This will be quite a long post, just been having a lot of feelings about this issue lately and needed a place to vent.

Hey all, I'm an American who has been living in Spain for two years teaching English. It's mostly been a lovely experience. I am currently living in Madrid and have really enjoyed it here. However, I feel quite uncomfortable in my identity as an American in Europe, as I know many others have felt.

I want to start off with the disclaimer that I understand how certain groups (especially those from African and/or Muslim countries) face a disgusting amount of discrimination and racism in Europe, and I am not trying to say in any way that I suffer that type of discrimination. Also, I am not the type of American that's super "patriotic" or thinks that my country is better than all others, as some seem to think about all of us. I realize that being American, I am born with a lot of privileges. Basically, I really don't want to sound like "aww poor American" but I want to share my experience.

Before moving to Spain, I really thought the US was one of the worst countries in the world. I've learned that this is something that happens basically in every country, you are so critical of your country while you're in it but then moving away from it helps you to appreciate all the good things about it. However, I really bought into this idea that us as Americans are the most dumb, ignorant, rude, etc. people on Earth and I always felt a bit ashamed to be American (this is of course in combination with the racism in our country, xenophobia, our government's interference in other countries, etc.). I think, like many Americans, I bought into this idea that Europeans are so educated, so well-mannered, so "worldly" that I would look dumb next to them.

When I first got to Europe, I would meet various Europeans (tbh not so much Spanish people, more often Brits/French/German/Dutch) that would make little comments or digs about Americans or about the US. At first, I found this stuff pretty funny and would agree with everything they said, because I had this idea that Europeans were so much better than us and that we deserve to be disrespected like that.

However, as I spent more time in Spain, I realized that the same exact ignorance and xenophobia that exists in the US, also exists in Europe. Plenty of Spanish people I met didn't have a clue about geography or world culture, and many only spoke Spanish (which is no problem to me as I speak Spanish, but there is this idea that Americans only speak English while Europeans are all "multilingual" which has not always been the case). This is not me saying that all European people are ignorant or racist or xenophobic, but that I was genuinely surprised to see the level of ignorance that exists (especially in Spain as that's my experience but in other countries as well).

And then it kept happening, that I would meet European people who would go on and on about how dumb we Americans are, how ignorant we are, how annoying we are, how our accents are so annoying, etc. This started to irritate me, because I felt like I had seen the same kind of ignorance here. I pushed on, but sometimes it honestly just became really hurtful that I would meet someone, say where I was from, and they would automatically have all of these negative assumptions towards me based on the country where I'm from.

For example, I was at a bar when I heard some people speaking English and I decided to introduce myself, because it had been a while since I had spoken to someone in English and I also love to help with translating to Spanish if people need it. These guys tell me they're from London, and I told them how I had just visited and absolutely loved it there, saying only really nice things. When one guy asks if I'm American and I tell him yes, he goes on to tell me that he would "never visit my piece of shit country" or be around "stupid Americans". Personally, I find it extremely rude to insult the country of origin of a person when meeting them (or at all). And honestly, it does hurt to know that some part of your identity, your nationality, can be so hated without people giving you the chance to show who you are.

There are countless comments like these, also the passive-aggressive comments ("usually I don't like Americans, but you're cool!"), or reactions that I find somewhat strange where people think of Americans as TV/movie characters and not real people, and seem to have no idea how to interact with me (this I don't find offensive necessarily, just uncomfortable). It really starts to wear down on me after a while, to the point where I dread when people ask where I am from, as the reaction is often negative or just strange.

I told my boyfriend this (he is from a Latino country, don't want to get too specific with identity here) and I told him I felt so embarrassed for being American. It seems that people hate my country, my people, my accent, everything without even truly knowing the positive things. Or they see as us dumb people who don't know anything. Or they see us as TV characters that they don't take quite seriously. Or they see us as people that need to be "humbled" with a list of things wrong with our country upon meeting us. My boyfriend helped me to understand that I need to feel proud of where I am from, that it's part of me, and that people's opinions of me don't matter at the end of the day. I have, as time gone on, have grown to really appreciate the US, the diversity, the people, and the opportunity it gave my family of immigrants to live a better life.

However, I see it with my boyfriend's friends (a mix of Spanish and Latino people) that some of them see the US the same way, quite negatively or more as a joke. As I mentioned earlier, I speak Spanish and come from a Spanish-speaking family, but my Spanish is nowhere near perfect. I have a noticeable accent when I speak and my grammar is not always the best. But considering my boyfriend only speaks Spanish and that's the language we always communicate in with few problems, I would say that my Spanish is at a high level. It's happened with some of his friends where they will kind of laugh at the way I say things, which is understandable. But there was a time where I didn't say a word very clearly and had to repeat myself, and one of his friends responded to me condescendingly sounding out the word and making me repeat it to him like an episode of Dora. I understand wanting to help someone learn a language, but it was done in a disrespectful way to make me feel embarrassed. I personally never correct people's English unless asked, and certainly treat people with respect because they have put in the effort to learn my language (especially bc I know that some people in my family don't speak English perfectly but have learned it as a second language). Later, we are passing a group of Americans and one of his friends starts kind of heckling them in ""English"" and making fun of their accents, while his other friends, behind laughs, tell him to stop because I'm there. It's irritating because I have worked really hard to improve my Spanish and to be able to communicate, but to them, hearing English is like an insult to their ears (and some of these people have family members in the US) and a huge joke to them.

Basically, I feel like I have tried really hard to learn the language, engage in the culture, and speak to people from this country and other countries. Certainly not everyone is disrespectful to me or to all Americans, but it happens enough to get annoying and honestly hurtful. The other day, I was in a restaurant and the bartender was speaking to me in Spanish but I could tell he had an American accent. When I asked him if he was American, he became so embarrassed, upset even, and asked me how I could tell. I tell this anecdote to explain that I feel many of us Americans feel ashamed of being American and we try our best to hide it, because the amount of comments that come our way or the ideas/stereotypes that people have about us become really annoying to deal with. You'll see that Americans on social media will talk about all the ways to not be seen as "Americans" while in Europe, that hiding our identity is a common practice.

I just want to know if anyone else (Americans in Europe) has felt this way and how they have coped with it. Maybe I'm being too sensitive and need to just develop thicker skin. I know I have to get used to it, but sometimes I wonder if it's even worth staying here if so many people will disrespect me or think they know everything about me because of my nationality.