Letter from North Carolina: Barack Obama (and Amendment One)

by Tom Macarte

If you were on the internet over the last couple of weeks, you’ve probably seen Barack Obama slow-jamming the news with Jimmy Fallon and the Roots.



What the rest of the episode of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon made clear was that it was filmed in Memorial Hall at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This photo was posted by the White House Twitter account.

The filming came after Obama gave a speech about student loans to thousands of students, some of whom had waited outside overnight to get tickets. Fallon tickets, on the other hand, were distributed only to Seniors (as in, fourth year undergraduates) first through an online ‘reservation’ lottery, which gave you the right to queue up for hours to hopefully get a seat assignment. They made it very clear that, with all the security, students should pick one or the other, they would not be able to get across campus in time.

I picked Fallon. I slyly entered the lottery through the link emailed out to Seniors, and queued for three hours, getting fairly good seats.

I’m maybe 60% sure this is me. I was around that area, in a Carolina blue sweater, so at least you get the idea.

Obama was preaching to the converted here, reminding students why they (probably) voted for him. It didn’t hurt that he’d predicted the UNC Tar Heels basketball team to win the NCAA Championship (WE WERE ROBBED: mostly down to poorly timed injuries).

I’d seen a tweet explaining that POTUS had chosen UNC because it was such a great academic institution, which is partially true but a fairly naïve assessment.  With North Carolina a swing state for Obama, where the young voters would make all the difference, there was clearly an ulterior motive.

There was also a reason he’d chosen UNC, and not just his college basketball fandom. North Carolina’s universities are all pretty great, local rivalries aside (DUKE SUCKS), but Chapel Hill is often referred to as the liberal centre of the State, sometimes of the whole American South. When someone asked Jesse Helms, notorious early '90s right-winger (his name should be familiar to any Bill Hicks fans), about a state zoo, he responded by suggesting they just fence off Chapel Hill. As you can imagine, this quote is recounted with rather a lot of pride.

But back to Obama. He was as wonderful and charming as a liberal foreigner would imagine. I was still hoping for a full musical number (he has been known to sing, and if it was going to happen under any circumstances, it would’ve been then, backed by the Roots), but it was all pretty great. I wasn’t anticipating seeing POTUS, but it was a great day, a real treat for an American Studies student on his year abroad.

Something else happened really recently (yesterday, at the time of writing) that I wanted to write about in terms of Chapel Hill being a liberal centre. You might be aware of Amendment One, a motion to rewrite the state constitution to redefine marriage and civil partnership. It’s largely a move against gay marriage, but that is far from the only thing that the amendment affects.

This morning, I found out that, as I had feared, the majority of the vote yesterday had been FOR rather than against the Amendment. I just wanted to say that that is not the North Carolina that I know. Yes, a lot of this has to do with the liberal bubble I’m in, but I hate that this vote sends out a particular message about the state. It only recently dawned on me that it was likely to pass: here, in Chapel Hill, it seemed that everyone was strongly against such a breach of rights. So basically, I just wanted to work against the message it sends out. North Carolina is a beautiful state, and I have encountered nothing but friendliness and compassion, both in Chapel Hill and further out, in the mountains and on the coast.

The message that Amendment One sends out: that is not the North Carolina that I know.

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Editor's note: in the wake of Amendment One, President Obama has just declared his support for same-sex marriage: “At a certain point, I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.”

Letter from America: Tom Macarte

Letter from America - an occasional series of posts by students on their Year Abroad in America.

by Tom Macarte

Hi. My name’s Tom. I am currently studying abroad at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. I could go on about how wonderful it is here, how many bluegrass and country gigs I am going to, how much fried chicken and sweet tea I am consuming, etc. etc. Instead, I am going to tell you about when I went to the State Fair in Raleigh, NC’s capital.

Letter from America: Lemara Lindsay-Prince

AMS student Lemara Lindsay-Prince is currently spending her year abroad at Temple University in Philadelphia. On March 7th, Lemara travelled to Alabama to commemorate a key moment in Civil Rights history. Her account of her experiences was initially published on her own blog, here. We're very pleased to be able to share it with you:

On March 7th 1965 lines of African Americans walked across a bridge in Selma, Alabama. They were walking with a purpose to get the then Governor Jim Clark to give African Americans their voting rights. It’s no secret that African Americans had been disenfranchised since they were brought to America and one aspect of the Civil Rights Movement for black equality involved voting.

