The Latest American Exodus

HENRY JAMES, the celebrated literary expatriate of the 19th century, once described America as "a great unendowed, unfurnished, unentertained and unentertaining continent." Paris in the 1920s was mecca for a whole gallery of artistic emigres whom Gertrude Stein labeled the Lost Generation; Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Pound and Cummings led a luminous lot. Now there is a new kind of American expatriate abroad in the world, drawn from the whole spectrum of U.S. society. Collectively, they lack the glamour of their famous predecessors, and their personal motives are different: the expatriates of the 1920s left America looking for art and excitement, while the new expatriates are avoiding the pressures and problems of American life today (see ESSAY, next page). In an unconscious echo of James, one of them--Reginald Rose, a television playwright now living in London--calls the U.S. "uncomfortable, unloving and unreal."

Most of the 2,500,000 Americans abroad, of course, are emissaries of U.S. corporations and the U.S. Government. The alienated exiles are only a minority, but their numbers are impressive and increasing. The best estimates are that some 40,000 Americans now leave the U.S. each year intending not to return. More than half of them go next door to Canada, which is welcoming twice as many emigrants from the U.S. in 1970 as it did ten years ago. Israel, Australia and Britain get the next largest groups; other Americans are picking such disparate domiciles as Algeria. Ghana, Laos and New Zealand. Most of the self-exiles are in their 20s and 30s. Many are well-educated professionals or highly skilled technicians. While some have already renounced their U.S. citizenship or plan to do so soon, most have no intention of surrendering their familiar pale blue, plastic-covered passports. Many of the new expatriates will return, as did most of the writers of the Parisian 1920s. Few give up all contact with the U.S.; some reflect not so much a rejection of the U.S. as a kind of psychic statelessness. Says one American writer now living near Grasse in the south of France: "I will never feel that I fit in. Perhaps the definition of an expatriate is just that--one who doesn't fit, an Ishmael of momentarily fixed address. But I would never again fit into the States either."

Leaving one's native land is an intensely personal decision, and no two people make it for exactly the same reasons. Few are so sweeping as Actress Patricia Neal, who has lived in England since 1953. "I don't like anything that's happening in America--period." But some common strands run through many of the complaints. One is political polarization. Says Harold Kaplan, a newly minted Canadian citizen and chairman of the political-science department at Toronto's York University: "People who used to be reasonable liberals have been pushed far out to the right or to the left, so you now have one group that wants to overthrow the system and another that is sickeningly reactionary. People are going berserk."

Another source of malaise is surfeit with politics, a turn toward personalism. Says Thorn Pringle, 29, an Indianan with degrees in engineering and business administration now living on Spain's Costa del Sol: "I don't want to fight America's problems. I'm too busy with my own."

More obviously, there are objections to the Viet Nam War and to the growing difficulties of day-today living in the U.S.--urban congestion, pollution, racial unrest, constant apprehension over violence and crime. Actor Steve McQueen plans to move with his wife and two children to Switzerland next year. Says his wife Neile, who was a friend of the murdered Sharon Tate: "I sleep with a gun under my pillow because I don't trust anybody. We have an electric alarm at the gate and house alarm system, and it's still not enough. This is no way to live."

Also, there is unease about what happens to the young in America. Insurance Salesman H Frederick Marsh took his wife and two sons, aged seven and nine, to Australia from Houston a year ago. Of his children, he says: "Here they're going to have more years as boys doing the things boys should want to do. They are not going to find themselves involved in politics or racial issues as early as they would in the States, and they're going to grow up with a higher sense of values." Marsh speaks for many others when he says: "We have no regrets at all." Sculptor Peter Rockwell, 34, is the son of Mr. Americana. Painter Norman Rockwell; he has made his home in Italy for nine years. "Occasionally I felt guilty in the mid-1960s, but not now," he says.

A sampler of diverse American expatriates, 1970-style: IRVING HARRISON, 50, moved his family and his architectural practice from New York City to Barcelona last spring. He was a McCarthy delegate to the 1968 Democratic National Convention, and it was there, he says, that he "began turning off." He explains: "We went with the belief that we could still change the whole picture, and we got slapped down like so many children. I no longer believe that the thinking, responsible adult can actually make a difference.

"We were typical middleclass, sub urban, professional Americans who had made it. We were socially and politically involved. We had all the security one could ask for, and we were miserable. We had everything one could want materially, and we felt increasingly empty. We had all the latest in status symbols, and we discovered that the human elements were missing.

"We were sympathetic to the problems of the young and found ourselves increasingly turned off by friends who kept mouthing the same old cliches. I got interested in a movement of young blacks who had taken over a church in Harlem; I got a group of people together to take them food on weekends.

