Unlike most of my peers, however, who observed the United States only from TV screens and nightly news, I had relatives spread across the United States and would visit often. Every year for summer break, my grandmother, my grandaunt, and my grandmother’s niece took my two cousins and me to spend the summer in Los Angeles, where another grandaunt lived. She had settled and thrived there many decades prior, part of the early exodus of Belizeans who migrated to the United States.
It was there that I became a lifelong Laker fan and diehard Kobe Bryant devotee; bought my first Eminem CD much to my mother’s dismay; wandered with amazement through Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm, and Six Flags; and developed a deep appreciation for art, history, and culture at the Getty Museum, where my uncle worked. Those experiences not only gave me vivid childhood memories; they formed the building blocks of the person I was becoming and later the career path I chose in journalism and media.
One afternoon at St. Ignatius Primary School in Belize, I walked into class and saw my teacher sitting in bewilderment. He struggled to explain a historic tragedy to a room full of 12-year-olds. Two planes had struck the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Classes let out early. After that, America and the world changed forever. Nothing would be the same.
Growing up, it was conventional wisdom that the United States was the land of opportunity. Throughout primary school, many of my childhood friends moved away Stateside, disappearing from my daily life, hopefully to better circumstances. I continued to visit the United States into my teen years, but by that time I had left behind childhood fantasies. I grew skeptical of everything and everyone, opening my eyes to the cynicism of governments and institutions. My trips to the United States became less frequent but no less meaningful.
My aunt and cousin, who made all those summer trips with me to Los Angeles, had moved from Belize to Slidell, a small city one hour outside New Orleans. I missed them and visited as often as finances would allow. Slidell never grew on me, but I loved New Orleans and its rich history as a former French colony with Afro-Caribbean and Creole traditions, familiar in many ways to Belizean Creole culture.
My trips to the United States, in formative years, had always filled me with boyhood wonder and inspiration; but in later visits I got a peek behind the veil. By 2009, I was a disillusioned college dropout with waning opportunities, drifting too close to trouble on the streets of Belize City’s Southside. Craving a reset, I stayed with my relatives in Slidell for several months. Finally, I saw the other side of the American dream: my aunt and uncle’s early mornings, long commutes, tight finances, and personal sacrifices. Culturally, it was very different; no one knew their neighbors, whereas Belize always felt like a community, like home. I enjoyed weekend trips to New Orleans, shooting pool against bikers on Bourbon Street, wandering the French Quarter; reveling in the exuberance of Mardi Gras.
One night, driving home with my cousin and her boyfriend, police pulled over the truck for a broken taillight. It unfolded like a scene from a crime drama: flashing lights, loud commands, a full search. In the freezing December air, I instinctively put my hands in my hoodie pockets for warmth, and an officer immediately drew his pistol, shouting at me to keep my hands visible. He forced me to the icy ground before letting me stand again. I froze in that moment, fearful of being shot by police — an experience I had only ever heard described in the lives of Black and minority communities in the United States.
Years earlier, I had already been confronted by crime in the United States. On a trip to Miami with my parents, my mother was robbed at a gas station in Dade County. The thief took all our passports and we required help from our embassy to return home. Having reported many similar stories in Belize, it is a reminder now that danger and crime are shadows that follow everywhere.
Today, the United States is no longer my summer vacation dreamland, nor is it my exile from Belizean tribulation. Through my travels, the United States still stands as a beacon of democratic principle and possibility; a source of hope for those seeking a better life. Beyond the surface, it is a real place, with real people, struggling with bills, debt, insurance, taxes, inflation, and the cost of living. It is also an intensely polarized nation, fiercely divided by politics, religion, and ideology.
Yet even as U.S. cultural reach continues to grow, despite its own media often depicting a country awash in excess, conflict and corruption, we Belizeans still see it as the embodiment of opportunity. The United States remains one of Belize’s strongest international partners. Our government has received millions in bilateral funding and grants. Tourism makes up about 40% of Belize’s GDP, and roughly 60–70% of visitors are from North America. Social media has bridged the gap between Belizeans at home and abroad and introduced waves of Belizeans to all manner of pop-culture hot topics and trends. Many Belizean families still depend on remittances from relatives in the United States. There is even a popular Belizean idiom tied to diaspora goodies at Christmas: “Box or barrel?”
But for all the U.S. influence on Belize, our institutions and traditions remain inherently British. Belize is still a democratic parliament with a Westminster-style government. Until recently, the Queen’s face adorned the country’s banknotes. Belizeans still refer to supper as “drinking tea,” and meat pies and Johnny Cakes remain breakfast staples. The British Military maintains a jungle training base (BATSUB), and interactions between British soldiers and locals are common. In fact, whereas my one grandaunt moved to Los Angeles decades prior, my other grandaunt married a British soldier and moved to England to start a family.
Despite this, and no visa requirement for Belizeans to travel to the United Kingdom, I only know a handful of Belizeans who have ever visited or wish to visit England. Perhaps the accessibility of U.S. cable television post-independence had something to do with it, but Belize made a quick shift toward U.S. cultural identity. I remember growing up in the 90s, not quite old enough to understand but old enough to observe, raucous crowds in many living rooms marveling at Michael Jordan and his Chicago Bulls on a legendary championship run. It had tremendous impact on local sports and fashion, while hits from acts like Michael Jackson influenced generations of Belizeans to sing and dance. But Britain was always present. The night Princess Diana died, the world — and Belize — fell still in sorrow, echoing the monarchy’s long-lasting impact on Belizean and global culture.
In recent years, I have anchored myself more firmly in my Belizean identity, building a career in journalism and media. My father and siblings now live in South Carolina, making visits to the United States all but inevitable and continuously shaping and informing my perception of the U.S. In my professional capacity, I have observed how U.S. politics and policies trickle down to Belize. As the saying goes, “When America sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold.” I have reported on U.S. travel advisories about Belize due to gang violence while reading daily news of mass shootings and political insurrection in the United States. I’ve observed and reported on how politics in America continues to divide citizens and occasionally spills over into violence, with attempted and even successful assassinations. And with a large Belizean diaspora and U.S. expatriates settling in Belize, those divisions often spill into local debates on U.S. issues. In some ways, Belize has become a proxy battleground for U.S. ideology and cultural issues.
The United States of America, I’ve realized over time, is not purely a physical destination on a map, but a place of ideals, hope, and inspiration that exists not just in the Belizean imagination but the wider psyche of all those who grow up on the outside looking in. For many, it represents the manifestation of one’s own destiny and the pursuit of happiness. For Belizeans, it is a chance for a better quality of life, education and employment. For me, it has been a steady, evolving presence, offering lessons, memories, refuge and reckoning. America, like Belize, is an imperfect country, striving, and contradictory in many ways but beneath it all, human. Perhaps that’s why Belize continues to look north to America, not for direction, but for a reminder that one’s identity and indeed its very destiny, is evolving and entirely up to them. The story of the U.S. will always be intertwined with Belizean existence, not just because of global power and proximity, but because in principle, we both hope to become better tomorrow than we were yesterday.