Sarah, I think your boys may be a slightly different case—not just because of the sci-fi-parents thing, but also because of their having been reared American, not half-and-half. (I mean, do they consider themselves Portuguese nationals in some way?) The people I was describing are, for example, like a woman I know whose father is Chinese (as in, from China) and whose mother is Japanese. She herself was brought up partially in Tokyo but educated mostly in the States, including high school and college. She’s aware that the Japanese and Chinese don’t consider her one of them, but she doesn’t feel entirely like an American, either, and I find it hard to blame her, really.

Oh, to be only a two-hour drive from my hometown! Would take me all day, and $400.

For those of us who cannot so easily, I hope you return frequently and describe the distance.

As you know I understand the “children of binational families” all too well, though in my case it could be argued my children are solidly American and my own national confusion is self inflicted. My mom chides me for the perceived confusion in my children often enough. “Those poor boys don’t belong anywhere.” I don’t see it that way. OTOH I belong to a sub group, sf/f writers who DO NOT belong anywhere. Heck, sf/f fans tend to be their family’s tragedy, if that makes sense. We’re just odd people.

In that sense, if Alvin Toffler was right — and I have no reason to think he was not — as identities and classes continue to splinter, we’re going to have a lot more of these.

Still on the other hand — shush, I DO write science fiction and fantasy! I’m allowed multiple hands — I see no conflict PERSONALY between this fragmentation and an American identity. I think — obviously — Americans are possibly the most suited modern society to allowing this sort of fragmentation to function.

Still (on the fourth hand) the more fragmented society becomes, the more one seems to have a new-romantic fascination with societies that Americans perceive as simpler and more cohesive than the US’s. (The downside of that conformity never being fully understood. Unless you grow up in it as a native, and even then you can romanticize it a posteriory as so many of my fellow expatriates do.) So it makes makes perfect sense for Obama to have an almost-crush on Indonesia and Kenya, complicated in the case of Kenya by the whole romanticization of Africa thing.

What can we do? I don’t know. Is it too late to hope he learns to know himself and compensate for these subconscious biases? Or is asking self-awareness of a politican too tall an order?

By the way, I’ve read your work on this post, and may I also say that it’s really good. And how nice that technology enables me to notice—and note—on that!