I began to get hate mail, and some of my clients dropped their accounts. I was aghast. I thought. What is happening to people? This is not the country I have loved. This hate--it's becoming a lifestyle. I had to decide whether that was what I wanted for the rest of my life and for my children's lives, and I made my decision." CHET MORRISON, "2, moved to Mexico City not long after graduating from Vermont's Windham College earlier this year. He is already doing well as a professional photographer. "They classified me 1Y, so I escaped the draft," he says. "But I definitely would have left the States to avoid it--if not here in Mexico, then somewhere else. I think the war in Viet Nam is immoral, and I don't want my taxes to support it.

"My life-style revolves around my work--photography. I don't advocate anybody else's doing what I've done or thinking what I'm thinking. Everybody ought to do his own thing. I don't want to do anybody else's, and I don't want anybody to do mine. I feel myself a citizen of the universe, and I've never felt particularly American. I don't miss Mom's apple pie because Mom never baked any."

JOHN ind RAYME DEE moved from Buffalo to the Hamilton, Ont, suburb of Ancestor just over three years ago. They have ten children, all under 16. Dee is in his 40s; he was once an administrator at Buffalo's Roswell Park cancer research institute, now works full time as a television actor and also heads his own theatrical production company. Dee has no sympathy for draft dodgers: "I still believe that the U.S. has a good system of government. I believe that those people who flee the country to avoid the draft, if they feel that strongly about it, should stay in the country and try to make changes from within." Says his wife: "It's not really that we hate the U.S.; it's just that we like Canada that much better."

She complains about Ontario's antiquated liquor laws, and her husband misses U.S.-style taverns and seafood. But there are more important compensations. Says Dee: "One thing that struck us as we drove around was the number of toys, wagons, tricycles and bicycles that people leave out on their lawns overnight. You just wouldn't do that in the States; they would vanish." Despite Quebec separatist terrorists, Mrs. Dee feels safer in Canada: "I'm really scared when I go back across the border now, and you can notice that the kids are too," she says. "They read and see on television what's going on in the States today, and they can hardly wait to get back to Canada. That Maple Leaf flag looks wonderful when you get halfway across the bridge on the way back."

Racist Mold. The Americans who embark for Canada, Mexico or Europe fit no special pattern, but there are three places that attract particular types of emigrants. Israel has found a 300% increase in American immigration since the Six-Day War of 1967; the 1970 total will be well over 6,000. Says Perry Rothaus, 32, a transplant from Philadelphia to Tel Aviv: "I'm Jewish, and I'm idealistic. America is a bit too big for me. I'm lost there. The U.S. will never miss me. Here I can grow with a small developing country, and I'm appreciated for whatever I can give."

There are few who are bitter about America, though many fear a strong swing to the right. Says Austrian-born Economist Alfred Gomer, 40, who became a naturalized U.S. citizen at ten and moved to Israel last year: "I saw Hitler march into Vienna, and I don't care to wait around in America to see it happen again."

One of Australia's attractions is its stringent limitation on admitting non-whites as residents. Many Americans there, says Journalist Timothy Leach, 28, who moved to Sydney from St. Louis four months ago, "fit into the racist or reactionary mold." Admits Texan Frederick Marsh: "I suppose that's one of the main reasons we made the move to Australia--we knew there was nothing to be frightened of racially."

The complement is that some blacks look to Africa for exile. Algeria has become a haven for Black Panthers like Eldridge Cleaver; Ghana and Nigeria, notably, attract blacks in search of identity and freedom from racial discrimination. One New York black, who insists that he has "no use for revolution aries," plans to emigrate with his family next year to a 5,000-acre beef-cattle farm that he has put his $25,000 stake into. "We will be part of Ghana," he says. "We are not part of this country."

More Rape, More Dope. Emigration, however, is no easy solution--particularly for those Americans who must live on the local economy wherever they settle. Americans in Australia estimate that their living standard drops some 10%. In Israel, U.S. immigrants often become disenchanted over high costs and low salaries; last year 30% of the American families and about 60% of the single Americans who arrived returned without settling. Americans who work for U.S. firms or for the Government abroad can usually live better than they could at home, but for the new expatriates the reverse is more often true. Writers, artists and actors whose work calls for travel make up a kind of tourist-class jet set; they have less difficulty adapting than most. Making new close friends with Europeans also presents problems for Americans in such relatively closed societies as England and France.

Equally important, unless a new expatriate heads for some truly remote fastness, there is no ultimate escape from the problems besetting the U.S. In Torre-molinos, Thorn Pringle is searching for a country with guaranteed long-range stability; those are hard to find--if they have ever existed. Michael Milliken, who emigrated to Australia earlier this year, finds that pollution in Sydney is worse than back home in Detroit. Mrs. Garry Paskus, who lives elegantly near Rome's Spanish Steps, complains: "Italy is only five years behind America and catching up fast. There's more and more rape and robbery, more dope." Writer James Baldwin, who has long divided his time between the U.S. and France, observes: "It's not possible for an American to be an expatriate any more. Wherever you go, you'll find that the American problems have been expatriated with you."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.