, a year, or longer. It certainly changed me! Every time I went abroad and returned, I found myself a different person—a little bit humbler, a little bit wiser, and also a little bit more lost as to how I fit into society back in the US. It took me a long time to see that other people who went abroad were going through exactly the same challenges!
The next premise is that it hasn’t been fully fleshed out exactly how the waves of young US citizens now going abroad are effecting our sense of citizenship and national identity. And I do mean waves. While it is actually a very controversial question exactly how many US citizens go abroad (and who are they and where they go)—and one we will delve into later—the US State Department reports over 120 million valid passports circulating in the US up from 7 million at the end of the Cold War.
“Developing America is a multimedia non-profit dedicated to documenting the transformative experience of going abroad for US Millennials and building a like-minded community of people dedicated to honing a more globally relevant identity as an ever-developing nation.”
This statement is built on a few basic premises.
The first premise is that going abroad changes you, whether you are abroad for a week, a month, a year, or longer. It certainly changed me! Every time I went abroad and returned, I found myself a different person—a little bit humbler, a little bit wiser, and also a little bit more lost as to how I fit into society back in the US. It took me a long time to see that other people who went abroad were going through exactly the same challenges!
The next premise is that it hasn’t been fully fleshed out exactly how the waves of young US citizens now going abroad are effecting our sense of citizenship and national identity. And I do mean waves. While it is actually a very controversial question exactly how many US citizens go abroad (and who are they and where they go)—and one we will delve into later—the US State Department reports over 120 million valid passports circulating in the US up from 7 million at the end of the Cold War.
The final premise is that the US is still a developing country--a work in progress as many like to say. While there have been many realizations I have had abroad, at the top of the list is that the US isn’t perfect. In fact, there are a lot of areas where other countries and societies around the world have figured out how to do things quite a bit better than the US! While I have gained a greater appreciation of the freedoms that exist in the US, I have also learned to put the problems of the US into perspective and how they can and should be fixed. This subject also needs to be unpacked, and I hope to do just that!
When I was in college, I was lucky enough to study abroad in Europe and all across North America. Because of these experiences, I have spent most of my career in international education, and one statistic I therefore find very interesting is the number of US students who study abroad each year. The Institute for International Education shows an increase of over 300% in US students studying abroad over the last two decades. While it is surely still only a privileged minority who can receive both a college education and do so abroad at the same time, I am hopeful and excited for the future when these more globally-minded people are able to influence society as they get older.
When I was in college, I was lucky enough to study abroad in Europe and all across North America. Because of these experiences, I have spent most of my career in international education, and one statistic I therefore find very interesting is the number of US students who study abroad each year. The Institute for International Education shows an increase of over 300% in US students studying abroad over the last two decades. While it is surely still only a privileged minority who can receive both a college education and do so abroad at the same time, I am hopeful and excited for the future when these more globally-minded people are able to influence society as they get older.
However, the experiences abroad that have influenced me most have not been the ones in college. When I graduated, I left the "developed" world to teach English in Interior China because, "I wanted to see how the rest of the world lived." After this dramatic change in culture, I thought I could never be taken off-guard again while traveling, but it was actually coming back to the US that gave me the worse culture shock of my life. I had little idea what to do with this new-found awareness of the world and how to fit back into US society. It took me several years before I finally decided to move abroad again, this time to Central America where I've spent the last two summers volunteering in mostly rural communities.
| It was the heart-wrenching stories I was told from people in Central America and elsewhere that compelled me to move to DC. I felt I had a responsibility to do something because I was more aware. It is these same stories that have compelled me to start Developing America. I want to listen to other people's stories and hear what experiences have shaped their own perspectives, their own direction, and their own drive. I hope people will be willing to share them! |  Making tortillas in El Salvador! |
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