I had a front row seat at USA’s 200th anniversary year in 1976 as an Asian immigrant 16 year-old Aussie kid going to school in LA and Washington.
This essay outlines how this experience changed my life and informed my understanding of some of the fundamental differences between Americans and Australians. 1976 was 50 years ago, so it is a good opportunity to reflect on changes since then to the 250th anniversary now.
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My family (Mum, Dad and four kids: myself, older sister and two younger brothers) flew into LA from Hobart on New Year’s Day 1976. My Dad had secured stints as a visiting professor at the University of Southern California (USC), LA, and the University of Washington (UW), Seattle.
America was in a dark place in the 1970s – Vietnam, race riots, double-digit inflation and interest rates, double-digit unemployment, loss of manufacturing industries and jobs to Japan, fuel crisis with quadrupling oil prices, declining US dollar, rolling recessions, stagflation, Watergate. In the middle of America’s 1970s troubles, 1976 stood out as a grand celebration of 200 years of independence, and I was right in the middle of it.
Day one of our adventure could not get more American. Not only was January 1 the start of the 200 year anniversary celebrations with streamers and banners and patriotic music everywhere, our new home was right in the centre of even more celebrations. We moved into our new university house on North Catalina Ave Pasadena on the morning of New Year’s day. That afternoon, just 50 yards away we watched the ‘Rose Bowl’ parade proceeding west along Orange Grove Boulevarde on the way to Pasadena’s Rose Bowl Stadium, the ‘Super Bowl’ of US college football, where the grand final was played later that day. You can’t get more apple-pie American that that.
In the second half our US stay, we had another university house at 8008 Roosevelt Way, Roosevelt (a Seattle suburb), and I went to Roosevelt High School. You can’t get more Roosevelt that that!
Roosevelt High, Seattle in the mid-late-1970s was also happened to be the birthplace of ‘grunge’ music, spawning Pearl Jam, Guns & Roses, Nirvana, Soundgarden. Music was my thing, and here was I with my (Aussie) Maton electric guitar trying all sorts of new music wherever I went. Talk about being in the middle of the action!
Here are my top six impressions of my experiences.
1 – Everything was BIG!
I went from living in a tiny town south-west of Hobart, Tasmania called Longley (population 14 at the time, of which 6 were our family), to a massive city of 9 million people in greater LA. I was blown away by the fact that Southern California (which is the same land area as Tasmania) contained the same population as the whole of Australia! Still does today.
Everything in LA was big – the airport, roads, freeways, buildings, shopping centres, cars, schools. On the car front: in Tasmania we had a Holden HR and a Mini Minor (in which I learned to drive), then in LA Dad bought us a 1971 Ford Galaxy (a huge brown beast of a thing with fake woodgrain side panels - just like the Griswalds’ car in National Lampoon’s ‘Vacation’ movie.)
On the school front: I went from Kingston High School south of Hobart with 200 students, to John Muir High School in Altadena LA with 6,000 students. John Muir was more like a whole self-contained community than a school. (Today John Muir is much smaller and more of a pre-college prep school than a traditional high school.)
2 – Racism with a twist!
I grew up in 1960s racist ‘White’ Australia. In each of the eight different schools I went to prior to 1976 (in country Victoria, Adelaide, Canberra and Hobart) I was always the lone, dark-skinned kid at the back of the class photos. (This was before the days of large-scale immigration from the Middle-East and later Asia). Throughout my school years I was called a variety of names like ‘darky’, ‘blackfella’, ‘black’, ‘black flash’ (I was a fast runner!) I got used to being called these names as it was consistent across all of the schools I went to across the various states. It was all I ever knew, so it was ‘normal’.
But this racism was completely turned upside down in America.
In LA we lived in Pasadena which was a predominantly ‘white’ suburb. When registering for schools, we kids were classified as ‘white’, so we were ‘bussed’ into a ‘black’ school (John Muir) in a ‘black’ suburb (Altadena, half a dozen miles north-west of Pasadena) as part of the national Civil Rights ‘bussing’ program to integrate races in schools.
So I went from being a sole minority ‘black’ kid a tiny school of 200 white kids in Tasmania, to suddently being ‘white’ kid in a huge, bustling school in predominantly ‘black’ Altadena with 6,000 kids, 90% of whom were ‘black’ or Hispanic. (In the mid-1970s the commonly-used and widely-accepted terms were ‘negro’ for African-Americans, and ‘chicano’ for Hispanics. Terminology changes over time!)
This reversal of racism came as a complete shock to me, and it certainly helped me understand racism from different angles. For me, being part of a bustling school full of ethnic diversity was a fantastic, life-changing experience.
