In my first Live interview, I spoke with
of american.nz, a Substack writer close to my heart, if not my location. Dan lives in New Zealand, while I live in Portugal. This made it challenging to arrange a live call—but it was worth it! We had a surprising number of people tune in from North America, Europe, and Australasia.In this conversation, Dan and I discuss questions like what it means to us to be an American, whether we can really control our identity, what percent American/ Kiwi/ Portuguese/ Swedish we feel we are, whether or not identities fade, whether it’s possible to find the “right place” for you, where we would like to die and be buried, and other light topics (!). There is also a bit on margaritas.
Here are some time stamps (thank you Dan for doing this!):
03:30 | What does it mean to be an American?
13:00 | On a scale of 0-100, how Portuguese does Gregory feel?
14:45 | “I came out of the airport and I inhaled and said, ‘Oh yeah, this is Sweden.’”
25:30 | Can we decide whether we’re American?
31:30 | Would you retire in Mexico?
34:45 | “The most American thing in the world is to say that the most American thing in the world is to leave America.”
35:45 | Will we die as Americans?
47:15 | “Maybe you don’t need to decide, with finality, what you are.”
47:45 | The rightward shifts in NZ and Portuguese politics.
54:45 | Cosmopolitanism, food, and your life’s total of good margaritas.
I hope you will enjoy this conversation and join us in the comments below!
If you really enjoyed this discussion and would like to kill some more time watching (or listening to) interviews with me, here are some suggestions:
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