The date of March 7th is cemented in Civil Rights history as that innocent action of walking across a bridge was met with the most horrific violence.

If you're not familiar with the events of Bloody Sunday click my Videos tab for a small clip from the mini-documentary I am currently putting together about my trip [or see below]. I was invited by Brother Nate as I like to call him to go to Alabama for the weekend and not just re-enact the march across the bridge but to meet some of the pioneers of the movement, who walked across the bridge 45 years ago that day.

Jubilee weekend was set up by Rose and Hank Saunders in order to commemorate the bravery and remember that fateful day. Jubilee Weekend consists of a celebration of exceptional people in today’s struggle for Civil Rights. Being honoured that weekend was Winnie Mandela.

Walking across the bridge early on in the day before the cameras and television crews got there was a very sobering experience. I was happy to be there, to witness and experience it, but at the same time something sunk heavy in me.

History is a powerful thing to read, learn and see.

The struggle for black equality jumped off the page that whole weekend as I met and talked to the original people who walked across the bridge that day forty five years ago.

Lemara is currently putting together a short documentary about the event. Here's a snippet:



And Lemara is also at work on a series of posts about the Black Experience in the US and the UK - "A Different Kind of Black." Read it, and leave her a comment.

Letter from America: Mardi Gras in New Orleans

AMS student Betsy Porritt is currently spending her year abroad at Tulane University in New Orleans:

So THAT was Mardi Gras. During the week long extravaganza I lost my voice, dignity and about three whole days. New Orleans takes it’s partying seriously. Seriously enough to give the city days off work to watch gaudy floats roll by and allow the people to scream hysterically for bright beads and trinkets you normally couldn’t pay me to take home. The festival season this year started with a bang as the home football team, the Saints, won their first ever Super Bowl. Coupled with a landslide victory for Mitch Landrieu, voted in as a mayor who promises to usher in a new era of order and growth, the victory in Miami was lauded as an almost divine sign that this isn’t a sinking city.

When I first said I wanted to come to New Orleans most people were either worried for my safety or the future health of my liver. Others only knew the city as a place still devastated by hurricane Katrina with little or no culture left, if there was any there in the first place. I wanted an adventure, to challenge my middle class white girl sensibilities and to really see a place that had existed in my imagination for so long.

There are a few things that struck me initially and still continue to make me smile. Firstly, that there really is music everywhere. I lie in my bed and hear my neighbours practicing trumpet; walk down the street and a second line parade passes the block; step out of class and a three piece band is quietly jamming on the porch of the academic advising building. Secondly, that this is a place that refuses to take itself seriously and at the same time is deeply earnest in everything it does. This is probably one of the only places left in the world where tie-die is an acceptable form of clothing decoration, and where dancing in the street is not only enjoyed by all totally without inhibition, but non-participants are shunned and reviled as outsiders. Yet, at the same time, the externally flamboyant and effeminate Mardi Gras Indian practice of dressing in the most feathery, glittery, brightly-coloured suit possible, is a sign of the wearer’s complete masculine domination over those less gaudy and brilliant.

And this is the third thing: the deep seated love of the city and a tenacious clinging to the customs which made it, no matter how politically incorrect they seem to outsiders. On Mardi Gras morning I stumbled, blinking, out of a bar into the sunshine and crowds filling the pavements and neutral ground down St Charles avenue to watch the Zulu parade. This all black parade was started officially at the dawn of the 20th century. Its history reaches back into the era of slavery and the social aid and pleasure clubs which were essentially local insurance groups which aided black communities, families and individuals in times of crisis. The parade holds a long and proud tradition and has carried Louis Armstrong as king. However, it was still shocking to me to see African Americans decked out in grass skirts with painted black faces throwing coconuts. The Krewe faced near closure during the 60s when ‘black awareness’ jarred with the highly racialised images, but it clung on and today a Zulu coconut is one of the most prized possessions of the entire carnival period. I realized how much collective social memory can count towards the meaning of something. On the surface the ideas behind the parade seem racist and outdated but in reality the riders are acknowledging a deep history and embracing a past riddled with controversy rather than pretending it never happened. The historically white parades themselves are just plain strange, masked and cloaked, often on horseback, overwhelmingly linked to Grecian or Roman mythology. I was inevitably reminded of old footage of Klan members parading down streets. And don’t even get me started on the dubious relationship between the masked, middle aged ‘Rex’ of the Krewes and the sweet southern belle, never out of her twenties, who is presented to him as queen. And yet I screamed for beads.