But there is a dark side.
Also at John Muir High at the same time as me was a boy named Rodney King. Fifteen years later in March 1991 the same Rodney King from my school was dragged out of his car and beaten senseless by white LA police officers, and the video went viral around the world. When the officers were acquitted of all charges by an all-white jury the following year, it sparked the infamous LA race riots in April-May 1992 in which 55 people were killed, more than 2,000 injured, 12,000 arrested, and countless shops and businesses were destroyed. It was the worst episode of ethnic violence in US history. For me the Rodney King incident was very personal. He was a kid from my school.
I can vividly remember two occasions during our US trip when my Dad (dark-skinned Indian/Sri Lankan) was stopped by highway police, hauled out of the family car and forced to justify why a black man was driving a car with a white female (and four ‘white’ kids in the back). It was terrifying at the time, but I now realise that he was lucky to get out alive.
Sadly, fifty years later not much has changed on that front. Every time there is an incident like George Floyd, or Michael Brown, or Freddie Grey, or Jamar Clark, or Breonna Tailor, and countless others, I am taken back to Rodney King at my school.
3 – Fitting in -v- Standing out
Getting along in school in Australia (especially Tasmania) was all about ‘fitting in’. For example in Kingston High, which was a progressive ‘uniform-free’ school, most of the boys wore plaid flannel jackets in winter (which is most of the year in Tasmania) and blue denim shirts in warmer weather. The few who didn’t conform (either because of money constraints or choice) were generally ostracised and excluded. For me it was hard enough being ‘black’ and always the ‘new kid’ (because I changed schools so many times), so I tried to conform on the clothing front! It was either that or isolation.
(That was actually harder than it seems in my particular case. Each of the other schools I went to in Australia before Kingston High had school uniforms, but instead of buying the regulation school uniform for each school, my mother would always make us kids wear her hand-knitted attempted replications of the official school jumpers. So I was the sole black, new kid, who also wore a wonky non-regulation jumper!)
This pressure to conform was also completely turned upside down in America!
In both of the US schools I went to (LA and Seattle) I found that conformity was not expected or required. It was the exact opposite.
Standing out was celebrated. Public schools in America are generally uniform-free, so everyone wore different clothes. Given my experience in a variety of schools across different States of Australia, I looked around to see what I had to do to ‘fit in’. The answer: whatever I wanted to wear! Nothing was frowned on. Even low-budget, dirt-cheap grunge, or worn-out hand-me-downs were cool! I found that most kids I came across and observed in those mixed-race schools didn’t care much about what you looked like or wore.
On the music front (my life passion): in Tasmania we had two radio stations: 7HO (mainly news and other boring stuff for grown-ups) and 7HT (current music hits). But all 7HT played was the same old narrow set of latest hits over and over, so that’s all we talked about in school. There were only two types of music: pop rubbish (like Bay City Rollers, ABBA, Osmonds, or even worse: Disco!) and REAL music: pub rock!
But in the US, there were literally hundreds of radio stations and more than 100 free TV stations – playing all sorts of different things around the clock. There was no pressure to like one thing over another. Everyone was free to like whatever they liked, and it was easy to find other people with similar likes, however different or whacky they were.
I went from playing in a pub-rock band in Tasmania (think Deep Purple, Status Quo, Led Zeppelin), to playing jazz guitar in a Latin/jazz/funk band in Juhn Muir High!
This experience of seeing diversity, differences, standing out, and finding your own ‘thing’ being celebrated definitely changed my whole outlook on life – including career choices. I learned to never follow the crowd – always do your own thing! I would never have learned that in the Australian school system.
4 – School subjects
Being dumped into a new school in a new system in a new State or country is something I had become very accustomed to as that had been the pattern since my earliest years of school (thanks to my Dad’s very mobile academic career). I had learned to be very good at quickly figuring out how to navigate new situations and environments.
Because of the sheer size of my new schools in the US there was much to learn (for example I learned all about ‘tardy notes’, ‘hall passes’, and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag first thing every morning).
The good news was that the assigned textbooks for some subjects like Chemistry, Physics and Math(s) in both of the US schools were exactly the same books that were used in my two high schools in Tasmania. I can still visualise Linus Pauling on the cover of that huge orange Chemistry book. Thankfully, some things are universal!
But the rest of the curriculum was very different and alien to me.
The History subjects were 99% American history (by ‘American’ I mean the US of A, not the rest of America). There was literally nothing beyond US history aside from minor references to England in the War of Independence, No mention of Ancient, Greece, Rome, Europe, Asia or anything else.
