Freshman Rodrigo de Haro has been interested in politics since he was a little kid. Although he didn't come from an extremely politically minded family, he still poured over newspapers and tuned into the news almost every day. However, he was used to the decidedly rougher politics of his native Mexico, where debates can get so heated on the chamber floor that actual fights break out.
In witnessing the political process in the States, de Haro was surprised at the formality of it all. "The order with which a political debate is conducted, the truly civil nature of politics here - it's a huge contrast to what I see in Mexico. The legislative chambers [there] sometimes truly behave like zoos," he said.
In fact, politics as usual in the US is not so for many international students. Though most American students accept the Electoral College, Constitutional standards, and foreign policy decisions, many students from other countries have rather different perspectives on the American political process.
Take Philipp Meissner, a graduate student in political science who has studied international relations for years in his native Germany. When he came to the US, he found some aspects of the political process shocking.
For instance, Meissner knew that the character of presidential candidates was an important issue and a large part of the campaign. But knowing that didn't prepare him for the intense coverage that he saw on television, which seemed to deal more with personality than policy.
"It surprised me how personalized [the election] was. A lot of people spoke about the family of the [candidate], about the past of Bush," he observed. "The appearance of the candidates was as important as their topics - that was quite surprising."
Other aspects of the political scene continue to surprise Meissner during this one-year stay in the States while studying at Tufts. "When I'm in Germany, writing something about US foreign policy, it's different [than] when I'm living in the country, reading the newspapers, talking to people," he said.
Sometimes, international students' views on the "hot-button issues", US action in other countries, and the attitudes of their fellow American students stray from the mainstream domestic opinions on these issues. After spending their formative years abroad, then coming here for college, the way international students see US politics can indicate gaps in opinion and values.
The issues
Graduate student Paul Narain has led discussion sections for Introduction to American Politics for the past three semesters. Consistently, he has found differences in the ways his international students view the subject.Last semester, the big issue, of course, was the election. Although American students found flaws with the system, Narain said, they generally accepted it as a legitimate election. On the other hand, international students looked beyond the election as a whole and focused on what they considered an overall faulty process.
"Looking at the election process led [international students] to conclude, 'what a bizarre way to elect a president,'" Narain explained, saying that many of the students would ask "why would you elect a president in a democratic system through a non-democratic process?"
Freshman Theofanis Exadaktylos, from Greece, explained that such a system is unheard of in the European Union. "It's a system that doesn't exist anywhere else in the world. The electoral vote is not taken... I was shocked when I heard Al Gore wouldn't be president," he said, adding that in his country, "what the people vote is what they get."
One junior, also from southeastern Europe, found the situation humorous, as did others in her native country. "There were a lot of people making fun of [the election] in my country," she said, adding that Americans "never thought that all these things would happen because everything is perfection - but these things have never happened to us."
De Haro speculates that a lot of the criticism from international students comes from the breakdown of certain expectations, which students worldwide are taught in their early schooling. "Everyone in the world has been taught that democracy in America works better than anyone else's [system]," de Haro said. But after this past election, "you become a little skeptical about how good this is."
Other issues also simply seem incomprehensible to some international students, especially those from Europe. "They are confused on why some of the issues are issues," Narain said.
Different cultural and legal standards clash in Narain's sections when students discussed solutions to problems like gun control. For instance, in Europe, gun-related violence is not as much of an issue, simply because no one has guns. Because of this, some European students may say just get rid of the guns, but American students may argue for their Constitutional right to bear arms.
"In general, we are not used to the American attitude, the right to bear arms. We are normally highly against it," Meissner said. When he sees that children are shooting other children, an obvious solution would be to ban guns or put more severe gun control measures in place - but it's not that easy.
"American students buy into the political culture associated with the Constitution because they're Americans - they've been doing it all their life," Narain said. "We buy into our own political culture."
So, even though most people in Narain's section were against the universal, unlimited right to bear arms, Americans will continue to accept a version of that right because it's what they know. And international students, coming from a different background, will continue to question it.
The global picture
In discussing and debating with his students, Narain has consistently found that his international students come in with a different mindset than his American students."My foreign students... take classes with a very open mind - much more so than American students, who come in with highly preconceived notions," he said. "For foreign students, it's an open book for them. Ironically, they learn things in a less partisan way."
The junior from Europe takes it one step further. She feels that American students often view their country and its decisions as completely just and always right. "I've taken a lot of political science classes. I hear all these teachers present America as being the best," she said. "If you say anything to American students, they're very close-minded, they don't care [about] seeing it from [a different] point of view."
The junior uses the bombing of Kosovo as an example. When she took Introduction to International Relations, US action in that particular conflict was taught to be a positive occurrence. "[The professor] was trying to show and present the whole story... as if America were right; [as if] if America hadn't intervened, that it would be worse," she said. "But that's wrong. A lot of international students disagree."
The junior also said that the professor's slant on the issue was not only convincing for American students, but that he "was... brainwashing the American students of how good they are, how the US is so powerful and so clever, and that their decisions are right."
One sophomore from Brazil majoring in international relations also feels that American students have a "narrow and idealized view of American government." In explaining differences between American and international students' views of government, she explained that their educational backgrounds create most of the disparities.
"International students tend to have studied in international high schools. They had friends and teachers of different cultures; they had access to different perceptions of American government," she said, herself included.
However, the sophomore said that her American counterparts often learn and live in a more culturally homogenous environment. "American students, most of them come from American high schools. Many have lived in their own country for most of their lives... everyone has the same view of their own government and history," she said.
And, for the most part, the sophomore feels that American kids will keep learning about America in culturally biased fashion. "It's extremely unlikely that that's going to change. American schools don't tend to hire teachers from all over the world," she said, and these teachers "teach with a skewed vision."
On the other hand, de Haro feels that the debate that centers on stateside issues is unique, lending itself to several points of view - for politicians as well as those studying politics. "The way politics is discussed in any country is completely different [from] here... most policies [in the US] are widely debated and there are many sides to each issue, whereas the countries where [international students] come from don't have the same open debate tradition," he said.
Perhaps, de Haro said, the frustration that some students feel is not the result of egocentrism on the part of American students. Perhaps American students simply do not realize what kind of effect their country's politics has on the rest of the world.
"International students are particularly interested in foreign policy because... it has a direct impact on our lives, whereas American students are not as concerned, because [foreign policy] only becomes a secondary effect," he said.
For de Haro, the differences in opinion on American policy and politics seem inevitable, depending on where the students grew up. "For a person living here, it would be hard to understand the extent of influence of America abroad. The decisions made here really have a different impact elsewhere," he said. "They don't have the same perspective on these issues because they don't experience it firsthand."