A few streets away, past the huge St Charles mansions, in alleys where the waters of the broken levees lapped the walls for weeks, the Mardi Gras Indians were meeting. My friend and I jumped on our bikes and set off to find them. Here is a side of the city I never even knew existed before I arrived. The Indians have a strange and unclear history. Part embracing of the relationship between the bayou Native Americans and the escaped slaves, part utter fantasy, and part empowerment and embodiment of all Voodoo, Christian, African, European, American gumbo that makes this city, the Indian chiefs hold a power in the backstreets of the city that is untouched by law and Americanisation. In the stunning documentary ‘Tootie’s Last Suit’ by Lisa Katzman, the head of the Yellow Pocahontas, Tootie Montana, talks of the past Indian fights which were bloody and violent and how he enforced the ritual of the suit as power - the shared social memory of a past, embodied in the most elaborate and detailed beaded designs, made over 365 days, which determine essentially who is a man and who is not. Here in the quiet, sitting on the curb with a bowl of red beans and rice, I saw two chiefs meet; their various spyboys dance and signal and one great feathered head bows to another. I can’t say I fully understand it but somewhere between the frenzy of the external parade madness, and the solemn dignity of the Indian tribes, I think lies the secret of the big easy and evidence of a stronger current of culture than I really knew existed.

Letter from America: Malcolm McLaughlin

I’m in Austin, Texas this week working at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library on the campus of U Texas, home of the famous college football team the Longhorns. Austin is famous – or infamous – for the live music and boozing scene downtown on 6th Street, old Pecan Street. In fact Austin claims to be the world’s live music capital and has a festival here every year. Unfortunately – or perhaps fortunately from a work point of view – it’s the book festival that’s on during my visit. That being said, when I went to see it they had a pretty fine Scottish Pipe Band marching about, in kilts, sporrans, and the whole enchilada. It took me right back to my ancestral homeland – except that the weather here stubbornly remains at around 25 Celsius, which one rarely finds in Edinburgh come November.

So, I’ve been working out of the LBJ library on Red River Road, a wonderful facility staffed by some excellent archivists. It contains a museum dedicated to President Johnson and perhaps the most intriguing exhibit is a reproduction of LBJ’s Oval Office. Walking in there you can imagine the big man sitting down to talk civil rights with Martin Luther King. I asked if I could sit behind the desk but no luck, sadly. I’ve attached a photograph of that room here and a couple of other snaps of Austin.Malcolm

Letter From America: Rachel Archer

In the first of a new series of Letters from America, AMS Student Rachel Archer details her experiences in New York. Rachel is currently studying at Goucher College.

This Christmas, rather than go back to Blighty, I decided to spend it in New York. I arrived fairly late on a Friday night, and was met by my good friend from Goucher College, Rachel, at Penn. Station. Rachel is a native of Brooklyn, but we spent the best part of that first night in New York being dragged around Irish bars in Chelsea by some of our Goucher friends. The moment I stepped out into the streets of New York I was completely blown away. I am from London myself and assumed that once you have seen one big city you have seen them all- false. New York is like no other place, it is literally the most amount of hustle and bustle you can ever imagine and I personally loved it!