Likewise, Geography was 100% American. Absolutely nothing outside the US borders. I learned to recite the 50 capitals of the 50 states in my sleep – in alphabetical order, or from East to West, or North to South). Music class ranged from John Phillip Sousa to Gershwin. Fantastic stuff – but all American.
The results of this very US-centric system are obvious. My American friends and colleagues are probably more ‘educated’ than most average Americans, but I never cease to be amazed by how insular and US-centric they are in their thinking and understanding about the world and America’s place in it. (Countless Americans have said to me things along the lines of: ‘Sure we know that there are other countries out there, but . . . . so what?!’)
Australia is the opposite of course. We have always suffered a ‘cultural cringe’ - looking to ‘Mother England’ or ‘Uncle Sam’ (post-WW2) for approval, inspiration, ideas, validation, direction. We have had no nation-defining War of Independence.
In the US schools there were subjects called ‘Government’ and ‘Civics’ which were completely foreign to me in my experience of many schools around Australia. These subjects were all about the US Constitution, the founding principles (like liberty, freedom of speech, civil rights, etc), the different layers and roles of government, different institutions, separation of powers. These were fascinating to me.
This may also explain why Americans tend to be more politically active and interested, especially at grass roots levels. I remember when I was at university in Australia in the late 1970s and early 1980s, there were US student protests on the nightly news here in Australia, but the closest my fellow uni students over here ever got to protesting was the changing of closing hours at the university bar!
Australians are so politically complacent that we have not even bothered to graduate from being a British colony! The King of England is still on our ‘Australian’ coins and bank notes. Every single piece of Federal and State legislation must be officially signed off by the King of England’s representative. Every Federal and State government minister is still sworn into office by the King of England’s representative. Our Head of State for opening events like the Olympics is still the English King (or Queen in the case of the 2000 Sydney Olympics).
There is a gathering movement in Australia to change our national day from January 26, but there is no obvious candidate for an alternate nationally significant day for Australians as we have had no nation-defining event like a war of independence or civil war or revolution. We move our national day celebrations every year so we can get another long week-end holiday!
The most popular alternative for our national day is May 8 (Maaaaaate! Get it?) No worries. She’ll be right!
5 – College: what to study and where?
In the LA school I was put into year 11, and in the Seattle school only a few months later I was put into year 12 (I had a very weird schooling experience overall: 12 different schools in 12 years across 8 states, including some skipped years and repeated years.)
As we were in the final years of school, a major topic of conversation with other kids was what to do in college and where. I discovered two huge differences between America and Australia that I believe go a long way to explaining fundamental differences in outlooks and experiences.
First – ‘where’ to study.
In Australia, most kids go to ‘college’ (or ‘uni’) in their home city, and continue to live in their parents’ home and in their parents’ pockets. It’s cheaper, more convenient, more familiar, less challenging.
In America it is the opposite.
Most American kids aspire to go to college in another city or State. Going to your local ‘city college’ is generally seen as a last resort and even a sign of failure. Going to college in a new town means moving out of home, finding accommodation, finding new friends, finding work in bunch of different jobs, paying bills. In short – learning about real life and becoming an adult.
For Americans this usually starts at age 17 or 18 when they move across the State or across the country for college. For Australians it usually starts much later - in their early-mid 20s, or these days this has extended to the late 20s or even early 30s. House prices and rents are much higher in Australia than America, which no doubt adds to the problem of getting ‘adult’ kids to get out of the house!
This sense of mobility, adventure, and seeking new experiences and challenges for Americans shapes their careers and life experiences. When I talk to American friends and colleagues, they can usually rattle off a host of different cities where they have studied and worked in climbing their career ladder. In Australia the usual pattern is invariably remaining in one city, or starting in a small city or town then moving to either Sydney or Melbourne, then staying put for life.
Fortunately I have moved many times in my life to new cities, new schools, new situations, new jobs, new careers. There is nothing like the exhilaration of a brand new environment and brand new set of challenges to explore and figure out!
Second - ‘what’ to study.
In Australia the usual pattern for uni is to go straight into your chosen career choice, which is often decided by your high school final ‘score’. In my case I spent my final high school year in Sydney. My NSW HSC score got me into law at Sydney Uni, so that’s what I did. My school friends went into their chosen career courses – accounting, engineering, architecture, medicine, vet science, pharmacology, teaching, etc. To us that is normal – if you want to be a dentist (and if you get the marks for it), you go to dental school after high school. Simple.
It is the opposite in America. After high school, you first do a general undergraduate degree – usually called ‘liberal arts’ – that covers a host of different areas, which might include social sciences, literature, politics, government, art, science, economics, psychology, and even playing college sports are given credit. The aim is to broaden your knowledge and experiences to help figure out what you might like to do for a career.
