If the states in the United States of America were separate countries

If the states in the United States of America were separate countries, my family would have first moved abroad in 1967, from Michigan to California. By the time I was 27, when I moved to Berlin, Germany, I would also have lived in the countries of Ohio and Pennsylvania. In each of those countries, I would have experienced what I experienced during the year my family lived in England when I was nine, and what I have experienced in Germany and Switzerland: I would have been a foreigner. But in all these states and countries, I have always been able to "pass" as local – as long as I don't say anything. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 25 March 2023)