I am an American

I LOOK back over half a century to refresh my memory of what being an American has meant to me progressively through all these years. Born in Armenia, I derived my earliest conception of America from story tellers, and it was about as fantastic as Alice´s Wonderland. At the age of 21, while teaching arithmetic in a school, the thought occurred to me one winter morning that I should go to this romantic country. Within a few hours I was on the way. What? Such haste? Doesn´t one wait to the end of the school year? Of course not; that is, not if one has indulged in a little free speech the night before in a public lecture at which unexpectedly some Turks were present, and this morning one has been notified to go to the government palace and hand the manuscript of his talk to the pasha. To the Armenians, a phantom inscription on the palace door said: “Enter. No exit.” In the Turkish Empire, only the Turks took their time; others hustled.