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Right after the FIFA World Cup in Qatar match between the United States and Iran, I checked the results and realized that the United States had won. I felt a sense of cheerfulness fill my heart.

It is no secret that the soccer World Cup is one of the most popular sporting events. It is a space where tears and laughter, chants and dances, anxiety and euphoria all mingle together and change by the minute. But there is much more in play than the Cup itself. People don’t just see 11 players playing soccer, they see their own country, their national identity and individual pride competing for glory against the rest of the world.

The day the U.S. played Iran, I saw a student running with an American flag on his back through campus. When he looked back at me, I raised my hand in approval, and we started celebrating together. After hearing each other’s accents, we realized we were both Hispanic. He was Nicaraguan and I, Cuban.

Meanwhile, I was trying to understand why I felt so happy. After all, Cuba had not played in the Cup since 1938. Was it that I was biased against the Iranian team because they were now the symbolic representation of a regime that abuses women’s freedom? After some thought, I arrived at a conclusion: an incipient sense of American patriotism was developing.

I understood why I had come to feel that way — I am grateful to live in America, so I wanted the best for America and Americans.

I then tried to visualize the whole situation from an outside perspective: two Latinos celebrating the U.S. team’s victory on an American university campus, while Americans all around us remained quiet. That was saddening.

At first, I thought it could be that no one knew about the game. But I find that hard to believe, as it was being broadcasted live in the Schine Student Center. While soccer isn’t the most popular sport in the U.S, Syracuse University usually puts a lot of attention and energy into sports. The only conclusion I could come up with is that American college students don’t always want to associate with their own country.

After living in this country for three years, I’ve seen an increasing number of young Americans become almost ashamed to be American. Some people may say contempt for America is justified because of the discriminatory events in the country’s history. What I believe has happened is that Americans have been socialized into the notion — and reminded every day at school — that America (the country) is irretrievably evil today because of the crimes that America (the government) has committed in the past, with little separation for the two.

Perhaps because I lived under a dictatorship for the first 18 years of my life, I learned to differentiate these terms at an early age. “Government” was that group of powerful people who tried to control every aspect of our lives. “Country” was my family, my friends, my culture and environment. In fact, if I were to hold my country responsible for all the crimes its foreign and domestic administrations have committed over hundreds of years, I would be ashamed of a substantial part of my own identity. Instead, I choose to be proud of other elements of that national identity, which does not affect my ability to think critically about the dark episodes of my nation’s history.

Like it or not, where you grew up is a big part of who you are. Even if you think you’re contributing an act of restorative justice to the world by hating this place, all you’re really doing is hating a part of yourself, which is, of course, not healthy for you and not healthy for anyone around you. The only way to achieve positive change in a country is by acting out of love for it. The only way to make up for the wrongdoings of the past is to work to create a better future, and that is not possible without loving what you want to improve. If you want a change, but you don’t love the place you want to change, your activism is meaningless.

The reason why people take to the streets en masse to protest injustice is not because they hate their country, but because they want to see it improved. Even under murderous regimes, Cubans love their country, Nicaraguans love their country and Iranians love their country. Americans should love theirs too.

That does not mean you have to gladly accept whatever your administration has done or is still doing just because it calls itself your country. Governments are experts at manipulating language and turning people’s patriotism into blind loyalty to a leader, party or ideology. We saw how much harm nationalism brought to the world during World War II. However, there is no proof that loving one’s country is inherently bad. Instead, it is a warning of the problems that arise when we fail to discern between government and country.

Just as Fidel Castro is not Cuba, Donald Trump is not America. Neither is Joe Biden. Trump and Biden are just representatives of the government. If you don’t like them or their policies, that is fine, and you should be free to criticize them. But you should not hate a whole country because of the decisions taken by a small group of individuals, even if those individuals use its name to advance their political agendas. America is not what some politician says it is. It isn’t an artificial intelligence system that can operate by itself either. It’s a place to live, and it’s the home of millions of people from all kinds of backgrounds.

There are many reasons an immigrant can be proud to call themselves American, and Americans should find those reasons too. Therefore, in the upcoming 2026 Soccer World Cup, which will be held in Mexico, the United States and Canada, Americans should take the chance to celebrate alongside the immigrants that will be rooting for the U.S. national team.

Justo Antonio Triana is a sophomore Classical Civilization major. His columns appear Bi-weekly. He can be reached at jatriana@syr.edu.

Published on December 7, 2022 at 11:13 pm