Diego+A’s+Final+AmEx+Speech+2017

So how many of you know where Bangladesh is? It borders India on its northeastern side. What about the capital of North Korea? Its Pyongyang. Finally what's the capital of Pennsylvania? Harrisburg. Okay so some of us know our geography and others not so much. But how did we do as a country as a whole? Well you should all be pleased to know, that according to a National Geographic survey released in 2006, 63% of Americans aged 18 to 24 could not locate Iraq on a map of the Middle East. And 70% could not identify Iran or Israel on a map. So how many of you thought it was that bad? Well it just gets better. Not only are we bad at world geography, we are also bad at the geography of our own country as well. In the same survey, a third of the respondents could not find Louisiana, and 48% couldn't find Mississippi on a map of the United States either. Why are we so bad at something that seems so simple? Is it because less than 3 out of 10 young Americans think it's necessary to know where countries are? Or less than 1 of 5 Americans own a map of the world? Or because our President does not seem to care to know the basics of geography? And by taking geography classes out of school is not doing us any help either. So why take away something that obviously can help us improve on that area? And yes I know that it's not as important as Math or English but still. But then again for whatever other reason there is, it is making us look like complete idiots. And I for one don’t really want that view placed on us even if half of the country is for other reasons best left out. But I do admit that I’m not the best at geography but I do know most of my geography and I enjoy the subject. Therefore I believe it's a necessity to know where the countries are that are brought up in the news. And if more than half the country doesn’t understand where places are, then we have a problem. I want to grow old in an America where people know what's north, east, south, and west of them. Where people can understand maps without a robot deciphering it for them. I want to grow old where we know where the United States lies on a map.