A Thousand Shards of Glass

(in discussion with Michael Katakis)

AM It’s bigger, that’s for sure, but not necessarily better. You’re great but I wonder how you get in such debt, though, and it’s hard for me to know what your priorities are. I meet a lot of Americans in my work and they are wealthy and seem educated but they don’t seem to know anything about the world, anything outside of America. Believe me, most don’t even know their own [phone] country code. They’re very nice but they don’t seem to know the world.

MK Of all the cultures that you work with and all of the people from different parts of the world that you come in contact with, which among them, in regard to nationality, seem to be most uninformed about the world?

AM, concierge (male, Australian, 33)

Australia

Alizé Le Maoult, film-maker (female, French, age unknown)

Paris, France

MK You have told me that you are in America illegally and that you have come for opportunity, for work, but please tell me, if you are cheated or taken advantage of, what do you do? If you are abused at work or elsewhere, where do you go?

AL, farmworker (female, Mexican, 33)

Salinas, California

LD, waitress (female, British, 21)

Paris

The United States is a beautiful country where everything is possible and where even rascals can be turned into heroes.

ED, teacher, translator and fortune-teller (female, French, 32)

Paris, France

You [the United States] are like children, man. Teenagers that have angered the ‘grandfather’ [the Middle East], that’s who you are, and now there is a price to pay. Charity, brother, you must practice true charity and love.

S, taxi driver (male, Lebanese, approx. 59)

Sydney, Australia

America is superficial, pretentious, insincere. Good for the rich or if you know someone; if not, then not so good.

Adriana S, ‘wannabe student without friends’ (female, Italian-born Australian, 20)

Melbourne, Australia

(Despite the description that she gave of herself, I found Adriana a very charming and intelligent young woman with a dark sense of humor that suggested a street-smart sophistication.)

You have to change the system and get the world’s sympathy back. America today is wrong politics. You must change. If America gets better the world gets better, maybe.

Franco C, restaurant owner (male, Italian, 61)

Melbourne, Australia

I would say that the Americans I met face to face were salt of the earth but very much black and white as regards political ideas, especially about the rest of the world. Perhaps their understanding of democracy wouldn’t fit the ideal of other western countries – but then no one is perfect.

PM, priest, Holy Ghost missionary (male, Irish, 78)

Woorabinda, Queensland

In my opinion the downfall taking place in the US which is reconcilable is that we have lost our ability to think critically.

WJMC, entrepreneur (male, American, 23)

Paris, France