I’m halfway through my year as an English instructor in Korea when I’m asked to teach American history. We’re sitting in the teachers’ lounge. Peter, at the head of the table, is handing out assignments for a month-long “intensive session.”
“Megan will teach American history,” he says. “Marc will teach civics. And Nigel—you’ll teach government.”
Peter peers at us through his long, graceful lashes, giving us a seemingly careless look. Our boss is short but good-looking, his hair slicked back with gel, his skin taut. He reminds me of a movie star. He’s the sort of person you might never truly know.
The room is silent. The other teachers look back at him, their stares blank.
“American government?” Nigel asks finally. “Is that what I’m meant to teach?” I can tell from his tone he disapproves. Nigel is from South Africa. He’s one of three foreign teachers, including myself. When I first came to Korea, Nigel told me how his colleagues used to wear shirts that read, “I am not American” in Hangul.
I laughed when Nigel told me the story. It was true, anyway. On the streets, everyone assumes you’re American. Miguk-saram, they say, never waeguk-saram. No one wonders where else you might be from.
  This time, sitting in the teachers’ lounge, it isn’t funny. I can feel Nigel’s anger rising. If I weren’t American, I’d be angry too. But I am American—the only one here who isn’t also Korean. I’m supposed to defend my country, say it’s the greatest place in the world to live. People look at me to explain recent military actions in Iraq; they want me to tell them why we were searching for weapons of mass destruction.
“I can’t speak for the government,” I say. I mostly want to hide underneath my desk. Here being American is a burden.
Peter looks at Nigel, nods his head. “Good. You have understood. Any more questions?”
I want to ask Peter why he thinks I’m qualified to teach this course. I’m 22. The last time I took American history, I was in high school.
More than that, there’s something I can’t explain it to Peter, to the other teachers: For a long time, I didn’t feel American at all.

I remember the first time I heard the Pledge of Allegiance. I was in third grade, sitting at my desk, preparing for the first day in my new American school.
My mother had bought us the traditional gear: binders, pencils, rulers, lined paper, a backpack. I must have had similar supplies in the UK, where we had lived for the past five years, but I don’t remember now. Instead, I remember carrying around a black recorder in a yellow, stitched pouch—one that had my name on it. I remember the lollypop man who helped us cross the street; he later died of a heart attack.
I remember wearing a gray uniform in the winter. There was a pink checkered one for the spring. I never minded wearing the same outfit, day after day. I took pride in learning how to tie a tie, watching in the mirror as I folded one end over the other. I wore polished shoes from Clarks—the only shoe store in town. It took hours for the clerk to find us the right pair of shoes. He would bring them from the back, one pair at a time, as my sister and I waited, taking turns on the rocking horse. I suppose my shoes and uniform weren’t fashionable, but I never much cared about that.
But this new school was foreign. We sat at our desks, and they felt stiff. For the first time, I knew I’d be punished if I didn’t learn cursive, didn’t practice the words on my spelling list, memorize all 144 times tables. In the UK, I felt I could be myself, and everyone would like that person. But here, for the first time, I felt pressured to be someone different. It wasn’t enough to say that I belonged here; I had to prove it.
  There were so many things to learn that year: coins and dollar bills, American sayings, the names and capitals of all fifty states. Math would feel different, too; measurements would seem odd for a long time. But on that first day of school, I felt I had mastered nearly everything already. I was prepared to be a student at this American school. We had arrived that summer; by the time school began, my British accent was beginning to fade. I’d been told the correct way to ask for bathroom. The other students wouldn’t laugh at me. They would know I was one of them.
Then, the Pledge of Allegiance played over the loudspeaker.
“Please rise,” someone had said—a young girl. She barely had to speak above a whisper; the words projected into every classroom at that school.
When the Pledge of Allegiance came on, I stood with the other students, but my legs  were quaking. I looked around the room, wondering what might happen next. My twin sister, in the back, looked equally confused.
“I pledge allegiance to the flag … ,” the girl had said over the loudspeaker, and the other students recited it too.
I lipped the words, pretending. The students recited the pledge solemnly, hands over their hearts. I’d heard “The Star-Spangled Banner” at an Orioles’ game once. Francis Scott Key, a Marylander, had written it—but this wasn’t that.
I waited for the pledge to be over, already visualizing the end of the day, when I would return home to my father.
“You never said anything about the Pledge of Allegiance,” I would say.
“Jeez,” he would respond; his accent thick, Washingtonian. “They still recite that?”
After the pledge, things had only gotten worse. By the end of the day, I’d forgotten almost everything I knew about being American. I asked for the “toilet” instead of “bathroom.” Another mistake. I thought I heard the other students snickering when I said it.
“It’ll be okay,” my dad said. He’d given me a tall glass of chocolate milk; I sipped it slowly.

