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Print"Only 10 percent of Americans have passports."
Most people in the U.S. have probably had this statistic quoted to them at some point, and certainly most U.S. citizens abroad have had it quoted to them — probably many times.
- Katy Steinmetz
During the three years I spent in the United Kingdom, I heard this legend about once a month. Now that I'm back home, I want to take an opportunity to discredit it, once and for jolly all.
The number itself is inaccurate (the most recent statistics put out by the U.S. State Department suggest the number is closer to 30%) but that's not the real issue. The reason foreigners love to quote this back to Americans is the problem.
The loaded assertion behind the myth is this: Americans, the perpetuator suggests, are happily isolating themselves from the rest of the world in the laziest of ways, reveling in cultural ignorance and scoffing at the very idea of going abroad. They could travel if they wanted to, the assumption goes, but they simply don't.
It is true that certain Americans might be criticized for a certain lack of foreign travel. The London Times headline reading "‘Stay-at-home' Barack Obama comes under fire for a lack of foreign experience" makes sense. Should the potential leader of the American military personally check out the lay of Middle Eastern lands? Given the fact that he could make senatorial claims on taxpayer subsidies for such a journey, I'd say that's a reasonable expectation. But people like Obama could afford it besides — he earned $1.7 million as recently as 2005 — and are accountable to others for how they spend their time and money (at least to some degree).
However, for the average American, traveling abroad is not nearly so feasible, economically or logically, and these are the people taking the brunt of the criticism. In an article written for the London Guardian, John Patterson claimed most Americans don't go abroad because it's a "drag", because they're "ridiculous, paranoid, pathetically insular and grotesquely self-pitying." And just so we didn't worry that any of this was hyperbolic, he explained that Americans "have no reason to hate or fear (foreigners), but they have given the rest of us a million reasons to hate and fear them."
Let's pretend you're the average American whose traveling habits Patterson, et. al. so detest. You, Jo(e) the plumber, and your spouse have two kids. Your income, the median income for all American households, as determined by the U.S. Census, is $50,233. Your housing, according to the Consumer Price Index, will cost you 32.6% of your income; you're left with $33,857. MSN Money reckons that your 4 and 6 year-old children will cost you $11,280 and $11,130 respectively; you're left with $11,448. The Environmental Protection Agency tells you just buying gas for your 2005 Dodge Neon will cost you $2,088, and it will cost at least $1,400 to insure two people in your house to drive, according to the Insurance Information Institute. The average annual premium for an employer health plan covering a family of four, as determined by the National Coalition for Health Care, will cost you another $3,300. You're left with $4,659.
Using the lowest price option on Orbitz.com, you'll find that the flights from Springfield, Missouri (a nice, average American locale) to Paris and a six night stay at a hotel will cost your family about $4,000—if you go in the off-season.
You're broke.
Now, given that you and your spouse, according to the above breakdown, have yet to eat anything (or buy anything else for that matter) this year, is it likely that you will be mincing around the banks of the Seine now or any time in the foreseeable future? No. You were going to struggle to make ends meet in the first place. Want to spend an extra $100 on a passport application fee just for fun? Probably not. Meanwhile, Europeans can fly to Barcelona, Belfast or Berlin for less than a swanky dinner in London town would cost them.
The logic behind criticizing Americans for not having passports is also kin to the maxim that if you haven't racked up a nice, long list of countries that you've stepped foot in, then you're not well-traveled. The fifty states may share a federal government, but that doesn't mean they're not as culturally and geographically disparate as many European countries.
There are Innuits bearing the cold in Alaska and people who only speak Spanish in sunny California. There are teetotaling Mormons in Utah canyon lands and maple syrup farmers in mountainous Vermont. People are cooking Creole dishes in boggy Louisiana, and wranglin' cattle in the deserts of Texas. (Etc., etc., etc.)
And doesn't break the bank for Jo(e) to drive to a neighboring state.
I do not, rest assured, harbor any illusions that foreign peoples can or should abandon the Yank-bashing fad entirely: unpopular political decisions have yet to exhaust their comeuppance. I do, however, present this with the hope that all Americans can recognize and wholeheartedly reject the non-constructive national criticism and its context-free statistics.
Katy Steinmetz is a reporter for the Missourian. She recently moved to Columbia after spending two years teaching in Winchester, England, and one year in Edinburgh, Scotland. She has freelanced for a variety of publications, from 417 Magazine in Springfield, Mo., to the Guardian in London. Katy plans to complete her MU master's degree in 2010.
Comments
I'd love to get some opinions on this from you local commentators out there.
I like the analysis. Americans do tend to be broke - we have all this STUFF to spend money on, and, well, what is life without it (or so we think)?
That said, being broke has never stopped us from spending money we don't have, as we are seeing the fallout from these days.
I think it's more that we have a lot to do here as far as vacation oportunities, and we don't have to pay a large exchange penalty. I know people who vacation in Europe, but I know a lot more who vacation in Branson because they just like it better (and it's cheaper).
DK
It's a pain in @ss to fly domestically, let alone overseas. So I fly only when I have to, which usually is on business.
Still out there, Ross Peterson?
Wow, great article! I am an American living in the UK and also heard the same gripe about Americans not holding passports. I can't believe you only heard it once a month! I get nagged wkly! I have a lil' spiel that I am armed with to quickly rattle off the and defend 'most' Americans. There are 3 main points.
Besides the money point you mentioned .. they only get on avg 2 wks of holiday. Say you need one wk with the family over the holidays ... So you come over for one wk in the summer, you spend a day traveling on either end, jag lag, etc .. to spend 2 days in say France. That is not enough time to even see Paris! There are many reasons why most Americans don't have passports and Ross you hit one of them .. 'others don't understand the diversity and physical size of America.'
