Wed, 21 Feb 2007

Hyphenated-Americans

Here in the U.S. we have a lot of hypenated-Americans. That is, Japanese-American, Arab-American, Mexican-American, You name it-American. There seems to be a great need to retain a tie to some other cultural identity when you move to the U.S. Are we saying that the U.S. doesn't have its own culture? Can't we just be American?

This morning I listened to an story about slaves of the Cherokee nation who were freed after the Civil War. These Cherokee Freedmen might be banned from the Cherokee nation. Although this isn't really the topic of this blog, it got me to thinking about cultural identity in relation to the question 'What are you?'

Cultural identity in the United States seems to be tied to somewhere else. This seems to even be true for people whose relatives have been in the U.S. for generations. With the exception of several regions such as the south east, there appears to be no cultural identity associated with the U.S. Perhaps this is because of our heritage as a melting pot for different cultures. Perhaps it is because of our willingness to assimilate cultures whole and without significant change into our society.

Take our langugage -- English -- for example. It is not a national language. In fact some governments to out of their way and incur great expense to make sure that materials are provided in the native languages of its residents rather than requiring that emigrants learn English. It's sad to me, when I see someone who has been in this country for decades unable (unwilling?) to speak English. Don't get me wrong, I see nothing wrong with speaking your native language. In fact, my wife and kids are bilinqual and I think it's great. And I'm also aware that there are genuine reasons why someone might have difficulty learning English. But I wonder about someone who is here and has never even made the attempt.

I think that the reason that cultural identify in the U.S. is tied to somewhere else is that we don't have a strong national identity as Americans. There might be a number of reasons in addition to that above for this:

• We are a large country compared to most
• We have historically been a mix of cultures
• We have accepted immigration readily over the years

Our culture is bland. That is, we don't have some strong national identity based on commonality. There is no real attempt to draw our peoples into a single culture. In fact, we favor individual cultural identities, rather than discouraging their existence. I guess just being an American is being proud of where you came from and proud of the fact that the United States accepted you for what you are rather than what we can make you.

posted 07:58 [/WhatAreYou] permanent link