I spent the first few days staying with Rachel in a cute little neighborhood of Brooklyn called Flatbush. Flatbush is a very ethnically diverse area, and it reminded me a bit of my own home borough in London, called Newham. You get a real feeling of community in these smaller Brooklyn neighborhoods, with all different people from all around the world. We traveled around the various areas in Brooklyn to meet up with her friends, including Bushwick, which was once one of the poorest areas. I walked past the project that Jay-Z grew up in. However, it is now what Americans call a “hipster” neighborhood, and we went to a party at her friend’s loft apartment. The next day we went to Brooklyn Heights, which has always been quite the trendy area in Brooklyn. The streets are lined with the most beautiful Brown Stone houses and it is there that you can get the famous view of the Manhattan Skyline. Unfortunately it was very very cold that night so my pictures are rather blurry since I was shaking as I took them. The day after we went to Williamsburg, this has again gone from being a very blue-collar area to a very fashionable (and in turn expensive) place to reside. Our main reason for going there, though, was to visit the world famous thrift store “Beacon’s Closet ” which was full of old designer wear, pretty cheap.

After a few days of Brooklyn I went over the Brooklyn Bridge, back to Manhattan, to meet up with fellow UEA student Michael Fincham. We booked into our hostel in Chelsea then hit the Manhattan bars. After a couple of watery American beers we took a walk down to Times Square. I had seen it a few years ago, but it was Michael’s first time. I will never forget the look on his face as he looked up at the most amount of advertising in one small space. There is literally NOTHING that does not have an advert on it. The economic crisis has not seemed to have hit Time Square just yet. Personally I think Times Square is modern day Babylon BUT it is pretty impressive.

Christmas was now fast approaching and New York was magical! We spent Christmas eve walking 60 blocks uptown. We saw the Empire State building (which due to my very irrational fear of heights we did not go up), Rockefellers and marched up to Central Park, which was snow covered and beautiful! The next few days were a whirlwind of Manhattan fun. One of the best things I saw was Wall Street, which in this current climate has a real panic stricken feeling about it. Everything from China Town to Battery Park, to the Statue of Liberty, to the Museum of Modern Art (which by the way, is free after 4pm on a Friday), to the Brown Stones, to the Village, impressed me. I did not see everything, and next time I go I want to see Harlem and the Brooklyn Museum of Art. But with its close proximity to Baltimore and my various friends that live there, I can see a fair few visits coming up.

Letter from America: Myles Oldershaw

Myles Oldershaw is currently spending his year abroad at Reed College:

Seattle, the oldest and biggest city in the Pacific Northwest, was our destination as we left campus in minivans at five-thirty in the morning. As part of fall break, the international student group of Reed College had arranged a day trip to Seattle, and twenty-eight of us made the uneventful four-hour trip up Interstate Five between Portland and ‘The Emerald City’. Seattle is the third American city I have seen, after New York and Portland, and the immediate impression when we arrived downtown was that Seattle was more like the former. The tall buildings and wide roads of the business district were much more reminiscent of midtown Manhattan than of any area I have yet seen in Portland.

Our first stop on the tourist trail was the Space Needle, Seattle’s landmark ‘pointy tower’ built for the 1962 World Fair. From the observation deck, which is above a rotating restaurant that sells $25 salads, we could see all of downtown Seattle and some of Puget Sound, the network of inlets and rivers to the west of the city. We could also see the Olympic sculpture park that we later visited, a free outdoor collection of sculptures on the river bank. In the same complex as the Space Needle, reached by a monorail, was the Experience Music Project, a rock and roll memorabilia museum celebrating the musical heritage of a city called home by both Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain.

The rest of the day was spent exploring other areas of downtown, along with the Gasworks park in the Fremont district, a hilly park built around the site of a still-standing redundant gasworks, and the University district in Northeastern Seattle. The area, known as the U district, felt infused with the University in all its aspects in a way completely different from UEA and its surrounding environment. By the end of the day, the whole group was exhausted, but we still felt as if we had seen only a small amount of what Seattle had to offer. What we did see of the city made it seem a very welcoming place, with a recognizable, walkable downtown full of the coffee houses that are such a cliché of the region. Our impressions may have been helped by the fact that another cliché of the region, rain, was unseasonably absent on the day we visited. However, Seattle still appeared as a lively, friendly, green city worthy of its popular status in the ranks of America’s metropolises.

