In sixth grade, it was my dream to go to France. I was learning French in school, and I loved the sounds of the words and their similarities to English words. I loved French culture - the food, the buildings, the ... food and buildings. I was even fascinated by French people. They seemed classier than other people, always dressed carefully and carrying on about relaxing and cheeses.
I saw my French fantasy as being exactly opposite to my reality: I was a schlepper, a clod. I was hauling my textbooks back and forth and grabbing a quick snack between soccer practice and Hebrew lessons. I wasn't cavorting Parisian streets in Chanel couture.
One thing I remember distinctly from French class is a video in which students at a high school received three hours away from school each day. During this time, they returned home to d?©jeuner. Their parents would be waiting for them with Brie and other tasty snacks, and maybe they'd even have a little time for a nap before getting back to school. I used to seethe with jealousy. Why couldn't I have been born in France? I'm sitting here falling asleep in my desk, and some Frenchie halfway around the world gets to excuse himself from school for a quick nap before afternoon classes? Unfair.
And so, the seed of uncertainty was planted. What were French people really like? Did they really behave like the people in the textbooks, perpetually gallivanting around town eating, shopping and enjoying tasty cheeses? I had to get to the bottom of this.
A very close friend of mine recently came back from a short stay in Europe. She felt absolutely no remorse in reporting to me that France was quite the unpleasant experience, wholly due to the fact that French people were ... rude. I told her she was wrong - that it was because she made no attempts to speak French.
I told her she must have met some strange breed of Frenchmen, and that French people were quite possibly the nicest, kindest, most calming people around, to which she replied, "Well, I'm not going back there. They freaked the heck out of me." Since this trip, she's actually been back to Europe a few times, but not France.
"I refuse to submit myself to their rudeness," she says. "Never again."
I suppose this is the beginning of xenophobia. Having never actually been to France, I don't see myself as being in the prime position to defend the French people. I can only say relatively lame things, like, "don't go lumping all the French people into one category" or "French people are people, too": the arguments of losers.
So how exactly does this fear play out? If you think about having a "fear of foreigners," you would imagine being in an international airport to be a heck of an ordeal. All those people around you, wearing strange clothes, dancing around, selling you books.
I think this is the only phobia that manifests itself as more of an aversion or an avoidance than a fear. It's not that you'll see the foreigner, scream and run away. I mean, you might (depending on relative size of goiters and horns), but the most common symptom of xenophobia is just a general malaise.
Tufts in general is particularly anti-xenophobic. If our school was xenophobe-friendly, we wouldn't have culture houses or international orientations. Well, maybe we would, but for segregation purposes.
But all joking aside, xenophobia is a serious problem. You may be thinking to yourself, "Come on, Olivia. No one is really scared of foreigners. After all, we are foreigners to everyone else!"
And you would be very right, young grasshopper. But what if I asked you if you ever felt uncomfortable around a group of people you had never previously met or if you've ever been in a situation where all the people around you are speaking a language you don't understand? A little bit different, eh?
It's my personal opinion that most conflict in the world has its roots in some form of xenophobia. Maybe one group doesn't particularly share the same religious ideology as another. Maybe one group feels that its neighbor's cultural rituals are barbaric and backward.
Maybe - no, definitely - we've all got a little xenophobe in us.
Olivia Teytelbaum is a freshman who has not yet declared a major. She can be reached at Olivia.Teytelbaum@tufts.edu.