  “I need to learn the Pledge of Allegiance today,” I said, swishing the milk so it grew thick between my teeth. “Right away.” I was crying, working myself up.
My father sat me down. “You’ll learn it soon enough,” he said. “It’ll just take time.”

  I didn’t believe him. “No,” I said. I couldn’t imagine going back there a second day, not knowing the words. It’d be nearly impossible to show my face again at that school.
But I did go back, the Pledge of Allegiance memorized. Once I knew it, I said the words religiously, with pride. Even by the time I reached high school, when other students abstained, I always stood for the pledge, pushing in my chair, holding my hand over my heart.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America …
Yes, I was American. I would never again forget the words.

Fourteen years later, I’m debating on how I’ll teach my first class on American history. I’ve been given full rein over the curriculum, so I decide to have fun with it. I order copies of Schoolhouse Rock!, Gone with the Wind.
“What are you doing in there?” Nigel asks on the second day of class. He’s been teaching about the three branches of government, separation of church and state. He’s still angry. His classroom is on the other side of mine. Through the walls, I imagine his face turning red. Nigel has a presence. He’s large, his voice booming. Students are afraid of him. Usually, I’m not loud enough to be heard outside the classroom, but this time I’m playing cartoons on my computer. The students gather around.
“I’m just a bill,” a sad, rolled-up wad of paper sings. He’s been neglected, sitting on the steps of the Capitol building, waiting to become a law.
“Isn’t this great?” I say, but I can tell my students are uncomfortable. They’re used to discipline in the classroom, rulers held nearby—the possibility of corporal punishment. They keep looking out the window, wondering if they’ll get caught.
“Son-saeng-nim,” they say once they are back in their seats. “Is this American history?”
“Of course,” I say. “What else?”
They look at me with disbelief.
I try explaining my strategy to Nigel. We always have lunch before school, at the same spot. I have chamchi kimbap on my plate. Nigel is waiting for his jajangmyeon. The woman at the counter knows who we are. She smiles when she sees us, hands us our chopsticks. She patiently waits as we order, never cringes over our mispronunciations. That’s enough reason to return to this place. Everywhere else, we are gawked at.
“What’s this got to do with history?” Nigel asks after I explain the videos. I thought he’d understand, but he doesn’t. I remind myself he’s not American.

  “It’s all related,” I say. “I think our students should learn everything. Don’t you?”
But Nigel shakes his head. He’s often sarcastic, has a dark view of the world. I remind myself that he doesn’t always believe what I do.
“In 15 years,” he likes to say, “we won’t be fighting over oil; we’ll be fighting over water.”
Sometimes I think Nigel is right, that he’s older and knows more than I do. Still, I find myself arguing.
“It’s not my fault you’re teaching American government,” I say. “You should have talked to Peter. He’s the one who assigned the class.”
Nigel doesn’t agree. “It is your fault,” he says, pointing his chopsticks at me. He’s only half serious, I know. He steals a piece of kimbap from my plate. He puts the whole thing in his mouth, looking at me as he chews.
“I get it,” I say. I feel almost as frustrated as he does. “But what do you want me to do about it?”
Nigel’s eyes sparkle. He often looks like he’s going to laugh, even when he’s serious. He shrugs his shoulders at me.
“I don’t know,” he says. “Keep teaching the class, I guess.”
So I do.

