An argument can be made that the story of my family is an example of the modern American dream.  My parents, both immigrants from Asia, worked hard, bought a home, and had two children who would both go on to graduate from college.  After university, the two of us have been able to maintain relatively successful careers – I work in IT and my brother is an attorney. Admittedly we owe much of our success to the opportunities afforded to us by the United States of America.

As a kid who grew up under the secure umbrella of the tech boom and all the economic prosperity that followed, making it especially difficult to see the country nosedive the moment I entered adulthood.  It’s as though the rug had been taken out from under my generation.  We were given a blissful, carefree childhood, only to be charged with facing a very different world just moments after scooping up our caps and gowns from the floor.  All this, is of course, coupled with the fact that America has never been a more divided society than it is now.  Sadly, the months that followed the events of September 11, 2001 were the last time I remember living in a truly united states,  but that was nearly 10 years ago now.

The American flags have long since been removed from the front porches, and many people now gaze upon foreclosure signs in their place.  Over the last few years, the riff between Democrats and Republicans, pro-choice and pro-life, pro-gay marriage and anti-gay marriage has reached a fervor that the country has been divided into countless number of competing teams.  The constant barrage of protests, marches, and arguing have all been exacerbated by sensationalist media and it was becoming unbearable to watch.  Out of this sprouted an ever-present ora of hostility in the air, and it didn’t feel good at all.

I suppose if I had to put it simply, I left America because it is not the country that I remembered it to be.  I understand that societies, cultures and economies are bound to change over time, but I feel like I was getting short-changed by staying in the US.  This isn’t just because of the economy, but the shifts in society as well.  I began to feel the role of women creep backwards, and as someone who was raised to be anything but a housewife, this did not sit with me well. Education was becoming increasingly less valued and I saw my superiors at work leave only to get replaced by high school graduates who were incapable of basic writing skills.

My family, too, has changed over the last few years.  While I was in college my father moved back to his home country and managed to escape most of the pitfalls of the US economic collapse.  My mother passed away some time ago and my brother was doing just fine on his own.  This left me – someone who has always been a little on the restless (and reckless) side to ponder my future in a country that I no longer had ties to and no longer recognized.

Moving to England has been an eye-opening experience and has impacted me more than I thought it would.  It shares many of the pitfalls of the US, but mostly to a smaller degree.  The culture, though influenced heavily by America, is still distinct and filled with subtleties I may never learn.  But as I sit here under the gray Summer sky, on the eve of America’s independence day, I know I made the right decision to leave.  I am also secure in the fact that I may never reside in the United States again, knowing that it will never live up to the rose-tinted memories of my childhood.

Happy 4th of July America.  We had a good run.