quartered

here's something i've been thinking about, i.e. my newest nationality crisis.

my new philosophy is to ignore all the negative energy of what people call reality re: student loans and the thousand-year debt i'm accruing. because it is only by focusing on what i want to become that i can push forward and make something of myself, which will come with money to pay off said debt. i am ready to pick myself up and make something of myself. to work hard, to grovel, to move myself upwards. the reputed american life story.

i've been looking for film funding. and, of course, i look to the various governments that could in one way or another support me (because that is how independent film has more or less worked historically). the BBC has a wonderful section called the Writer's Room that takes UNSOLICITED screenplays and stories from UK residents. so my first instinct is to find its american equivalent: PBS. of course, though, like everything else in this godforsaken country, living here and dealing with its many pitfalls while not benefiting from any of its so-called "opportunities" or "freedoms" is not enough to partake in anything. they slap the words back at you: CITIZEN. not resident. but CITIZEN. it's like they won't even allow you to grovel. wow, america. america!

i go next to the countries that will, in terms of citizenship, take me as i am and here is where my frustration begins: i am living in america. my stories are inherently bred from everyday experience, an american everyday experience. living in america has removed me from hong kong and from ghana so that my stories are not "ghanaian", they do not appeal to a ghanaian audience and to go in and write ghanaian stories - experiencing the culture through my rose-tinted nostalgia - won't be much better than all those westerners that that go in and bring out misrepresenting tales of barbarism and poverty. but my positive point of view is equally as patronizing. again: my stories are inherently from a western perspective because i am living in america. but america won't have me. ghana will, but i am not living there and everything i write about it will come from a skewed nostalgic perspective. hong kong will, but only if i am writing a story about hong kong ... and oh that skewed perspective...

there is no place where i can exist as a whole. i have often longed for that kind of unity, that kind of conviction in place. and i hate hate hate third culture kids whining about not having a home and sitting around, i hate that with a passion. that is not my point here. my question is how to push ahead? how to solve, how to live, how to be, because i really want to. it's just really hard to not have a foundation or corner stone because this world comes with its earthquakes. i have existed mostly in an international sphere - artistically, this manifests itself as stories ABOUT my nostalgic memories, my rose-tinted perspective. this manifests itself as tales removed from "reality", tales which focus on psychology and perspective. and my only cornerstone and backbone has been my family. my family thrust 12,000 kilometres eastward. or westward. it's so far you can't know.

and this is not just a girl whining about not being able to fund a film. this is #7,545,466 in a long list of why america needs to get over herself as a superpower as the richest country in the world as the land to take everyone's weary and hungry. that is what i'm whining about. economists spout the highest GDP as if that is a gauge of general quality of life. and it's just so frustrating to be treated like this on a daily basis, to be told that you are not one of us despite the fact you are experiencing all this with us. you are not one of us, we will help our own, pick them up from the bowels we push them into. and we will push you into those bowels and leave you there to fester and spit and wonder why you came here in the first place. i hate america. you see? i have no allegiance to this country. i do not NEED to experience all this bullshit because at the end of the day i can just leave it. if it was a welcoming country i would quickly grow this allegiance. but as it stands, i very confidently say that this country can give me nothing (i am paying fully for my education, and to jump start my career so it is not giving me these things). and i will give it nothing.

and i've been trying to figure out why i am still here. everything i like about this place is not unique to this place. except for columbia: you know, i love columbia and the academic experience it's giving me cannot be questioned. but even this is marred by its price tag. and it is marred by the fact that, going to college involves more than taking classes. it involves being in new york city and trying to meet people and trying to change things and trying to realize my dreams and why does this government have to make it so that i have to put all that at a stand-still? i can't work off-campus, i can't even stay in this city i may come to call home after 4 years, i can't apply for scholarships, and i can't fund a film, i can't enter a majority of your competitions. what are your citizens doing that i am not?

and america thus breeds this "us" vs. "them" mentality. i have never been nationalistic or even seen nationality as something at my core. but coming to america, all i can think is: well, i am definitely NOT american. but living in america and thinking to the places i am concretely from breeds none other than a rose-tinted view of the places that will have me. i will proudly say i am from ghana, i am from hong kong, as if these places have no pitfalls. but i have never been made to feel this way in any other country. just so unwanted.

i am just split, straddling, across nations. and parts of me are allowed and parts of me are not. and it is funny and frustrating to so manifestly, so physically feel the division of blood and soul and mind and body.