Articles

What makes us “us”?
Defining our national identity in a changing world

Today we live in a “global village,” where real-time images from across the world make us feel closer to others we’ve never met. Yet so many circumstances, whether ideological differences or challenges to our value systems, seem to separate us from those who are close by. Migrations, changing social structures and an increasingly technological society impact relationships on a local and global scale. Our food might come from Mongolia, our neighbors from China, our clothes from Indonesia, the call center responder from India. We often have various national backgrounds in our own families. Is there something that still unites us? In this issue some people share how they define their national identity and what helped them shape it.