Showing the Flag

I paid my first visit to an embassy today.  (I've been to consulates in New York, but never an embassy.)  It was...interesting.

Some weeks ago a pair of polite "cultural affairs officers" at the US embassy emailed me, and said that they had been reviewing the projects of current Fulbrighters, and found my research topic "fascinating" and would love to get together and have coffee and hear about it.  I thought this was odd, but agreed (after checking with the Fulbright commission and LinkedIn that they indeed were who they said they were).  After some back and forth, and delays due to people having the flu and then being maybe possibly on furlough and then not again, we had our meeting today.  So I paid my first visit to the US embassy in Madrid, a compound of singular ugliness in this mostly gracious city, and had a (I must admit very nice) cafe con leche con hielo in the embassy cafeteria.  I would have much preferred to have both the coffee and the meeting in the Starbucks literally across the street from the embassy, but they seemed anxious to show me their offices, and introduce me to people, and explain what they do.  Within cultural affairs they have a "grants and education" division, and a social media division, and a few other things I can't remember, all set up in gray carpeted cubicles that look like something out of Dilbert, although the officers I met with each had their own office, with walls that went all the way to the ceiling and windows (they're on a high floor) that looked out over a courtyard that would have been prettier had it not been pouring rain, and also had it not been being used as a parking lot.

Long story short, after politely asking about my research and listening to me blither for a while, they said that they were looking for speakers to talk about various aspects of US-Spanish relations in history and culture, to various groups, including high school students, and also universities, adults, etc. and would I be interested in doing some speaking engagements to talk about my research.  Since blithering about research is pretty much what all PhD students do at the drop of a hat anyway, and since I certainly have no objection to talking about it, I said yes.  But I might have felt better about saying yes if I hadn't spent the morning before my appointment reading about how the CIA financed the Paris Review and the whole sordid history of the Congress for Cultural Freedom.  I don't particularly plan to censor what I'm going to say (and I doubt anything I say about stuff from between fifty and a hundred years ago is controversial), but I still feel like Edward Said and James Baldwin would disapprove.  Sorry, guys.


All in all, I was somewhat caught out by the request, since I'd been on edge since the unusual process of entering the embassy, which first involves going through a metal detector and then surrendering all electronic devices (including phones, which worried me), and then going inside and surrendering your passport to a Marine behind a counter fitted with bulletproof glass in exchange for a visitor id tag, and then being met by whoever the person is who invited you.  I'd been warned to bring my passport, though I wasn't happy about giving it up, but no one said about giving up my phone.  (When you get called for Federal jury duty at home at least they tell you in advance not to bring phones.  Taking it with no warning is spooky.)  When we headed down to the cafeteria from the cultural affairs floor I had a moment of panic wondering why we were going down the back way, via what looked like a very inelegant service elevator, thinking.  What's happening here?  I've seen the preview for Rendition.  How long before people at home miss me and call the ACLU?  Turned out to be a false alarm.  Given the incredible amount of money involved, the US embassy just has rather shabby corridors.  They should smarten them up to avoid scaring people though.

I must say that I think the cultural affairs officers in general are somewhat aware of the problem, as they were all almost pathetically eager to be welcoming.  Along with the reminder to bring my passport I received at least three sheepish apologies for the necessity of bringing it in the email (this in a country where you have to show a passport to get into public archives if you don't have a DNI), and a further apology for the extensive security.  I was greeted with "welcome home" when we got out of the elevator (past the Marine who had taken my passport) and the first thing my first guide said to me was "we represent you...and we in the cultural division especially represent you, since you are a researcher."  What I wanted to say was "no you do NOT represent me."  What I should have said (had I been clever enough) was "I like to think I represent myself adequately."  What I did instead was smile non-committally and say something like "mmmhmmm."

In any case, they clearly wanted to represent me.  And it's not really the fault of the cultural affairs officers that at the moment the entire US embassy in Spain is stuck in a situation that can be best summed up by Beatrice's lines from Much Ado About Nothing: They are "neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well.  But...civil.  Seville as an Orange, and something of that jealous complexion."  I truly believe that they see their job as guarding (and representing) wandering Americans.  The problem is it's a bit like entering a pool to be greeted by a lifeguard with a rather prominent dorsal fin and teeth, who says "sorry, I have to keep swimming forwards all the time, it's a medical condition, but don't worry, I'm here to rescue you if anything happens."

It's a truism of course that you only feel like a member of your own country when you go abroad.  (Or perhaps your own region, since Americans feel American abroad.  But Europeans, for all that they say the EU is a fiction, start calling themselves "European" damn quick when they're in the US or Asia.)  So perhaps the US embassy really does perform the magical trick of being "just like home" in that as soon as I entered it I felt completely tense and out of place, rather than feeling like coming home, since most of the time at home I don't feel particularly American.  Or perhaps my paranoid reaction really is the most American thing ever, since Europeans are oddly and sweetly (and sometimes idiotically) trusting of governments which are not particularly less malevolent or stupid than the US government on average.  Again, it's a truism that Europeans trust government but somehow invariably hate and distrust the (bad) politicians who are perverting what should be a good thing, while Americans hate and distrust government, but on the whole think that their particular elected representatives are decent people attempting to battle a hopelessly corrupt system.  (This comes down to much the same thing in the end, of course, but the emphasis is placed differently.)  So I suppose that my reaction to the very pleasant staff of the embassy who apologized for the security measures (including the Securitas people who cheerfully explained the procedure to me, and the friendly Marine who gave me directions), and to the embassy in general, is very American.  Perhaps a Spaniard visiting her embassy in DC would think all the security measures were necessary but would fulminate about the stupid and obnoxious bureaucrats who staff her embassy?  Oh dear, it's very embarrassing to discover that you're a cliché.  (Once again, the words of Salvador Espriu come to mind: car sóc també molt covard i salvatge/i estimo a més amb un desesperat dolor/aquesta meva pobra, bruta, trista, dissortada patria.  ("For I too am very cowardly and savage/and I love with hopeless sadness/this poor, sad, brutish, unlucky homeland of mine."))

In any case, such were my minor adventures in diplomacy today.  It will be interesting to do some speaking engagements if the embassy staff can line some up, and may help me to think out a general introduction for my dissertation (which it still lacks), as the introduction should be the sort of thing the general public can easily digest.

In an odd coincidence, I went to yoga after going to the embassy, and was startled to hear the teacher speaking (quite good) English to a beginning student next to me, who was obviously American.  Having spent time in the embassy switching to Spanish with Spanish staff there, and generally feeling that I wanted to be back in Madrid, I of course had an overwhelming desire to speak to the new yoga student in English and welcome him to the studio, and to Madrid, and chat with a compatriot.  So I may just be contrary-minded.

Will keep you all posted about any speaking engagements.  It would be nice if I got to meet some high school students.