There’s a bit of a debate going on in another thread about how uniform the U.S. is coast-to-coast, culturally speaking. Personally, my first inclination is to say, “Not very.” If, for example, you look at the gay mecca of Provincetown, MA, and compare it to Salt Lake City, you’ll find yourself noting a wee difference or two.
But if you look more broadly, ignoring places that represent a kind of extreme, I’d say, on consideration, the U.S. in fact has lots of cultural uniformity, and more all the time. We have national TV shows, national restaurant chains, a national highway system, a national language, national newspapers, and so on. We have tons of population movement, and people rarely seem to be fazed at the idea of moving to Cincinnati or Raleigh or Southern California. In fact, if I look at my workplace, not so many of the people here are actually from Massachusetts. I doubt those in-comers thought before they moved, “Oh, my God, it’ll be an alien culture, and take me a long time to adjust.”
That said, I know plenty of people are more struck by regional peculiarities than they are by commonalities. Food for discussion, to be sure.
I was thinking of this as well, but have to say: in no way shape or form can cultural diversity of the US compare with that of Europe, where you don’t just have places like San Francisco or New York versus Topeka and Dallas, but whole different countries and historic language regions within a day’s journey of each other.
I may as well say here as anywhere that I am extremely envious of European natives who have the right to live and work anywhere on the continent they wish. They sure got that right when they set up the EU.
I’ve noticed that African-Americans from coast to coast, except for those who have been thoroughly assimilated into the middle class (and even many of those), all speak pretty much the same Black English/Ebonics – even though they have grown up barraged from all sides, every day, by electronic media where “Anchorman English” is used much, much more frequently. An example of diversity (ethnic) and uniformity (geographic) at once.
It’s beginning to – in The United States of Europe, T.R. Reid notes the emergence of a new generation whose first self-identity is “European” and only after that French, German, etc. (They all speak English as a second language.) But I suspect there’s only so far that can go. Europe’s national (and subnational local) cultures will still exist 100 years from now.
Only if you count the Indian nations as countries. We have, we have always had within our national borders at the time, a single, predominant, core Anglo culture to which all other ethnocultural groups have, to varying degrees, assimilated. Quite unlike the situation in Europe, now or at any time since the Roman Empire.
I do indeed, but they weren’t what I meant. Aside from early British and Dutch influences, there was France (Lousiana). Spain (Florida). Mexico (Texas). Russia (Alaska). Polynesia (Hawaii). And probably a couple others I can’t think of off the top of my head.
I don’t know how successful they are but I am going to say that the US prides itself on its cultural uniformity more than any other country I know. Specially when you consider the size of it, I would say they are managing pretty well. As was said, the idea of national franchises is pretty much stuck in the american psyche and they want to find their standard fare everywhere they go (hence their hotel/fast food “embassies” abroad).
Of course there are differences, see Texas vs California vs New York vs Alabama. Heck, they don’t even speak the same language! still, the differences are mostly cosmetic, where it matters they are all the same.
I would say that the US is pretty darn culturally uniform, largely because virtually all of our media and entertainment is produced and distributed on a national scale.
This week, people at virtually every office in America will be discussing the Superbowl pairing, the Oscar nominations and the American Idol selection. The discovery of two abducted boys in a small town in Missouri last week was the biggest story in then national news, and the families appeared on the Today show and Oprah. The Presidential race is largely shaped by how the candidates appear in the national media. Although many Americans retain traditions from their cultural background, they virtually all adopt mainstream American traditions as well. To the extent that we have regional differences, they are being washed away from media saturation and internal migration.
But all of those (except Hawaii) were practically uninhabited by non-Indians at the time the U.S. annexed them. There was still a blank cultural slate for the Yanks to write upon, once the Indians had been displaced or exterminated.
You live in Puerto Rico (and, significantly, refer to Americans as “they”) – does PR have more in common culturally with the continental U.S. or with Latin Caribbean countries such as Cuba or the Dominican Republic? (I strongly suspect the latter.)
I’m a big believer in the red state blue state America paradigm. I think there are very clear divisions between the two. In fact, as an east coast liberal, I feel I have more in common with my western European peers than I do with a red stater. Maybe its all the right wing nuts calling me a traitor, but when I hear about red staters trying to enforce Christian mythology as science I think to myself “either they’re not Americans or I’m not.”
Not really, because what happened in America during the Westward Movement was essentially white migrants storming through and pretty much pushing out of their way whoever and whatever was there. To my understanding, too, Mexico didn’t have a whole lot of presence in the Southwest even though it was their territory. More like a few isolated outposts.
European national differences will undoubtedly erode, but the major languages still have such strong presences in their historical areas that I can’t imagine them ever dying out. Hell, even Frisian is hanging on as a living language, with several dialects.
You should visit the Pueblo area, Ignacio, or San Luis. The Spanish most assuredly did not leave a blank cultural slate for the Yanks down south of here. And I imagine most of New Mexico would be surprised to hear that they had a blank cultural slate until the arrival of WalMart.
Going from New York or Boston to anywhere around here (outside of Denver) is going to be a culture shock, based on the few people from those cities that I’ve had to work with. And I was more comfortable in Dublin than I was in D.C. - The Irish I understand, Easterners I don’t.
