“Expat Brat”: Growing up American in Brussels: A family, a city, and an era of change (Part Two)

This is the second installment of a two-part reflection on growing up American in Brussels in the 1960s and 1970s. Picking up where Part One left off, the story turns to the vibrant social world of the expatriate community — its clubs, philanthropy, and friendships — while also confronting the political tensions of the era and the gradual transformation of Brussels’ American presence. What emerges is both personal memoir and a portrait of a unique chapter in the city’s modern history.

An expat bubble and the real world outside it

If our schools and youth activities formed the inner circle of our experience, the wider expatriate world provided its scaffolding. Living in Brussels felt, at times, like life inside a carefully constructed American town transplanted overseas. In Rhode-Saint-Genèse, the neighborhood where our family first settled, enough American families had clustered that expats and locals alike half-jokingly called it the “American Ghetto”. We had our first McDonald’s downtown while we lived there, across from La Bourse, and a number of other American-style casual diners and cafés — Topps on the Avenue Louise, Rick’s Café Américain, the Hard Rock Cafe in Ixelles, the Yummy House, the Ben Franklin, and more — dotted the expat landscape.

Organizations and social clubs flourished. The American Women’s Club of Brussels and the American Men’s Club of Brussels provided camaraderie, and business networking support. The Belgian American Chamber of Commerce helped bridge communities and inject American business energy into the local economy. Bonds were forged across cultures, and lifelong friendships for us were born through business and socializing with families like the McKinneys, Jencks, Levins, Shores, Meltzers, Beggs, Rosenthals, Dunhams, Smiths, Gaines, Birys, Poncelets, Wrights, Gaines, Stockers, Websters and many, many, more. Belgian families with friends' names I’ll never forget, too: Alix Riga, Corinne Doms, Dominique Vanhulst, Martine Smets, Yves Gacki — relationships which endure to this day.

Philanthropy also marked the era. In 1972, my father Ted Simpson (pictured above) helped found the United Fund for Belgium, a group that raised money from US corporations and expatriate donors, as well as a number of Belgian enterprises and donors, to support a wide range of Belgian charities. Reported at the time in The Bulletin, The Brussels Times and Belgian national media, the fund demonstrated that Americans in Brussels were not just temporary visitors but active contributors to the local community, seeking to leave a positive impact on the society in which they lived.

Yet Brussels — and Europe — were not without their frictions. The Vietnam War sparked protests and fueled anti-American sentiment, from city wall graffiti reading “Yankee Go Home” to rallies and demonstrations across university campuses and town squares. The “Ugly American” stereotype was more than a phrase; it was a perception we occasionally encountered in cafés, on university steps, and in everyday interactions. Our presence was sometimes met with skepticism and often outright resentment, as much as curiosity. Even in our classrooms, teachers would occasionally voice a quiet exasperation: “Oh la la… ces Américains, quand même,” a reaction to our independence, confidence, and occasional arrogance — but also a reflection of the times. We were far from universally embraced, and admiration was in no way ever automatic.

A changing tide: The 1980s and the rebalancing of expat life

Nothing lasts forever, and by the early 1980s, that era of broad expatriation began to transform. European labor laws and hiring preferences shifted toward local expertise and leadership. Corporations increasingly valued indigenous knowledge over imported management models, and the uniquely privileged American expat bubble started to deflate. Schools that had once been predominantly American in student body saw their demographics change; in many international schools outside the US Department of Defense (DoD) system, the percentage of American children dropped below 20 percent as families either left or integrated further into local communities.

This transition was often joked about on bumper stickers seen at the time: “Will the last one to leave please turn off the light?” The sentiment captured a bittersweet reality — one in which the unique chapter of American influence in international Brussels was closing.

Reflections: Brussels then, Brussels now

Looking back, those years were more than just an extended visit. They were a formative moment in the history of postwar Europe — a time when a continent was rebuilding, and when a city like Brussels became a microcosm of globalization long before the word entered common use.

For many of us who grew up during that time, including my sister and myself, the experience shaped our worldview, our friendships, and our sense of belonging. We lived at the heart of a burgeoning international community that was both transient and seemingly enduring — a world of cultural encounters, of opportunity and challenge, of American shoes on city cobblestone streets and English-spoken laughter, and the cracks of baseball bats echoing on diamond-shaped fields half a world from home.

The soundtrack and taste of those years

And then there was the music!

Between concerts at Forest National and evenings scanning posters for the Ancienne Belgique, we were immersed in something far bigger than ourselves. Through AFN radio—with Kasey Kasem’s American Top 40 and Wolfman Jack’s wild howl—and the nighttime signal of Radio Luxembourg, we heard history unfolding: Led Zeppelin, The Who, Santana, The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys, Traffic, Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd. For francophones, there were also the irresistible sounds of Jacques Dutronc, Françoise Hardy, Sheila, Claude François, Adamo, Véronique Sanson, Joe Dassin, and Johnny Hallyday. Tickets cost just a few hundred francs. We knew every lyric by heart and blew our allowance at Cado Radio, buying vinyl LPs—many of which still sit on our shelves today.

Ears — and eyes, too. Rare but eagerly awaited glimpses of home flickered across the Flemish BRT TV channel: Mannix, The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters, Columbo. On Thursday evenings, Selim Sasson on RTB’s Le Carrousel aux Images and Jo Röpcke on BRT’s Première guided us through new releases, giving a preview of what was playing before we went downtown. Soon we were lining up at the grand Cinéma Pathé Palace on Boulevard Anspach—or one of the city’s other theaters—to see The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, Darling Lili, Patton, Tora! Tora! Tora!, The French Connection, Woodstock, The Deer Hunter, The Godfather, Rocky, and more. Lasting impressions of a lifetime.

Brussels — and Belgium more broadly — also introduced us to beer before adulthood officially arrived. There seemed to be no fixed drinking age, at least none that troubled café owners. We graduated quickly to Stella Artois, Maes Pils, local Trappists, and sweet cherry kriek. Evenings stretched at cafés near Waterloo, on the Grand-Place, and around the Place du Grand Sablon —wherever conversation carried us.

There were class trips, too: the Congo Museum in Tervuren (now the AfricaMuseum), the Atomium, canoeing the Lesse in the Ardennes, hiking the Forêt de Soignes, exploring Beersel Castle. Even chlorine-heavy afternoons at the Poseidon pool in Woluwe remain vivid, redeemed by cellophane-wrapped Belgian waffles afterward.

And, of course, the annual “Classe de Neige” trips to Switzerland in February—morning lessons, afternoon skiing, fondue and cold-cut lunches, and evening communal baths best left undescribed. It felt endless then; impossibly brief now.

Sit quietly, and the memories return — music drifting from a radio, beer coasters flipping in a café, winter air sharp in the lungs. Suddenly, it is yesterday again.

That is the Brussels I remember. That is a Brussels worth remembering.

David Simpson lives in New Jersey, just outside New York City. After his formative years in Brussels, he attended Washington University in St Louis and went on to a 35-year career in marketing communications. Through McFarland & Company, he will soon publish 'Beyond the Landing Zone — Memoir of an 82nd Airborne Glider Soldier in WWII', an expanded edition of his father’s personal wartime memoir. Contact: davidbriansimpson57@gmail.com

Photos: ©The Simpson family, 1978, Ohain; Ted Simpson in the Grand Place,1972; Ecole Hamaide 1967 (David top right); David atop snowball, Classe de Neige, Switzerland, 1969 ©Dominique Vanhulst; Marnie and David  in front of the Atomium, 1965 

“Expat Brat”: Growing up American in Brussels — A family, a city, and an era of change | The Bulletin