Santiago, Chile — When about seven of us got arbitrarily cussed out for being foreigners this weekend, I didn’t even hear it. “Hey assholes, get out of my fucking country!” a young Chilean yelled at us from across the street. According to my friends who were paying better attention, the English swearing was impressively unaccented. We were walking home from a late night out in the coastal city of Valparaiso, and though probably talking in English, there was little else to draw attention, let alone offend.

The next day, it happened again, only this time it was in broad daylight while we were admiring an old Catholic church, and this time, it was up close and personal, not broadly thrown at a big group. “Get the fuck out of my country,” a young woman said directly to a female in our group as they passed one another on the street.

“She seemed so nice,” my stunned friend told me later, explaining that the girl wasn’t the kind of person she expected to curse at random tourists. “She was wearing a lot of pink.”

But then again, we were not random tourists. The second time, at least, we were in a fairly large group, trickling our way from one sight to the next, and there’s a chance we may have been speaking loudly. Size and noise always draw attention, but I have a hunch that we were recognized not only as foreigners, but also as Americans. Other than English, I don’t know exactly what all the giveaways are, but I’m sure they are there.

In Spanish, I’m supposed to say I’m United States-ian, or whatever the proper translation is back to English. We were instructed during orientation that saying “I’m from America” doesn’t always go over too well with others who live in a continent by the same name. Repeating advice she’s given me before, my mom warned me several weeks ago to always say I was Canadian. Or Irish. In her view, these two countries have the most neutral reputations of the English speaking world, and thus receive better treatment — or at least less outright spite.

But I didn’t listen. I still occasionally have the thirteen year-old’s mindset in which any advice from Mom is automatically resisted. What’s more, lying about my country of origin has always seemed to me like a cop-out unless you are in physical danger. And though it was big news at the beginning of April when a BBC poll in 34 countries found approval of the U.S. had made a giant jump from 31 percent to 35 percent, I’ve never experienced enough straight-up antagonism to make it worthwhile to develop much of an alternate back story.

Yes, there’s a lot of distrust, distaste and even anger for the United States in many, many other countries. Some is informed, some isn’t. But Coke and Pepsi still reign supreme. Shows like the Simpsons, Lost and 24 are popular across continents and across languages. And despite general enmity toward the Iraq war, and the personas of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, most people I’ve met in Chile and elsewhere know that the United States is not one giant bloc of cultural-political homogeneity.

To be fair, the city of Valparaiso, where both incidents occurred, is known to be a stronghold of Chile’s socialist party and leftist politics. While the party is actually fairly moderate, there are also quite a few radicals, and activist university students. One socialist oriented newspaper I picked up detailed “el imperialismo” of the United States by listing all the military outposts — down to tiny radar tracking stations — the U. S. has strewn across the globe. The list was actually really intriguing, but the connotation of the United States as the bad guy was clear.

So back to the bad language: how do you respond when someone tells you to get out? Despite understanding and even sympathizing a little, my first reaction is indignation. “Fine then,” I want to say sarcastically. “I guess I’ll just stop spending money here. I’m sure you know the U.S. is the second biggest consumer of Chilean wine, but hey, whatever you want.”

The next impulse was to try proving myself different. “I’m not the America you think you hate!” I want to desperately implore. “We can be friends! Really! I’m cool.” There’s a peculiar paradox with this sort of approach. The less offensive, obnoxious and even noticeable I become, the less I am associated with the negative stereotype of the United States. People stare less, but do their views of the U.S. improve?

“Never lose faith in America,” former Secretary of State Colin Powell once said. “Its faults are ours to fix, not to curse.” At the moment, I’m a little puzzled about what faults I should fix. But at least there are plenty of volunteers to curse them.

Do you want to cuss Michael out, too? Give it your best shot at wilkerson "at" stanford.edu.