After the first three years of general liberal arts courses, in the final year you do prep subjects in your chosen specialty - ‘pre-law’, or ‘pre-med’, or ‘pre-engineering’ subjects, etc. Then after the liberal arts degree you apply for med school, or law school, etc. You generally can’t just go from high school straight into a specialty like law school, dental school, etc.
Because of this different path, I have found that most Americans I have met and talked to tend to have a much broader education base than Australians. In my own case (back in Australia) I went straight into Law at Sydney Uni which was four years of nothing but narrow, dry, technical law subjects. Sydney Uni Law School was in the middle of the legal precinct in Sydney CBD, which was nowhere near the main Uni campus, so I never got to experience the broad campus life or atmosphere.
Two things happened. First – after just one year of law school and working part-time in a city law firm, I decided I didn’t want to be a lawyer. But I completed the four-year LLB because I didn’t want to not finish something I started, and also because I didn’t know what I wanted to switch to.
Second – at the end of the four-year LLB I realised that I knew a lot about law, but not much about anything else in the world. I felt something was missing, so I did a liberal arts BA degree part-time (Deakin Uni in Victoria, after I moved to Melbourne to join Citibank). This liberal arts BA included a bunch of different courses (I started with social anthropology of all things). In the process of the BA I discovered my what my real interests were – international relations and economic history, so those became my majors. I wish I had followed the American system and done the liberal arts BA first!
My experiences in discovering these two very different patterns in the years immediately after high school for Americans and Australians – what to study, and where – go a long way to shaping my understanding of some of the differences between Americans and Australians today. Most Americans I know tend to be more mobile, outgoing, confident, self-assured, and willing to take risks.
6 – Religion
USA is one of the most violent societies in the world (on any number of measures: murder rates per capita, incarcerations, police violence, executions). But it is also intensely religious.
My parents forced us kids to go to church every Sunday, plus Sunday school and bible study classes from a very early age in whatever town or city we lived in. At school in Australia I was embarrassed about even mentioning to anyone that I went to church, Sunday school and bible study every week. Very uncool!
But in the American schools one of the first things I was asked was ‘What church do you go to?’ It seemed everyone went to church and was happy to talk about it! The complete opposite to my experience in Australia.
In both LA and Seattle we went to Babtist churches (My Dad’s family had gone to Pentecostal churches while growing up on war-torn streets of Malaya and Singapore. However, Baptist churches were more prevalent in the US than Pentecostal – founded by Baptists fleeing religious persecution in 17th century England, and also Baptist churches were popular with freed slaves after the American Civil War.)
Instead of the dry, boring sermons and centuries-old dirge-like hymns in Australian churches, our local suburban Baptist churches in America were full of theatrical orations complete with constant, spontaneous ‘Praise the Lord’ and ‘Halleluiah’s from the audience, a live band that played gospel and blues, and rows of purple-clad gospel singers! It really was the full James Brown experience in real life! Every week!
Then on Mondays, American society went back to its customary day-to-day violence. It was a very strange experience. (‘Guns & Bibles’ as Obama once observed).
I learned that being ‘good’ and being ‘Christian’ were two very different things, even though the church had hijacked the notion of ‘goodness’ as its own. (“Oh, that’s such a ‘Christian’ thing to do!” No! That is a ‘Good’ thing to do. Big difference!)
It is not just in America. I looked around the world at all the religious (“My-God’s-better-than-your-God”) wars and terrorism and violence, plus centuries of the church’s systematic destruction of indigenous cultures, systematic sexual abuse and cover-ups, etc, etc.
Little wonder that I decided to be an atheist, and still am.
It was a year of big ideas for a 16 year old!
Still young at 250
In the 250 years since its War of Independence, the USA has been extraordinarily successful. It certainly has raced ahead in the past 50 years from the dark days of the 1970s.
It is still a relatively young nation. It’s bi-partisan national policy settings still prioritise growth and progress over re-distribution, and it has not yet allowed itself to be strangled by excessive government interference, taxes, welfare entitlement mentality, and innovation-sapping over-regulation like Europe (and Australia).
Immigration, innovation and individual self-reliance have always been the engines of America’s growth and prosperity, supported by strong, independent institutions, rule of law, and separation of powers. The US has always been a global magnet for talented people of all types from across the world in every walk of life including the arts, sciences, literature, music, business, technology, and everything else. Trump has thrown a spanner in the works, but Trumpistan is temporary. Or is it?
I wish all Americans every success in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for the next 50 years and beyond.
‘Till next time – happy investing and stay healthy!
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