We start with the Revolutionary War, Thomas Paine, The Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” I have the students repeat the words. They’re comfortable with rote memorization. Still, I think the words are powerful. I want my students to understand them. I remember what it was like to hear those lines for the first time.
“Self-evident?” one of my students asks when we are done reading. “Why not just ‘evident’?” She takes out her dictionary to look up the word.
“It means ‘given,’” Kate, my most gifted student, says. “It means everyone should have these rights. Without question.”
“True,” I say.
Kate wears glasses. She has oily hair, which she pulls back into a headband. She often rolls her eyes at the other students. Whatever they say, it’s irrelevant to her own educational advancement.
Sometimes I think I shouldn’t encourage Kate, but she’s my only creative thinker. She speaks to me as if she and I are the only ones in the classroom. I know she thinks I’m the only one worth speaking to, the only who will understand.
“What about the ‘men’?” Kate asks, her voice a bit nasally. “Why didn’t they say ‘men and women’?”
It’s a good question, but I find myself getting defensive.
“It was written a long time ago,” I say. I flip to the next chapter in our book.

When we turned 16, my sister and I returned to England for the first time. I’d been looking forward to this trip since we left eight years ago. I’d never felt at home in the U.S. I convinced myself I was a visitor only. When I returned to the UK, I thought, I’d be returning home.
But as soon as we touched down in Heathrow, it was clear that wouldn’t be the case. A family friend picked us up at the airport. I remember watching out the window, looking out at the cars, most of them half the size of our American SUVs and minivans. Each one had a yellow license plate with large letters, no state name. I watched as drivers got into their cars—the steering wheel, the pedals all on the wrong side.
Mrs. Yates, my mom’s friend, drove us into town. As she did, I searched through my carry-on for my wallet. I had prematurely bought postcards at the airport and wanted to sort through the change I’d been given.
Eight years earlier, it had been American coins and bills I couldn’t decipher. At the store, a clerk had watched as I tried to pay for pretzels and a Slim Jim.
“That’s $2.89,” she’d said, opening the register.
I looked down at the coins in my hand and then over at my mother.
“Which ones?” I’d asked.
But in Mrs. Yates’s car, I could hardly make sense of the coins in front of me. There was a two-pence coin. I tried to think of when that might come in handy. I had given the woman at the register a five-pound bill, and she’d given me all coins in return: a one-pound coin, twenty pence. I unzipped my change purse and dropped them in.
Now I watched as Mrs. Yates pulled onto the main road.
“What would you girls like to do while you’re here?” she asked. I looked over her shoulder at the speedometer. We were going 70 km per hour. I tried to convert kilometers to miles in my head but couldn’t.
“We’re excited to see London,” my sister said. “The changing of the guard, Buckingham Palace.”
I nodded along, holding onto my seat as we entered a four-lane roundabout with stoplights. As we approached a red light, Mrs. Yates put the gear into neutral, pulled on the emergency brake. I looked around at the other cars, wondering how we would work our way out of this circle.
“I want to visit the old school in Harrogate,” I found myself saying, “see the shops.” I didn’t want to sound like a tourist.
“We haven’t been to North Yorkshire in ages,” Mrs. Yates said.
“Yes,” I said, looking out the window for something familiar. “It’ll be nice to go home.”

