>>Erik: How did your Spain Fulbright scholarship experience studying the socio economic affects
of African immigration inform your views on prejudice and government?
>>Adam: Well when I arrived in Spain to do my Fulbright scholarship I was very excited
for this opportunity, I had just finished two years of graduate school in DC and I was
really looking forward to the experience of having independent study and being able to
pursue this research on my own schedule. However the first morning I woke up happened to be
9/11 so instantly the experience transformed upon itself and this was especially apparent
when I was conducting my field research down in the southern, the southern coast of Spain
with a lot of these Moroccan immigrants and then down in Morocco itself speaking to Moroccans
and speaking to West Africans that were on their way up into Spain and… what was obviously
became an issue is the whole role of America in the Middle East and the fall out from 9/11
and so what happened was I found myself in a position where I was like a reluctant diplomat.
I’ve never been a flag-waving patriot because I believe in general that patriotism is a
very destructive force in the world but at the same time I found myself put in a situation
where I had to stand up and for me, I’m not out to defend American foreign policy,
I know that there’s been a lot of wrongs committed under the name of American foreign
policy, however I think it’s very important that people do not confuse government actions
with the people. I’ve always respected this division between a government’s actions
and the people and as a result I feel that I deserve the same respect and so being in
Morocco coming face to face with people that were openly anti-American, I didn’t argue
with them on a political level, I didn’t say - yell at them, say ‘You can’t say
that about my country’ I said ‘You should not be directing your ire at me personally.
We can have a political discussion, I’d love to have a political discussion and I
welcome the opportunity and I may actually agree with you in many cases but coming towards
me and yelling at me you’re missing the whole point. I didn’t vote for that guy,
I didn’t support that, I’ – it’s important to recognize this demarcation, it’s one
of the – fortunately I have found that in ninety percent of the cases around the world
that people understand this division. I’ve had some wonderful experiences and wonderful
exchanges with people that happen to be from countries that are pronounced enemies of my
own country and when I can sit down with an Iranian family for six hours while we’re
waiting to get a visa to get into Syria and when I can talk to them about politics and
culture and when I can share with them on a personal level, on a human level and not
on a political level that’s a wonderful thing, it shows our evolution as humans and
at the end of the day after the six hours they say ‘Hey listen, you know it’s three
hours to town why don’t you jump in our car and we’ll give you a ride to your hotel’
I say well that’s, that’s how it should work.