"Getting" America

In My Humble Opinion
61

It’s always been a push-pull situation with immigration. The successful immigrant ancestor is part of the national mythology, families pass down the stories of arrival (hence, I know why the Irish in my family came here six generations ago), and the contributions of various cultures have contributed greatly to our society. On the other hand - there’s a part of human nature that is suspicious of those who are different. New immigrants often do not know our subtle social customs and can offend us without intending to. There is friction between the customs of different cultures that range from Dueling Food Odors to problems such involving practices accepted elsewhere that are illegal here. On the whole, though, immigrants have an easier time gaining social acceptance here than many other places. Some immigrants, in fact, do extremely well: Ahhhh-nold, Henry Kissinger, Bob Hope just to name some well known ones, but the rags-to-riches story does happen, people arriving with nothing and retiring millionaires. Doesn’t happen to everyone, but the possibility is truly there. It’s also there for people born here into dire poverty - where you are born and who you parents are does not limit a person here the way it does other places.

In a country like Japan, you have to be born in Japan and to Japanese parents to be a true citizen. Contrast that with the United States - anyone can become a citizen here. And not only can you arrive here and become a citizen, but we don’t require that you give up all your heritage and childhood customs, either. Families pass down food, traditions, and other aspects of ancestral culture for generations here and it’s seen as perfectly acceptable. Indeed, there’s a certain pride many of us have in being “mutts” and having a heritage comprised of more than one culture.

Nonetheless, it can be quite frustrating to deal with a new arrival who doesn’t speak a language you do, and may not know certain customs. And, if you’re unemployed you might, indeed, feel resentment if a new arrival has a job and you don’t. You might resent your nieghbor for being employed when you’re not. And, since immigrants can rise rather rapidly in wealth, power, and influence they can, indeed, challenge an old and established order.

Correction: you have a right to opportunity, you do NOT have a “right” to success. As it says in the Declaration of Independence, all men are created equal - they don’t necessarially end that way. You have a right to life, to liberty, and to the pursuit of happiness - it’s up to you to catch that elusive little butterfly.

Although our system is not perfect, we do try to maintain a situation where folks really do have that opportunity.

I honestly don’t know if we’re more generous or not.

In some ways, we may appear to be, but it may be more a matter of capability. We do enjoy considerable wealth, so we are more able to donate money and goods to someone else in need. We have some impressive technology - and we like to show off our accomplishments a bit and if we can also do a little good so much the better. And many of our citizens were either born abroad or still have ties to family and another nation, and so have an interest in those places that might lead them to contribute.

Maybe that’s part of it, too - although abroad there might be a stereotype of Americans as big, blond-haired blue-eyed people were not - there isn’t just one American face. Since anyone of any nationality can come here and become a full citizen - and it seems at least a few from every country have done so - we are less likely to see someone from halfway around the world as somehow inherently alien and forever foreign. Certainly there are people here who came from a different continent than my ancestors, but they’ve been here longer than my family has been . My family was “alien” much more recently than theirs. Wherever I go in the world everyone I meet might one day be a fellow citizen of my country. There are many citizens I see and work with every day who look different than me, speak with heavy accents, and yet they are still part of my country. So, someone looking different and sounding different may not make them as alien to our society as might be true elsewhere. If you’re less likely to help folks that look “alien” and “other”, the flip side is that the less strange and foreign they seem the more likely you are to help them.

But don’t forget that Americans genuinely do want to be liked by others. Maybe it’s our relatively informal society. Maybe it’s our tolerance of folks being different from us. Maybe we do it just to annoy others. As ruthless as we can be at times, we have this strange compulsion to help even our enemies. After the civil war, the North didn’t imprison the rebels, they sent them home. In WWII we bombed the crap out of Germany, then helped rebuild it. We also bombed the crap out of Japan, helped them rebuild, and provided medical care to the survivors, including flying many of them to the US for reconstructive surgery. When Chernobyl happened, we had US doctors lining up to go over to the USSR to help out any way they could even though our respective countries were still very much adversaries. Yes, at least in some ways, we are generous.

62

Judging from your observations and questions about those observations, you have made some assumptions. Your experience is limited. Mine is too and I’ve lived in the States for sixty years.

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Broomstick
Yes. I see your point on the whole mythology about immigration which is actually what I am getting at. There is a lot of resistance to new immigrants but once they soak into the culture, then Americans feel proud of their immigration ideal. You call it push-pull. I say there isn’t as much to the ideal as it is vocally bandied about.

Instead of Japan, it would be curious to compare the immigration laws to, say, Europe. I know there’s been an increasing anti-immigration rhetoric in Europe (esp. after 9/11) but I don’t see it substantially different than here. It might be a tad bit shriller there (with the security implications involved).

I didn’t mean everyone ought to be granted success. I was talking about the opportunity for success too. The context this was said was w.r.t protectionist policies.