Letter from America: Will Greaves

Today's Letter from America comes from Will Greaves, who is currently studying at Reed College, Portland. Will writes:

Big Sur: Henry Miller waxed lyrical about it; Jack Kerouac chose it as the backdrop for a notorious breakdown; Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth brought a house overlooking it on a whim. Naturally, I had to see this for myself! To reach Big Sur – essentially an area of dramatic coastline formed over epochs as the Santa Lucia Mountains rose up from the Pacific – requires negotiating the frighteningly precipitous I-1 south of Monterey,California. Yet as the photo above shows, the switchback route provides spectacular views.

The state of Oregon is awash with covered bridges, quaint constructions built to help preserve the internal wooden trusses from the rain. For me,the portrait above, with its whitewashed bridge nestled between Fall foliage, captures a certain bucolic image of rural America.

Scary thought for the day: only just outside of liberal Portland, with its bohemian charm, such signs start popping up with startling frequency…

Famed as the epicentre of the ‘60s hippie revolution, Haight-Ashbury retains a powerful position in American countercultural history. As a wave of young beatniks, inspired by Kerouac et al, converged on San Francisco, the Haight area became attractive due to its relatively cheap accommodation. The neighbourhood housed many of those bands – from the Grateful Dead to Jefferson Airplane – whose music would provide the soundtrack for the 1967 Summer of Love. Though it just about maintains its air of iconoclasm, burnt-out hipsters now jostle for space with the throngs of tourists. And, sadly, Haight Street ends with a McDonald’s.

Letter From America: Melina Nicolaou

This week's Letter From America comes from Melina Nicolaou, who is currently spending her year abroad at Roanoke College in Virginia.

Melina writes:

"I'm studying at Roanoke College in Salem,Virginia, which is located in an area rich in American history. The first settlers arrived in Virginia, after all! Thomas Jefferson's home, Monticello, is here (pictured above) as is the rotunda he designed for the University of Virginia. We were able to visit his home and the University with our International Club. In the club, we have organised trips to many places including Washington D.C. (pictured below) and Charleston. The trips are the highlight of being a member of the club (and I was also treasurer!). I am enjoying every minute of my time here and I can imagine that it will be impossible to leave at the end of the year!"

Letter from America: Emma Colthup

AMS student Emma Colthup spent her year abroad at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. - and here she is with Congressman Tom Petri:

Emma writes:

"While studying at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. I had the opportunity to do an internship in the U.S. House of Representatives. I spent my Thursdays and Fridays for four months interning in the office of Representative Tom Petri from Wisconsin. I and five other interns did the usual intern tasks of answering the phone, replying to constituent mail, archiving letters and other material from the past two decades that the Congressman has been serving the house and giving tours of the U.S. Capitol building. Giving tours of the Capitol building was particularly interesting and amusing at times since I had to apologise a number of times for the British burning down the original building in 1814! My internship was such a great way to really see law making and politics in action. I got to find out a lot about how party politics and elections worked, as I started my internship just four days into the new 2007-2008 Democratic House. In addition, I got to attend one of the Congressman’s fundraisers, and see how the financial side of politics is important. I also got to learn a lot about American culture and the views of Americans through my conversations with constituents back in Wisconsin. It was especially interesting to learn their views on the war in Iraq and terrorism. About half-way through my internship President Bush proposed the troop surge in Iraq and the House put together a non-binding resolution (a statement not a law) declaring their objection. Congressmen Petri was one of only 17 Republicans to vote in favour of the Resolution. The heated response from his constituents and local party were amazing, but the numbers enthusiastically supporting him were quite remarkable too. Towards the end of my internship the Congressman took several of the staff, including me, on a tour of the dome of the Capitol building. You have to have a member of Congress with you to go on these tours so it was a really unique chance to see more of one of the world’s most famous landmarks. Altogether it was an amazing opportunity and made such a difference to my studies of America."

Letter from Canada: Alexia Smith

This week's year abroad memories come from Alexia Smith. Alexia studied at Carleton University in Ottowa, Canada.

"This is a view of Montreal, where we went for Christmas and New Year. The photograph was taken from one of the city's islands, which was home to a famous race track and casino. It was utterly beautiful, and well worth the journey through ice-rain!"

"The next picture was taken at a hockey match we went to - Canadians are obsessed with hockey! This was an Ottawa 67's game, who are in a slightly younger league than the NHL. We had a great time though. It was even better than the NHL game we saw. The whole crowd was really into it. The 67's won, which was good, and it was a great match."