Back in the classroom, my students and I cover the Louisiana Purchase, the Trail of Tears.
“It’s strange,” one of my students, Hye-sung, says. “It seems Americans stole their land from the natives who already lived there.”
  “Yes,” I say, wondering if Hye-sung was listening at all when we covered Columbus and the discovery of the “New World,” the spread of smallpox.
We make our way through the history book, almost at the Civil War. Soon enough, we discuss the irreconcilable differences between the North and the South. I tell my students how the South seceded from the Union, how Jefferson Davis formed the Confederate States of America.
I show them a clip from Gone with the Wind, a questionable choice, I know, but I’ve always been puzzled by Scarlett O’Hara. I think my students might be able to explain her to me—to tell me why she’s the heroine. 
We gather around the computer, watch as scavengers try to topple the carriage, steal Scarlett’s horse. Rhett throws a few punches. Scarlett stands up in the carriage, shoves men away.
“Oh, Rhett,” Scarlett says. Atlanta is burning behind them. Emaciated soldiers march across the scorched land. “I’m so glad you aren’t with the Army. You can be proud now, proud that you’ve been smarter than all of them.”
“I’m not so proud,” Rhett says.
I pause the movie and look at my students for their initial reactions. Some have returned to their seats already. A boy, sitting in the back, is snacking on a red bean bun and drinking a can of grape juice.
I look for Kate and find her standing beside Hye-sung. She must have snuck in late.
“Why is it so dramatic?” Kate asks.
“The movie was made in 1939,” I say. “It’s told from the South’s perspective.”
My students look at me, their faces blank. “Scarlett was known as a ‘Southern belle,’” I say, explaining further. I’m waiting for them ask me about Scarlett’s long lashes, her fake tears. “She was used to getting her way.”
Gone with the Wind now feels like a distraction. I had hoped to have a serious discussion about slavery, Lincoln, the Emancipation Proclamation—to prove the story’s broader relevance to my students’ lives. The Civil War isn’t just about American history, I want to explain, but maybe it is. Perhaps our war has nothing to do with the rest of the world.
“How did the country move on?” Kate asks. “After the war ended?” It’s a good question, but one I don’t know how to answer.
“They tried,” I said. “There was a period of Reconstruction.”
I explain how the North reincorporated the southern states, how the South, despite this, still resented the North; I tell my students how freed slaves often worked the same land they had before the war; I talk about gerrymandering, how the struggle for equal treatment under the law continued—still continues—today. I try to explain all this, but it seems futile.
  I think of a connection my students might find relevant: North Korea, the struggle with Pyongyang, Kim Jong-il. For the most part, South Korea doesn’t wish to be associated with the North—its archaic laws, its backward culture. South Korea strives for modernity; it continues to forge ahead with new technology, to serve as a leader in the fashion industry. North Korea, its brother, is still stuck in time.

  I think of all this, how our histories might be related, but it doesn’t seem fair to make this connection. I don’t bring up Kim Jong-il or his father. I try not to wonder if any of my students have family in North Korea, cousins they’ve never seen. I move on to modern times.

In third grade, that same year I returned from England, I learned who Martin Luther King, Jr. was for the first time. As January approached, we prepared for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, each of us given a passage to memorize from his “I Have a Dream” speech.

  I don’t remember which section I was assigned, but I do remember King’s words. As I listened, I envisioned the children he spoke of, standing in a circle. I saw them holding hands, singing the gospel: “Free at Last! Free at Last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
Even as a child, I found the words moving. This was the America I’d heard of—the one of diversity and acceptance. At eight years old, I didn’t fully understand what prejudice was. My family had moved to the U.S. from England, a mostly homogenous society. Back then, nearly everyone was white, Anglican. Religion was taught in school. There were Christmas pageants; we learned about God and heaven and how to treat others.
“All things bright and beautiful,” I remember singing at our school assemblies, the light flooding in through the windows above. We gathered in the main hall, sitting crisscross on the stiff wooden floor. I thought then that I could feel the utter kindness of the world, the potential to do good in it.