While I enjoyed your take on American generosity, I wasn’t talking about what you have discussed. My earlier post has the context. I wonder if these past experiences of war and re-construction have contributed to the “good guy” self-image. The Cold war must have helped and the current war on terrorism has definitely been cast on those lines by the Bush administration. While I agree with the characterization w.r.t these major world conflicts, how come the nasty meddling in other countries including overthrowing democratically elected candidates, supporting ruthless dictators etc, hasn’t dented the “good guy” self-image. I suppose, in some ways, these “faults” have been perceived (and rationalized IMHO) as realpolitik.

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This place is reserved for my 666th post.

65

That’s exactly what I’m saying. You can easily find “definitions” of Americans from various regions around the country, but that’s about as far as you can go. It’s not like other, more populous countries like India or China, which actually do have a more homogeneous makeup to their inhabitants. Those particular countries have a strong streak of deference to superiors/elders/ leaders, while the US celebrates its revolution every year-- but is still wounded by its own Civil War.

66

I think what we don’t get is how fast you drive.
Norway 3200km (by road)
If a day’s drive is 12 hours your average speed is 266 km/t.
Impressive.

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Yes, some Americans DO drive way too fast on our freeways. If I recall 100 km/hour is about 60 mph, so 266 would be about… 130-140 mph? Yes, people have achieved such speeds on the open road although 90-100 mph (that’s around 150-170 km/hour) are more typical of the speeders.

Me, if I need to go faster than about 70 I rent an airplane. It also has the advantage of being to go in a truly straight line (most of the time) rather than following the curves and twists of the pavement.

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By comparison, take a drive from Imperial Beach, California (a few miles north of the Mexican border) to Blaine, Washington (at the Canadian border). The distance is just under 1,400 miles. It would take 21 hours to drive there at legal speeds. It usually takes me 19 hours to drive from L.A. to Birch Bay (just south of Blaine).

San Diego is a city famous as a resort. I see a lot of golf slacks and gold chains there. Not eveyone is like that, of course; it’s just what I’ve noticed. Going north to Orange County – “Reagan Country” – you find a sprawling suburbia. L.A. is a bustling metropolis. Continuing north on the most direct route, you enter California’s central valley. Flat fields for hundreds of miles in this agricultural area. Well north of the state Capital you start getting into some mountains. Hiking, camping, boating, and the truly spectacular snow-capped Mt. Shasta. Once through the Siskiyous you enter desert that continues up the long climb up Mt. Ashland to the Oregon border. Lumber and agriculture all the way up, with large cities such as Portland, Olympia, and Seattle. Lots of fishing around the Columbia River, Puget Sound and the Georgia Straits.

What I’m getting at in this very simple travelogue is that the U.S. is a very diverse place – even just along one coast. There are rich people and poor people, liberal areas like Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle, and other places in the Central Valley where you can see billboards urging people to lobby to get the U.S. out of the UN. There are “cities of sin”, and there are communities with religious messages large enough to catch the attention of the passing driver.

It’s like the story of the blind men describing an elephant. One says an elephant is like a rope. Another says it’s like a tree. So with the U.S. There are so many different parts of it, and these parts can be so very different, that it’s hard to describe simply.

Here’s my take if you want to “get” America. We want people to like us. We really do. We want to do The Right Thing. The trouble is that we often don’t understand other peoples, and The Right Thing for us might be The Wrong Thing for others. Generally, our intentions are good. Generally. But I think the main thing is that the Average American just wants people to like us. YMMV.

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That is inaccurate. India, while probably less diverse from a racial or ethnic standpoint, is much more diverse linguistically and at least as diverse culturally. From afar India looks like a bunch of nations put together. It is culturally very fractured, even within states.

To claim one can find definitions of America from various regions around the country but one cannot find such equally strong definitions from the 30-odd states within India comprising a billion-odd people is just inaccurate.

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This thread suggests that Americans cherish their diversity, but I fail to see how America is more diverse than any other group of 300 million people. In fact, if there were a “per capita cultural diversity” metric, I submit that the US would rate below average. Maybe China would rate lower, but who else? And isn’t America’s cultural homogeneity one of the things that makes it strong?

[sub](hope this doesn’t come across as America-bashing)[/sub]

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Yeah, Usram, but a lot of people don’t seem to realize or comprehend that there are 300 million of us.

And why do you tink we would rate below average? My family’s experience is radically different from most of the ones posted here. And their experiences are radically different from each other. We have a bit of language homogeneity, I suppose, but that’s hardly the sole metric of cultural diversity.

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Broomstick:

I think this is it.

I could be wrong, insofar as I can’t claim to have lived also as a citizen of some other country, but I’m under the impression that not many nations exist for their people as idealistic attempts to implement the perfect, fair government. There have been those that did set themselves up as idealistic enterprises (e.g., the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany) but they generally conceptualized their ideals around “preventing and eliminating the societal bad” rather than “loosening things up so the societal good can flourish”, and as a consequence were not experienced by the populace as lofty inspired things, at least not by many or for long.

I think we believe in our form of government the way that fundamentalist born-again Christians believe in the Bible. God gave us the Holy Constitution, and the mechanism for amending it so that any imperfections will over time be fixed, and over time we will of course become perfect.

