Correspondence

Dear Editor,
The interesting comments of Bruce Daniels ("Teaching American History to Canadians") and Scott W. See ("Teaching Canadian History to Americans") inadvertently mislead their readers with regard to anti-Americanism in Canada.

I have traveled Canada from coast to coast. Except for ten years in Los Angeles and six months in Dublin, I have lived all my many decades within a hundred miles of the United States. Yet never have I encountered what could accurately be described as anti-Americanism.

It is not anti-American to oppose U.S. foreign policy and its appalling consequences in the Caribbean, Central and South America, and Southeast Asia. One can despise Senator McCarthy or a succession of war-mongering presidents without despising the American people. The number of Americans opposed to the Vietnamese War surely was greater than the entire population of Canada at that time. Were they then anti-American? I thought that they were citizens exercising their constitutional rights to free speech and to petition their government, and, in some cases, appealing to the revolutionary origins of their nation.

So why should Canadians and other foreigners who opposed U.S. policy be considered anti-American? And how does one explain the 15,000 or more Canadians who joined the U. S. Army and fought in Viet Nam? As for Americans who left the U.S.A. not to escape the draft but out of conscience, love of one's country and despair at the abandonment of its high ideals is not to be anti-American, although Professor Daniels describes himself as such.

Nor is it anti-American to try to limit the Americanization of a local culture, as Canada, France, and some other countries have done. It is hopeless but it is not anti-American. It is natural and probably universal. Recently I was among American academics in Portland, Oregon. I was asked, seriously, whether Canada would be applying to become part of the United States. I responded firmly in the negative, which seemed to hurt the feelings of some colleagues. I then asked what they thought of Oregon being absorbed by California. The furor that ensued made my case. People are very conservative about borders.

Winston Churchill remarked that Great Britain and the United States were two nations divided by a common language. Canada and the United States are bound forever by a common language, common religious, political and legal traditions, essentially common ethnicities and that oldie but goodie, "the longest undefended border in the world." We are best friends and best customers. As long as the U.S. government keeps that in mind, there never will be anti-Americanism here.

Yours,
Gerald Woods
<jgw@gulfislands.com>