Who's that foreign exchange student?

I often feel like a misfit. My current situation, in an upscale New England suburb is only one in a long line of situations that make me wonder where I fit in. I was born in Greece but moved to Iowa when I was school age. What, pray tell, would possess anyone to transplant their family to Iowa? Good question, but of course there is reasonable explanation. My father is Greek, my mother, well.... my mother is a Midwestern WASP(for lack of a better description – think Chuck Grassely, the senator from Iowa), thus the family connection and roots. People all over the world want to live the “American Dream” and to a Greek, like my father, Iowa was as good a place as any to try.

My life growing up wasn't terrible, just unique. Although I often felt like everyone else, situations would pop up to remind me of how different I was. First there was my last name. It was long, even by Greek standards. My first realization that I was different was 2nd grade. I could not for the life of me learn how to spell my own last name! My teacher become so frustrated with me, she wrote it out on a piece of paper, laminated it and taped it to my desk. It worked, but I was mortified. No one else had their name taped to the top of their desk.

The other issue was my Mediterranean looks. If you've never been to Iowa, the first thing you notice as soon as you step off the plane is that half the population is blond. I am not blond or blue eyed. I am, by most Midwestern standards, exotic looking, despite the facts that (1) I don't look typically Greek (at least to another Greek) and (2) I look very much like my WASP mother, expect for the darker features. I always got the ethnic roles in high school plays. One year I was Liat in South Pacific, the next year I was Rose Alvarez in Bye, Bye Birdie. I also never ever felt “beautiful”. I thought my exotic looks and curvy shape were a curse. I wanted blond hair, blue eyes and a boyish figure like all my friends.

Another time, again in high school, I was approached by a boy from another school at a basketball game. He wanted to introduce me to the foreign exchange student as his school. The exchange student, we'll call him Jan, was Swedish. I said “thanks” for the introduction but was confused as to why I was being introduced. The boy said he thought we'd have a lot in common since I too was an exchange student. I was in shock! At the time I didn't have an accent and had lived in my hometown since the age of 8! But I looked like an exchange student. How else could someone like ME end up in such a white bread community if not by the sheer gratitude of a family hosting me there?

Fast forward 25 or so years: I am married and no longer have to deal with the ridiculously long last name and I've come to terms with my body, my hair, my eyes. I no longer long for those WASPy features - I'm okay, if not thankful, for who I am. Also, the state of Iowa has radically changed. Since my leaving in the early 90s, the state has experienced an influx of immigrants searching for the “American Dream”, much like my own father. Let us not forget that it was Iowans who set Barack Obama on a serious course to the Presidency by giving him a caucus victory. You'd think the people in the state would be more enlightened, if not at least a little more accustomed to the larger world beyond their borders. I thought so too until very recently when my sister had a conversation with someone inquiring about her last name. This person wondered if she might be related to someone with the same last name who was a foreign exchange student in her high school. My sister's curiosity was peaked – our name is very rare, we must be related to this person! I think she was actually excited to find a long lost relative. With some probing my sister discovered that the exchange student she was referring to was.............. none other than one of us, or perhaps the two of us morphed into one! My sister and I had gone from being a bit of an oddity in our hometown to one person, to small town myth.