It happened in Montevideo, in the way small moments often do—casually, unselfconsciously, and therefore in a revealing way.
A fellow passenger on a cruise, an American, had just finished admonishing a street vendor for not returning her change in U.S. dollars. She turned toward the harbour, pointed at what appeared to be a military ship—grey, angular, carrying the unmistakable silhouette of weaponry—and asked me, without hesitation or irony: “Is that one of ours?”
I paused, not because I lacked an answer, but because the question itself seemed to require unpacking before it could be answered at all.
Whose ours?
Assumptions
The question assumed several things at once. It assumed I was American. It assumed that nationality was audible. It assumed that Americans, wherever they go, are surrounded by other Americans who share an unspoken “we.” It also assumed that warships, like currency, circulate in a kind of imperial commons—recognizable, familiar, and somehow accountable to passersby.
I am Canadian. Nothing about my accent, manner, or presence would have signaled that to an American ear, because Americans are not trained to listen for it. Canadians, on the other hand, are trained to listen carefully. We are used to distinguishing ourselves in a world that often collapses difference into proximity.
A Canadian would not assume another traveler was Canadian simply because they sounded familiar. Nor would a Canadian assume that a Canadian naval vessel would be parked, unremarked, in a Uruguayan harbour. And a Canadian would never expect change given in Uruguay—after tendering U.S. currency—to be returned in U.S. dollars. That expectation belongs to a country whose money functions less as currency than as global shorthand.
Confidence
The question also carried a quiet confidence about military presence. Not anxiety, not curiosity—recognition. Is that one of ours? Not what ship is that? or whose navy is that? but a binary inquiry rooted in belonging. As if warships are not instruments of state power but familiar artifacts, like franchise logos glimpsed abroad.
To non-Americans, this confidence reads differently. It does not register as arrogance so much as invisibility—a way of moving through the world without needing to name oneself, because the world so often does it for you.
There was no malice in the question. That is what makes it instructive. It was not imperialism in its theatrical form, but in its everyday one: the assumption that “we” are everywhere, that “our” things are the default, and that others will help orient you within that frame.
A structure difference
I shrugged and said I didn’t know whether the ship was “one of ours.”
It was the only honest answer. Not because I lacked information about the ship, but because I could not locate myself inside the question.
My fellow traveller was not evil or unthinking. She was not unintelligent or unfeeling or incurious. She did not mean harm. She may have been so like many others who admonish themselves for their different understanding of their place in the world. She was careful – not loud. She was placing herself. She just wanted to know if the ship was one of ‘ours’ perhaps to ground herself.
For Americans abroad, the world often feels like a place they visit. For others, it is a place they must translate. The difference is not moral. It is structural. One learns to notice it only when a harbour, a banknote, or a pronoun quietly refuses to cooperate.
And sometimes, the most revealing response is not correction, but silence—letting the question hang long enough for its assumptions to become visible – if that should happen – on their own.