Each month we will be featuring a guest writer and this month is Andrew McDiarmid, born and bred in Edinburgh, Scotland, currently living in South Texas. He has a radio show in Texas called Simply Scottish. However, he is a writer, and currently writes regular columns for U.S Scots Magazine in America, and Now You Know!, a feature in a newspaper based in Lanarkshire, Scotland.

"Andrew," my mother whispered. "Andrew, wake up - we're going to America." I was in a dream. The typical dream for a Scottish lad of eleven years - visions of football, sweets, that new Hibs strip, and the pretty girl from the P7 class next to mine at Gilmerton Primary. Slowly, my dream faded, and I woke up. It would be the last Scottish dream I would have for years. It was a cold August morning, like any other, yet different. Today I wasn't going to get dressed and walk up to the school lollipop man with my sister. Today, I wasn't going to a match at Easter Road with my dad. Today, I wouldn't shout up to my friends' windows and ask them if they could play football. Today, we weren't going on a family holiday to Dunbar, or Loch Lomond, or the Borders. Today, we were leaving. Leaving this whole country behind, and I didn't realize just how much my life was about to change. As we drove out of Moredun, out of Gilmerton, and out of Edinburgh to the airport, I looked silently at the city I had spent my whole life in. It seemed to whiz by in a mixture of greens, stone browns, and brisk sunlight. People were walking about, engaged in the business of starting up another day. Shops were opening, taxis were roaming the streets, and life in the City of Edinburgh bustled without hindrance, without notice of this family of four quietly saying good-bye. Somehow, we had managed to pack everything we owned into thirteen immensely heavy suitcases. How we made it to America, I'll never know. We landed in the Rio Grande Valley, the Southern-most tip of Texas, on a sweltering, hot, humid day. I stepped off the plane in our new town, Harlingen, and took a deep breath. I almost choked. My Scottish lungs almost gave in as they inhaled the dry, South Texas air. The sun's rays pelted down on us, as if to say 'this is what you get for coming here'. Mum, dad, my sister Narooma, and I all put our luggage down, a huge heap in the middle of the floor. We looked at each other, and engaged in a big, family hug, a tradition for this family of travelers. It was the beginning of a long journey - one that would test the very limits of our emotional, spiritual, and physical endurance. My sister and I started school, and my mother and father found jobs. We were like objects on display to the Americans. "Say book, Andrew! Say it again for my friend!" If I wasn't being asked to say different words and phrases over and over, I was being ridiculed and told to "go back to where I came from." I did make friends, but to this day, I can't figure out if they were genuine friends, or just enthralled at listening to my accent and seeing how foreign I was. During this time, and through my elementary school years, we were living the American Dream. Typical dress for me was Nike sneakers, multicolored shorts, a Disney World Florida T-shirt, and a Mickey mouse hat. We ate hot dogs and hamburgers. We frequented McDonalds as much as we frequented church. We sang all the American patriotic songs, and recited the American Pledge of Allegiance every morning in school. We traveled all over the United States, making sure we covered every major American tourist attraction. From the depths of the Grande Canyon to the streets of Las Vegas. From the hands and feet of the Mann's Chinese Theater in Los Angeles, to the hands and feet of the towering Abraham Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. We drove through pouring rain in the Florida Everglades, and drove under the largest tree in the world, a California Redwood. We camped in forests, fields, beaches, national parks, and back yards. We slept in motels from San Francisco to New Mexico, from Colorado to North Dakota. Over our years in America, my parents treated us to an unforgettable series of journeys, holidays, weekends, and surprise visits that covered virtually every inch of America. It was an enchanting Dream, almost as good as some of my Scottish ones, where my Dad and I would play for Hibs and win the Scottish Cup. But like all dreams, it had to end, and on May 23rd, 1995, my American Dream did end. And Mel Gibson was the reason. It made Americans cry. Heck, it even made some Mexicans cry. But their tears were the kind that are sympathetically and unconsciously shed at every sad, realistic Hollywood movie, every tear-jerker, every romance. I cried along with them as I watched Mel Gibson's epic movie Braveheart, but for a very different reason. On May 23rd, 1995, in a small South Texas movie theatre, I saw the story of William Wallace enfold for the first time. My tears fell freely as I realized that it had all actually happened. Men like this really did die for my freedom. These bloody battles really were fought in my home country. This really was Scotland hundreds of years ago. Yes, it was romanticized, and yes, it was Hollywoodized, but I saw past that. I watched, understood, and internalized the story of Wallace and his fight for Scotland's freedom. A flame was ignited that day, and has never stopped growing since, and never will. Braveheart ignited the flame inside me, and that flame completely changed my life around. I awoke from the American Dream, and realized suddenly who I was and where I was from. I was a Scot. It changed the way I looked at life, the way I dressed, the way I talked, and the way I thought. No longer was I 'just another immigrant'. I became the official spokesman for Scotland in my family, my school, my church, and my town. On Oscar night that year, I never had more pride and happiness as Braveheart picked up 5 Academy Awards, including Best Picture of the Year. I literally danced the streets that night. Braveheart had beaten stiff competition from England, Italy, Australia, and America, and had emerged victorious on Hollywood's biggest night. After the excitement of Braveheart died down, I dived into Scottish history, and clawed my way back to having a respectable degree of a Scottish accent, which over the years since coming to America in 1990, had alarmingly withered. (What is a Scottish tongue to do when surrounded purely by Texan and Mexican voices?) I burst with pride every time something Scottish could be pointed out at school. I lapsed into excited frenzy any time a Scottish movie came to town, or some Scottish news hit the local papers. I magnified every Scottish connection I could get my hands on, and either memorized it or hung it on my wall. To Be Continued

If you would like to contact Andrew he can be reached here

You can find more articles in the archive under Guest Writer's Corner