To me this looks like a bit of an excluded middle argument.
While there has been a core of British Law, English language, and Protestant religion that has been carried across the continent as it has been “Americanized” in ways that European countries have been separated (mostly by language but with other barriers, as well,), it has also been true that the various regions of the U.S. have carried very strong cultural traditions right up until WWII and have only seriously begun to fade since around 1970. There has probably been no time when a Bay Stater felt as distinct from a Tar Heel as a Provençal felt from a Prussian, but if you read the letters and literature from the eighteenth through mid-twentieth centuries, you will find people expressing amazement and consternation of just how different those “other” people have been.
There has always been more internal migration (facilitated by a (more or less) common language) that provided more cross-regional exposure, but there have also been very real regional differences.
Letters from the period of the War for Independence frequently have worldly Southerners and overly-religious New Englanders sniping at each other. (Boy has that changed. ) Letters from folks who had to move North to Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, Buffalo, and Pittsburgh for jobs during WWII display utter confusion regarding the "foreign environment in which they found themselves while remarks from the Northerners among whom they settled demonstrate a similar fascination for the really “strange” immigrants from the South. Heck, I encountered a lot of similar discussions when Northern industry began moving South, taking jobs (and population) into “strange” regions beginning in the late 70s.
Is the U.S. now more nearly homogenized than one would expect by looking at history (even the history of the U.S.)? I would think so. Is there a single, seamless, smooth monoculture across the country? I don’t think we’re there, yet.
There are broad differences, but I think you are mistaken to regard either the red states or the blue states as monolithic entities. Your paradigm breaks down when you look at a shaded, county-by-county map from the 2004 election. The nation is mostly varying shades of purple; there are plenty of liberals in the South, and plenty of conservatives in the North – just not majorities.
I live within 50 miles of Asheville, NC, Knoxville, TN, Harlan, KY, and Bristol, Virginia. People within this footprint may have or lack these conveniences: wireless internet, indoor plumbing, John Deere tractors, Porsche Cayennes, graduate degrees, GED’s, tattoos, cornrows, pet goats, or mink coats. Any of these Appalachian residents may refuse to allow a neighbor to join them at the dinner table for reasons as varied as religious differences, sexual orientation, socio-economic disparity, or skin color. And though they may all know and respect American icons such as Oprah Winfrey, Billy Graham, Ellen DeGeneres, and Bill Gates very few take steps to emulate their behavior. Exposure to the media does not homogenize a nation.
I stopped at a country store to ask for directions in a small town in Virginia last summer, and a young lady with bare feet and a baby on her hip asked the store clerk “Ya think it’ll fare up?” and “Where’s yer warshpowders?” I grew up 30 miles from that store, yet I had to ask my mother (the daughter of a country doctor) what the young woman had said. Translated: “Will the weather improve?” and “Where would I find the laundry detergent?” Now, we all know that she didn’t learn that regional dialect from The Weather Channel or a Tide commercial- she has certainly been exposed to vocabulary lessons, cable television, and the concept of footwear. But the store clerk understood her and answered her without missing a beat, and then gave me clear and concise directions to the nearest small aircraft runway in the King’s English.
But don’t just trust my limited experience: drop a Japanese tourist in the middle of a small Kentucky coal mining town when he is expecting Hollywood, Las Vegas, or Times Square and ask him what country he is in.
Exactly. The red/state blue state meme is a gross oversimplification by the news media, which thrives on controversy. I can drive an hour east of where I live (in CA) and I might as well be in Kansas; an hour north and I’m in San Francisco. It’s not a bad way to see how states lean in presidential elections, but that’s it. And even then, it’s a recent phenomenon.
Puerto Ricans (another “they” for me) are certainly more Latin than American. They are slowly becoming more and more americanized but don’t expect the process to go all the way. At least not before “American” comes to meet them halfways as they become more latinized. My opinion, of course. Let me know if there is any one aspect that you are particularly curious about.
Sure, where the population density hovers around 1 person and three cows per hactare, just as there are some seriously bluer areas where the population is measured in persons per square foot.
The main point is that if one tries to establish a red/blue conflict by state, it will fail because even states with red or blue counties will also have blue or red counties (or red and purple or blue and purple counties).
As a general measure of electoral votes or senate elections, the red/blue dichotomy provides a nice (if imperfect) shorthand, but as an effort to identify regional politics or loyalties, it is seriously flawed.
Only if you count the Indian nations as countries. We have, we have always had within our national borders at the time, a single, predominant, core Anglo culture to which all other ethnocultural groups have, to varying degrees, assimilated. Quite unlike the situation in Europe, now or at any time since the Roman Empire.
) Letters from folks who had to move North to Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, Buffalo, and Pittsburgh for jobs during WWII display utter confusion regarding the "foreign environment in which they found themselves while remarks from the Northerners among whom they settled demonstrate a similar fascination for the really “strange” immigrants from the South. Heck, I encountered a lot of similar discussions when Northern industry began moving South, taking jobs (and population) into “strange” regions beginning in the late 70s.