Dear Canadian travelers:

We get it. You're from Canada. What was the tip-off? Tough to say. It could have been the maple-leaf flags on every conceivable piece of your luggage, the caps and shirts self-identifying you as denizens of the great white north, or even the conspicuously displayed Air Canada luggage tags. Somehow, all this gives the veeery subtle impression that you are, in fact, from Canada.

Or, perhaps more accurately, that you're not from America (a usage at which Canadians would doubtlessly bristle, but "America" is a perfectly accurate way to refer to the U.S., for reasons that I have neither the time nor the desire to go into here). And perhaps this is what gets under my skin about the Canucks' compulsive self-identification.

In one sense, it's just about cultural inferiority. Canadians don't like to be confused with Americans for the same reasons that Portuguese don't like to be confused with Spanish, or Ukranians with Russians, or Austrians with Germans. The former cultures have historically lived in the shadow of the latter ones, and they want to distinguish themselves in order to emphasize their difference (notice I did not say "distinctiveness").

But I don't think that alone explains the utter profusion of Maple-leaf regalia that I've seen our Canadian friends wearing around the city. The overkill seems designed to forestall any chance that they might be confused with US-siders, as though any such misunderstanding would cause them to melt into pools of icy-cold water, or perhaps into delicious Labatt's beer. But the vehemence with which the Canadians self-identify reflects the unhappy but incontrovertible fact that these days it kind of sucks to be from America. Our government is run by religious conservative wackos and imperialistic neocons who are a terror to the rest of the world and an embarrassment to many of us who come from the US (and probably the vast majority of those who would be inclined to travel abroad). I haven't had to defend America much so far, but perhaps that's because I've been so voluble about how much I think the current government there sucks. At the very least, it's no treat to be an American abroad these days. I wish I were currently proud enough of my country that I wanted to plaster its flag all over my belongings, but I have to reluctantly concede that if I were Canadian, I'd probably make every effort to make it clear that I was non-American too.