Letter from America: Tom Urwin

This week's Letter from America comes from Tom Urwin, who studied at San Francisco State University:

"On my year abroad in San Francisco, I took an internship at 826 Valencia, San Francisco's only independent Pirate Supply Store. Originally I did it to get a visa extension (who wouldn't want an opportunity to stay in SF as long as possible?), but it ended up being the focus of my second semester.

As well as the store front, which sells compasses, spare peg legs, hats, eyepatches, glass eyes, lard, and everything else the working pirate needs, 826 Valencia is a non-profit writing workshop for kids aged 8-18, set up by author and publisher Dave Eggers in 2002. They run various free programs in 3 main areas: in-schools programs, where volunteers go into a local school to work on existing projects set up by teachers, everything from checking and helping with college entrance essays to writing Shakespearean sonnets (I have a thank-you note with a picture of me as William Shakespeare from one kid); field trips, where up to 30 kids come into the workshop to create a book in a 2-hour session; and after school homework drop-in, which also serves as a free childminding service for parents who can't get out of work to pick up their kids. The workshop is in the middle of the Mission district, a largely latino/hispanic area, and focuses on working with kids from immigrant families, especially where English isn't a primary language.

As an intern, I worked on all the above projects, as well as doing various tasks related to keeping the whole non-profit organisation ticking over. Mainly this involved photocopying and phoning up regular volunteers to beg, cajole and threaten them into helping out on the projects. Probably the most fun were the field trips. Most mornings, a class of kids would come in to make a book, with the help of a group of volunteers. The kids would usually be aged 8-11, though in the summer we had an unplanned group of about 40 6-year-olds come in, and I got roped into leading the whole trip! The kids sit in rows facing a projector screen, where the story appears in front of them, typed up by a volunteer at a computer. The field trip leader goes through the basics of a story - characters, setting, conflict etc - and the kids build the story
themselves. Another volunteer, usually a local artist, brings the characters to life on a drawing board at the front, and after two or three pages have been completed in the group, the kids are given paper and pencils, and each one has to finish the story by themself.

While this goes on, interns and volunteers take the completed pages and illustrations, photocopy them and collate them together, and when a kid has finished, the book is bound there and then in the workshop. Now, as well as the leader, artist and typist, there's one other person who helps out with the field trips, and that is the terrifying Mr Blue. Mr Blue is a cranky old publisher, who lives in the attic above the workshop, is never seen, and has read everything ever written by anyone, ever. This ensures all the characters are original, and there's no Spongebobs or anything else like that. He periodically shouts down at the kids and generally grumbles about the state of the stories he has to read. At the end of the session, all the finished books get sent up for his approval. Amazingly, he is blown away by the quality of writing, and each book gets his stamp of approval. I spent many happy mornings hiding up the ladder shouting at children.

The photo above (which is on the 826 Valencia homepage) was taken on my first day working there. They put me with Arkangel, who I later learned was one of the big initiation rites for volunteers - he was very easily distracted! All he had to do was sit and read to me a chapter or two of his book, but he managed to find a million little distractions. So, since his book was about pirates, we popped into the pirate store up front, borrowed a couple of hats and an eyepatch and bingo! he's reading and happy.

In my time there I got to meet Dave Eggers, Valentino Achak Deng (the inspiration behind What Is The What) and a whole load of writers, journalists and generally inspirational Bay Area creative minds, a large number of whom were under 18. Other highlights included the summer writing camp, a week-long program for high school students, where I got to know some of the kids really well, and who I hung out with (I'm not ashamed to say) at the Harry Potter final book launch midnight party."

Letter from America: Rebecca Hunt

In the first of an ongoing series in which AMS students share some of their Year Abroad experiences, Rebecca Hunt gives us two glimpses of her time at the University of Redlands, California.

"During my time at Redlands, it snowed for the first time in 10 years. Many of my friends had never seen snow before and we all went out in our pyjamas (as it was early in the morning!) and made snow balls."

"This photo was taken whilst driving along the Pacific Coast Highway to Orange County from Santa Barbara. Just after I took it I saw two dolphins swimming in the sea which was pretty amazing!"