  “Someone’s crying, Lord, kumbaya,” went another song. I could imagine that person on the other side of the world. He was sick or dying; he’d lost a loved one. I thought he needed us to sing for him. I never once took those words lightly.
Despite all this, my family wasn’t Christian. My mother was Jewish, and even though my father was Lutheran, my sister and I had been raised to be Jewish as well. When my mother found out we were singing Christian songs in a public institution, being taught the gospel of Jesus, she sent us to Hebrew school on the weekends.
  From then on, on Sunday mornings, we drove with another American friend to a far-off synagogue. We traveled over hills and into a town that was not at all familiar. We drove around the perimeter of a park that felt unending, its shadow making its way into our car. Chills ran up and down my spine as we edged each corner; I imagined what might lie behind each turn.
Still, I never felt ostracized or alone until much later, long after we’d returned from England.
“You’re the first Jewish person I’ve ever met,” my college roommate told me, ten years later. By the way she looked at me, I knew it was a matter of deep concern.
“I’m worried about your soul,” my classmate told me. She was devotedly Christian and couldn’t understand my lack of her type of faith. “You’re a nice person,” she said. “I don’t want you to end up in hell.”
I tried reassuring her. “I’m not worried,” I said, but maybe I was a little.
I thought of the hymns I’d learned in England. They were about love and acceptance; we never once sang about judgment. The U.S. was a mixing bowl of religions, cultures, and races, and yet you were meant to hide those differences, it seemed—to be American above all else.

In my history class, we reach the Civil Rights Movement. I find myself once again thinking of Martin Luther King, Jr. I can still imagine myself in Maryland, hearing his words for the first time. There was a cadence to them; they rolled off the tongue.
As a child, the words were nearly incomprehensible—I couldn’t imagine a time when little black girls and boys couldn’t play with little white girls and boys. Back then, I only listened to the poetry.
Now it’s my students’ turn. They’ve never heard of Martin Luther King, Jr. I find a recording of his “I Have a Dream” speech and play it for them.
This time, as they listen, my students sit up straight in their seats. Halfway through, Hye-sung leans forward. She holds her hands behind her ears.
“I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.”

  It’s only audio. Still, Dr. King’s voice is crackling through the radio, shaking as he speaks. King is just a vehicle, his words more powerful than even he is himself.
My students and I cannot see Dr. King shaking his head in triumph, looking out into the audience, watching the faces of those who have gathered to hear him speak. My students likely do not know there’s the reflecting pool in front of Dr. King, the Lincoln Memorial behind him.
I’m not sure if any of my students have ever stood at the steps of the memorial, read the chiseled words of the Gettysburg Address. I don’t know if they’ve seen Lincoln, carved in magnificent Georgia marble. The man is so large, yet you cannot see his face as you climb the steps. It’s only near the top that Lincoln finally appears, sitting in his chair, his legs stretched out, the seat almost too small for him.
I can imagine Dr. King standing against that awesome backdrop, the words dripping from him like gospel.

  “Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York … Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.”
Dr. King’s words are most powerful when he speaks of his children, how he dreams that they will “one day live in a nation where they are not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
Dr. King delivers the words slowly, carefully. From the audio, you can hear cheers in the background. It must have been like attending a church service, the priest’s sermon reaching out to each and every person in that room.
When the recording ends, I look at my students’ faces. This time, they nod their heads.
“Powerful stuff,” Hye-sung says.
“It’s hard to believe he spoke those words,” Kate adds, “—that he was only one man.”
The room is silent for a moment.
“What happened after the speech?” Kate finally asks. “Did it change anything?”
I want to tell them that it did. I don’t yet want my students to know that Dr. King was assassinated less than five years later, that there were years of struggle afterwards, violence to come. I wait for a moment; I let Dr. King’s words settle. I want my students to know that there is greatness in the world.
I feel proud, in this moment, to be American. At least—I think I’m beginning to understand what it means to be one. Dr. King’s words are not about patriotism, about following the rules—they are about brotherhood. My students find themselves inexplicably touched by his speech. As they listened, they heard the same words I did. They understood Dr. King in the same way I understood him.

