seattlepi: No Parking Anytime: US Expatriates look fondly on U.S. but aren't coming back - by Kerry Murakami
No Parking Anytime: US Expatriates look fondly on U.S. but aren't coming back - by Kerry Murakami
On quiet Salt Spring Island near Vancouver Island, Curt Firestone, a two-time Seattle City Council candidate and longtime liberal activist, said life was good. "Not only is it nature and the ocean, with walking and hiking trails, it's an island of very progressive people of 10,000. You're walking amongst people who think like I do, and I don't have to watch what I say," said Firestone, 67, who is applying for Canadian citizenship.Martha Roth, 70, also felt the pull of home. She and her husband, Marty Roth, 75, were disappointed by President Clinton's centrist administration. George W. Bush's election in 2000, though, "was the cherry on the cake," she said. "We thought, we can't live in a country where this happens."
"My ancestors all came (to the United States) in the 19th century. There's something about that, how the country found a place for them," Roth said. But for all that, Roth said she can't bring herself to go back. More taxes in the United States still fund war and corporation bailouts. "It's where our money goes," she said, "and what that says about who you are." In Canada, the expatriates agree that they have found a home more in line with their politics than the U.S.
Labels: Expatriates, US
