Patricia A. Nugent:

Travelogues don’t typically interest me. I cringe when I ask someone (just to be polite), “How was your trip?” and they give a blow-by-blow of the sights, activities, and food. I don’t enjoy looking at the dozens of photos returning vacationers scroll through on their phones, as most scenes I could better appreciate in National Geographic.

So, imagine my surprise when on a recent vacation in Canada, I pulled out my journal and started chronicling my trip. And now, I feel compelled to share it even though you haven’t asked how my vacation was. I do this without encouragement because it sheds light on how Americans may be perceived by people in other countries.

My trip got off to a sober start. The woman next to me on the plane was headed to Appalachia to help improve housing conditions. “The poor are getting poorer,” she said. “And they have no idea how directly their lives are being affected by our national political landscape.” A grief counselor, she described the linkage between fear and rage, explaining that America is a rageful nation because of the politics of fear. That dangerous combination makes foreigners afraid to visit, she said, as evidenced by an international conference on death and dying, originally scheduled for Minnesota, being moved across the border to Canada because professionals from around the world didn’t feel safe coming to the U.S.

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