Nowadays, it’s harder than ever to separate the USA from its politics, with blanket coverage of the torpedoes being launched from the Oval Office against the established global order. However, for the seventeen-year-old me, the run up to our holiday was more about the allure of American popular culture – having grown up on a staple diet of Disney cartoons, MTV and Hollywood movies – while for my father it was probably more about his fear of flying!

Experience tends to erode preconceptions and soon after our arrival it became clear that the USA was far more than the hegemony that it had long projected on the global stage – be that political, economic, cultural or sporting.  

The cosmopolitan cuisine that delighted our taste buds in New York, helpfully arranged and labelled within foodie enclaves (Little Italy, Chinatown, and so on), reminded us of how the nation was built upon immigration and continues to be enriched by its cultural diversity. 

The dazzlingly white, imposing monuments of Washington reminded us of how a nation forged through conflict – between settlers and Apaches, confederates and unionists, and patriots and loyalists – came to be regarded as a paradigm of democracy and liberal values. 

Yet in the deep south, visiting plantation houses, we were reminded of how such dividends were denied to so many for so long. The country developed into an economic powerhouse partly on the back of African slave labour, but it was only in the mid 1960s that the law finally changed to protect their descendants from discrimination and bestow on them the right to vote.

In Florida, we had a glimpse of the country’s natural riches too: gliding through the swamps of the Everglades on an airboat and holding baby alligators too small to eat us while the mosquitos were only too willing to oblige; or walking barefoot through the white sands of lovely Gulf Coast beaches. 

In that less globalised world that I grew up in – before the Internet pervaded our lives and when social media was a mere twinkle in Mark Zuckerberg’s eye – Europeans would tease Americans about their sketchy global geography and their insular nature. By the end of our trip, this no longer seemed so odd or reprehensible given the huge variety of landscapes and experiences on offer without the need for a passport.  

That said, there was only one thing that was going to satisfy the seventeen-year-old me. Yes, I did make it to Disneyland and I even got to meet Mickey Mouse!

Photo credits: 1st by Evgeny Tchebotarev on Unsplash; 2nd by Hans on Pixabay.