Not long after this, my history class ends. We go back to our normal schedule.
Despite having assigned the class, Peter and my other cohorts continue to bash American culture.
“I only go to America for the clothes,” Lynn says. She was born in the U.S., but she claims to be more Korean than American. “I like the shopping at Saks.”
“Did you catch the morning news?” Nigel asks another day. “Your president is sending prisoners to Guantanamo again.” Nigel looks at me pointedly. “I thought your country guaranteed the right to a fair trial.”
“Of course,” I say. “We do,” but I can’t explain away Guantanamo.
A few weeks later, Nigel and I are walking home from school when an older man stops us. He asks the traditional question: “Where you from?”
Nigel rolls his eyes. He prepares himself for the next the question, but it never comes.
“You look German,” the man says in English. He looks first at me and then at Nigel. “Did you come here together? Are you two married?” he asks.
We shake our heads at this, laughing.
“We’re colleagues,” I say. “We work at the same school.”
“She’s American,” Nigel points out.
“And he’s from South Africa,” I say.
They feel like accusations, yet we walk away from the conversation mostly unscathed. Nigel talks about our upcoming tests; he doesn’t mention the United States or its many shortcomings.
Most people on the streets assume I’m American, but once they get to know me, they don’t think I’m American at all. To them, I am an exception to the rule: not loud or forceful with my opinion, not a binge drinker, not blonde with blue eyes.
“Are you sure you’re not Russian? Spanish?” they say. “You weren’t born in England? It seems like maybe you were.”
I shake my head at this. “No,” I tell them. “I’m American.” It’s hard enough to convince myself.

Six months later, I prepare to go home. I begin to wonder what I’ll be taking with me. I’ve been in Korea for a year, tried to teach my students the difference between “rice” and “lice.”
“Roll your tongue with the Rs,” I say, but my students continue to struggle.
  Later in the year, I’m assigned a biology course, one I am even less qualified to teach.
“Here is the cytoplasm,” I say, pointing out the gooey substance found between the structures in the cell.
“Sepojil?” my students ask, puzzled, looking at each other.
“I think so,” I say.
Earlier that year, I taught an abbreviated version of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. My students tripped over expressions such as “swaller” and “‘taint so.”
“Is this how Americans speak?” they asked.
“Not most of us,” I said.
As I pack my suitcase, I find myself thinking of these moments. Instead of wondering what I’ll be taking, I start to wonder what I’ll be leaving behind. I think back to my American history class. I remember standing in front of the classroom, playing Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
“Powerful stuff,” Hye-sung had said then, and the other students agreed.
In Korea, I felt truly foreign. Perhaps, as I prepared to leave, I was finally understanding who I was. Maybe I would never quite feel American. Instead, I felt part of larger community—a rudderless group of individuals who believed not in country but in the connection from one person to another.

A few days later, I’m on my way back to Maryland. The flight home takes over 24 hours. I sleep on carpeted terminal floors, propping a pillow between two teenage girls, their phones glowing like nightlights in the dark. By the time I arrive at BWI, the ground seems unstable. The other passengers and I roll our carry-ons toward arrivals. There is a long line of foreigners waiting there.
“How long have you been waiting?” I ask the man in front of me.
“Forty minute at least.” He looks down at my blue passport. “Aren’t you American?” he asks.
For a second, I stand there dumbfounded. “Yes,” I say finally. “I guess I am.”
I hesitate for a moment before making my way to the small line with the sign that reads “U.S. Citizens.” I look back at the mix of foreigners waiting in the other line.
“I’m one of you,” I find myself thinking, searching for the man I had spoken to before. “Don’t you understand?”
“And one of you,” I say, turning towards a woman with a stroller and two kids.
I find myself thinking this as I make my way to the front of the customs line. I repeat this mantra to myself as I wait for the immigration officer to stamp my passport.

Megan Turner

Megan Turner is a graduate of the MFA Program for Poets and Writers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her work has appeared in Witness, Atticus Review, Rio Grande Review, Fiction International, and others. Originally from Baltimore, she grew up in Harrogate, England and Columbia, Maryland. She lives and works in Portland, Maine.

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Essays Korea