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Yes, I'm American. How Did You Guess?
by Guy Trebay-The New York Times, Sunday, October 21, 2001
Reprinted with permission.

What is an American? Both common sense and the census make clear that there is no single answer. But there may be a way to say what an American looks like, and it probably starts with the shoes.

Footwear is "a dead giveaway," Kathy Sudeikis, vice president of the American Society of Travel Agents, said. "There are other, more obvious things," Ms. Sudeikis added, "like Georgetown jerseys and Yankees caps." But Nikes are to the American abroad as sandals worn with socks are to the German tourist, as national indicator more foolproof than any passport.

In the weeks since Sept. 11, the United States has urged the closing of foreign schools in Muslim nations, bolstered security in Europe and Asia, warned its citizens living in the Middle East to limit their movements and cautioned all Americans abroad to keep a low profile.

"The American people need to be alert," Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, said in early October, days after the State Department warned Americans abroad that "obvious symbols of American capitalism" might be singled out for attack in the month to come.

The question that presented itself was: What does an obvious symbol of American capitalism look like, sound like, and more importantly, wear?

"For some reason, Americans abroad tend to look like they've taken the Boy Scout 'Be Prepared' motto to heart," Stacey D'Erasmo, a novelist, said after her return from a two-week trip through Umbria in Italy. "A lot of it is cliched," Ms. D'Erasmo went on, "but you see Americans with the water bottle, the hiking shoes, the sunglasses and the fanny pack that makes them look like Miss Jane Hathaway from 'The Beverly Hillbillies,' while most women in Rome are wearing three-inch heels and a push-up bra to work."

The old saw counseling travelers to adopt the local coloration has rarely seemed more sensible. And in a startling bit of news for a beleaguered $582 billion travel industry, many seem undeterred from going abroad. A survey commissioned in early October by the Travel Industry of America found that nearly 70 percent of travelers who had booked before the Sept. 11 attacks had not changed their plans. An informal survey of local travel agents this week suggests that local incidents of bioterrorism have not automatically resulted in a barrage of canceled travel plans.

"We still have people traveling all over," Jean Furukawa, a consultant at Tzell Travel, a privately owned Manhattan agency with $300 million in annual billings, said. "The only advice we might give them is basically, if you are going to a country you have any second thoughts about, just don't be loud, boisterous and pushy, watch your language and don't use profanities."

Don't, to paraphrase the State Department warnings, become a caricature of an ugly American. To that end, say travel advisers, Americans abroad might consider abandoning such other sartorial giveaways as logo T-shirts, baseball caps, Air Jordans, black Reeboks and fanny packs. Prudence also discourages the flaunting of The International Herald Tribune and, for the matter, cans of Diet Coke (or Coke Light as it is called in Europe).

As an American-born partner in C&M Media, a public relations company that represents many European luxury firms, Angela Mariani is particularly sensitive to the subtleties of social and cultural difference. "I lived through the Persian Gulf war unhappiness with Americans in Italy," Ms. Mariani said, "when you'd see protesters in the Piazza Navona with signs saying, 'Americans, we will get you.' I do think that, to a certain extent, the way one is spotted as an American is through aesthetics."

The aesthetics aren't limited to clothes. Italians, for instance, Ms. Mariani said, tend not to eat while walking down the street. "They are more dressed up in general," she said. "Women rarely walk alone. Even teens, to be really general, are a little more formal" than the average academic-year-abroad student wearing sweatpants and a Hoyas sweatshirt.

Moreover, Americans, Ms. D'Erasmo said, "seem to displace many more cubic feet of air than anyone else around us or that we need. We're used to taking up room," she said, "and we do."

This becomes particularly conspicuous of course, in Old World locales where, as Ms. D'Erasmo said, "it's little streets and little tables and little rooms, and Americans can seem Brobdingnagian."

In truth the ways that people employ public space define them as precisely as a Planet Hollywood T-shirt would, according to the anthropologist Edward T. Hall. In his lifelong study of the cultural perceptions of space, known as "proxemic theory." Mr. Hall, 87, has aimed to establish that "space is a basic system of communication and status, like a language in which the way you approach another person describes who you are."

Cultural expectations about space vary widely, of course. In the United States, people stand four to seven feet apart when talking. In most of Europe, studies show, that distance is cut in half. "You can't change everything about yourself, and try to blend in in Japan," Carolyn Snyder, a spokeswoman for Maupintour of Lawrence, Kan., said. But, she added, you can alter the way you behave and dress.

"I'm certainly leaving behind my 'Surfer's Supplies, Ocean City New Jersey T-shirt' when I travel," Ed Hewitt, a writer for the Independent Traveler, said. In a recent column for the online travel advisory www.Independenttraveler.com, Mr Hewitt counseled travelers to dress "quietly" or "anonymously." His aim, he said was to cajole American travelers away from their isolationist ways. Although the column was written before Sept. 11, recent events have served to sharpen the wisdom of his advice.