During freshman orientation at Oxford University, dozens of English teenagers wait to introduce themselves. One student is a Rhodes Scholar from the American Midwest. He has a unique educational background and already has his master's degree; he studied history at Iowa State and wrote detailed research about how southerners founded Iowa and which side they would have been on during the Civil War. He is much older than his new peers and stands out, as most of them are English and have a very prim accent. Before the students can be admitted in a special ceremony, roll must be called. Every student says "here" when their name is called. The unnamed narrator cannot decide whether to pronounce the word in an English accent or an American accent. On one hand, he has been advised by family to fit in with his new classmates. On the other, he is proud of his American heritage and has dedicated much of his life to studying it, so he wants to be authentically himself. He becomes more and more anxious and cannot decide what to do. Then his name is called.