My last point and one that I hope changes .... *drum roll* I think the 18-30's should be more pressed with traveling and learning about other cultures. Other countries usually work/travel out of there country for a year and this is a normal practice! It makes you aware of the bigger picture instead of getting a job right out of college and working 60 hours so you can be completely stressed out just in time to have your mid life crisis. which is mostly fueled by the job you have to get money to buy more THINGS.
Anyway .. thanks for letting me rant for a bit ;)
PS.. this comment goes out to one of those statics. For the sake of confidentiality ... we will call him Moon Boots Traylo. GET A PASSPORT!
Great article! I do a lot of traveling abroad and I've gotten into this numerous times. I always defend the US though with the obvious burden of being geographically isolated, at least compared to Europeans. Now I have more meat to throw at them.
Americans get far less holidays than Europeans, the minimum holiday requirement for a full time working in the UK is now 28 days or 5.6 weeks, in the US it's something like 11 days.
However now that you need a passport to enter Canada I should imagine US Passport ownership should increase, however the only other assesible country by land is Mexico and parts of South America are hardly welcoming.
While I see your point, you fail to consider that a family of four need not go to Paris every year.. nobody is asking the average American to fly to Europe each summer.. also they could do things such as leaving the young kids with the grandparents. Also, I don't think it costs 22K a year to raise two children, this math doesn't add up.. unless you're spending on private schools.. I doubt the demographic you describe has the money to send their kids to anything but public schools.
The last poster raises some valid points. The issue is not that those who do not possess passports will not travel to Paris every year, it is that they will not travel to Paris in any year, or anywhere else for that matter. There are countries which are considerably closer to the US geographically and significantly less expensive to visit as a result, for example South America or The Carribean, which most Americans will never venture to.
In addition the suggestion of it being too expensive to travel abroad does not stand-up to scrutiny. Whilst the median income is quoted, this ignores the fact that, by definition, half the population earns more than this amount, yet less than a third have passports. Also, regardless of the cost of bringing up two young children, much of the population will not have dependants to support either.
A previous poster suggests that the average holiday is too small to allow foreign visits. Admittedly those in the US have on average less holiday than their European counterparts, but the mean figure is still 25 days, far more than the two weeks quoted.
Despite having lived abroad, the original author of the article shows considerable cultural ignorance by referring to The Times and The Guardian as The London Times and The London Guardian respectively, as well as being quick to dismiss the possibility of any accuracy in the suggestion of further cultural ignorance from the rest her compatriots due to lack of travel. I am personally of the opinion that such attitudes displayed by many of the Americans who do travel beyond their own shores leads a significant number of those in the countries they visit to believe that the fact that most US citizens do not own passports is not necessarily a problem.
A few points to Joe's post: First, the addition of "London" was not mine but the copy editors' and was done for the benefit of those readers who haven't lived abroad and who might reasonably confuse "The Times" of London with, say, The New York Times.
Also, I never say that no American is culturally ignorant; certainly some are, and certainly some people from every culture are. My point was that the passport "statistic" gets quoted to suggest that 90 percent of Americans are happily untraveled, and that's not the case. Sure, some people can afford to travel and should and don't, but the majority of people cannot afford it. Even if they do just go to Paris in one year, that's something they'd have to save up for, and most couples or families have other long-term investments, such as cars or college funds or IRAs, that would reasonably and practically, if still not ideally, take precedence over blowing thousands of dollars on a week abroad.
I'm afraid Joe betrays some ignorance of travel, too. Beyond driving to Mexico or Canada, which would be relatively cheap but would also take up most of that vacation time just in going to and fro, it's not cheap to visit "nearby" countries in South America. Going to Rio for a week's vacation - and Orbitz will again back me up here - is only about $100 cheaper than going to Paris, if you get the cheapest deal possible. And even if an American could get a cheap trip to the Bahamas, sitting on a beach on an island that is largely a tourist trap is hardly going to satisfy the critics who say Americans aren't culturally enlightened.
This gets back to the idea that people from other continents often fail to understand what a difference in geographic isolation and price there is for Americans to tackle when it comes to making their way to a land of another culture. Sure, it would be great if all Americans could go abroad and get a first-hand understanding of other peoples, but it's unfair to criticize all Americans for not doing something only a minority could ever afford.
(Please excuse the grammatical implication that Mexico and Canada are in South America. Consider it rephrased, "... it's not cheap to visit "nearby" countries, such as those in South America.")
The low number doesn't surprise me.
My brother and father have lived all over the world, but as military personnel they didn't need passports.
The passport expires, so only the Americans who are traveling abroad within 5-10 years need one.
America is more vast than many people know. I have been told numerous times by Europeans that Hawaii is a territory and not a state.
Americans will always be called arrogant. I was told that Americans were arrogant for putting the US in the middle of the world map, as opposed to the European version in which Europe and Africa are in the center. When we get to arguing about why our map looks different or why in another anglophone country a newspaper has a diffent name, it can get quite silly.
Great article. I think that language is another barrier for Americans abroad. Europeans (of necessity, not superiority) frequently speak a second language, frequently English. Being able to communicate is a huge part of experiencing a destination. One can only see so many castles, museums, and churches before asking the question...'but what about LIFE here?' For me, that's a reason that travel within the US is attractive. I can experience a different culture by traveling from Michigan to Mississippi, for instance, rather than just experiencing the SIGHTS of another culture. There's a big difference.