AVERAGE US CITIZEN IS NOT AN UGLY AMERICAN

All too many persons tend to view Americans as good, arrogant or indifferent depending on their or their relatives’ and friends’ interaction with them, the policies of the man in the Oval Office, particularly if he is Republican, or the published examples of insensitivity to minorities in the urban ghetto. For the record, even members of minorities can all too often be ugly Americans. To the above should be added never see come see American tourists, overbearing managers of US companies operating here or perceived treatment from an Embassy official received on applying for a US visa. From these three, but not necessarily limited to, you will find your ugly American. Perhaps, if only for the benefit of the young reader, I should carry the definition of the term “ugly American” as published in the Random House Word Menu by Stephen Glazier: “American visitor or diplomat abroad who behaves in an offensive manner and is insensitive to foreign customs.”

But not all offensive and/or insensitive people are Americans. I discovered to my surprise, when on my second visit to Antigua in October of 1983 that there were Antiguans who believed that there was such a thing as an ugly Trinidadian. The year, 1983, the reader would perhaps recall, followed immediately on the end of the oil boom, when oil was King, and many Trinidadians conveyed the impression, however unwittingly, that they were monarchs in their own right. At the hotel where I stayed in Antigua it was pointed out to me at the desk that Trinidadians, should they come to the lobby and no desk clerk was available or in sight, had the annoying habit of pounding incessantly on the bell until help came.

It was an old fashioned type of bell hardly ever seen outside of a classroom, and usually save on a teacher’s desk at primary school. I remembered it well from my days at San Fernando CE. A teacher needed only to tap on it gently to gain the silence of the entire class. It was the authority which was implied that had mattered. In Antigua I guessed it was the insecurity of the demanding Trinidadian that had triggered this impatience to be served. Incidentally, I thought it wise not to inquire why on occasions desk clerks had not been on the job.

When I was a young reporter in 1951, I had sought an interview with an American tourist who had shortly before come ashore from a Moore-McCormack liner. He was chewing on a cigar and asked me out of the corner of his mouth whether it was true that all Trinidadians lived in trees. He said that he had heard that they swung from tree to tree to pay social calls, or something equally absurd. Without appearing shocked I told him that I had indeed seen children in tree houses, but the few had been the children of American expatriates, whose parents had the houses built for them in which to play at make believe. I had never seen them, however, I told him, swing from tree to tree. Presumably, their parents would have thought resulting medical bills somewhat inconvenient. Here was a man, I thought, who had not taken the trouble to find out simple facts about a country he had planned on visiting.

Another American visitor had expressed surprise that Trinidadians spoke English, “and so well.” I replied that, not unlike that of the United States in earlier years, it was as a result of our country being a British colony. I have met and/or interviewed thousands of US visitors to Trinidad and Tobago and very few of them fitted the jacket of ugly American. Some have demonstrated a knowledge and appreciation of our culture, our economy, our food and people, or a keenness to learn about them.

Sometime in the late 1960s when I headed the Public Relations Department at the Public Transport Service Corporation, my secretary at the time had indicated to me that she was applying for a holiday visa to enable her to visit the United States. She confided she had heard that a female Vice consul was tough and harsh on visa applicants. I explained to her that based on my knowledge of the vice consul and indeed of many other US consular officials, the assessment of her was all wrong. I told her to mention that she was my secretary. Later, she would be high in praise of the Consular official, a pleasantly charming woman by all accounts.

Several years ago there had been a United States ambassador, who did not only do this country but the US a disservice by making adverse and/or patronising comments about almost everything under the sun about TT, ranging from industrial relations matters to the work ethic to Government policy. The ambassador was a favourite on the talk circuit, the darling of business/employer groups. Personally, I thought the ambassador’s criticisms of trade unions, selected areas of Government policy and the people’s attitude to work needlessly interfering.

On the other hand there have been US ambassadors, who have identified with the social problems of lower income families, access of Trinidad and Tobago companies to the United States market. And while these may have been directly related to prevailing US policy at the time, what struck was the marked absence of patronising contempt. It was not the US policy that made the essential difference, but the manner in which it had been put across.