For all the appropriate and realistic cynicism about American Power and Americans IN Power within the American political and business systems, the historically accurate observations about disenfranchised categories of people, the banality and vacuity of much of the public conversation, etc., there is still a widespread expectation by us of our country and our leaders that we will over time end every oppression, right every wrong, defend every victim from further victimization, and erase every unfairness, while removing every restriction and encumbrance until every citizen is as a King or a God and can do anything without interference, and has available to experiment with and pick from an ever-widening array of opportunities and choices – the games and entertainments and feasts appropriate to Kings and Gods.

And because, silly as it all sounds, we actually expect that of our country and its leaders, we reach for it or speak out against insufficiencies and flaws. And a good portion of our snarky commentary on our underwhelming public officials and elected representatives is based not on the notion that they are all full of shit and that this is how it always has been and always will be, but rather on the notion that they are intolerable abominations who must be kicked out of office so that we can get some excellent folks in there instead and get on with the business of becoming ever more perfect.

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Two American characteristics not yet mentioned: I think Americans have a refreshingly good sense of humor. Americans also have a short historical memory, which is good and bad. Bad because we too often seem ignorant about any other part of the world except our own, and then even that is spotty. Good because we’re not inclined to nurse ethnic, religious, or historical grudges that go back hundreds or thousands of years and that are still causing conflicts today (cf. Nothern Ireland, Israel, Bosnia, Kashmir).

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Hm. I think we take ourselves too seriously.

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USRAM –

As in so much else, there’s a tension there. America has historically considered herself to be a “melting pot,” in which everyone contributes a little something to the whole that we all become. (This is totally over-idealized, obviously.) And certainly there is a stereotype of the average homogenous American (WASP) but that doesn’t reflect reality. At least here on the west coast, the hispanic/latino influence (from the south) and the Asian influence (from the east) is everywhere, and you can only think of the average American as white if you’re willing to ignore a large percentage of your neighbors. We eat Thai food and drink bubble tea; we “celebrate” Cinco de Mayo (as an excuse to have a bar party, drink beer and eat nachos). So I think the idea of homogenized America is factually incorrect.

That being said, there is a pretty widely-held idea here that people who wish to be part of society in America should make the effort to become “Americanized.” They should learn to speak English; they should try to learn American customs. So while I think it’s inaccurate to say that we actually have a collective American identity, I think it’s fair to say that as a society we aspire to one, and expect newcomers to fall in with that.

APOC, I think your question is a reasonable one, and it appears to me that you are fully aware that you’re asking about something subjective and epheremal, so all those people telling you there is no such thing as a collective American consciousness are stating the self-evident. You’re not trying to put your finger directly on it – you appear to be perfectly aware that you never can – but to “sneak up on it,” so to speak.

So here’s my two cents. I think one of the things that makes America so, well, American, is the idea of the fundamental worth of the individual. There is no caste system here (note to those hurrying to post about the inherent caste systems of wealth or race: Don’t bother. I mean there is no real caste system here.) The idea that any person is unworthy of incapable of greatness just because of birth is antithetical to American ideas. This is the land where any boy (or girl) can grow up to be President. There is a widely held idea that “the American dream” of success is not out of the grasp of anyone, as long as you are willing to work hard. It’s this idea of the fundamental equality of everyone that IMO is the bedrock for the optimism and work ethic that I think help to make this country great.

Now, just like the idea that America welcomes immigrants, and the idea that America is religiously tolerant, there can be a pretty serious disconnect when this ideal meets reality. But it is still an ideal that most Americans IMO ascribe to at least in theory – immigrants especially, since this is precisely why many of them came over here in the first place. Belief in the unfettered potential of the individual, and the optimism that belief engenders – I think that’s a pretty uniquely American idea (globally speaking), and I think it is possible in part because America simply isn’t old enough to have entrenched caste/class/monarchical/tribal systems such as are found in much of the rest of the world.

76

Your reasoning is false. First, you imply that a country cannot be both a republic and a democracy, when it certainly can, and is.

Second, you imply that the existance of the electoral college means that we do not live in a democracy. But even assuming that we ignore that the electors are chosen by popular vote, you must also ignore that both houses of our national legislature, the Congress, are elected by popular vote. And that all state governors and state legislators are chosen by popular vote.

77

So what? Big deal. He spent a mere three years teaching in ONE SINGLE SCHOOL SYSTEM.

That’s like me saying “Well, I ate a German sausage once, so I’m an expert on all European cuisine.”

One city, one city in ONE STATE. Do you have the FAINTEST IDEA HOW MANY different school systems, how many COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT school systems there are in the USA?

Mr. Ali has no “credentials” worth speaking of if he thinks to critique the entirety of the breadth of education in the USA. On some level, you seem to have realized this, since you reject his simpleminded and simplistic “explanation” of American attitudes as a product of the schools.

78

There are no “Freedom Fries” in Indiana, either. But the anti-American mindless jingoism of the foreign press made sure the issue was harped on over and over, again.

Neither of the French bistros in the state experienced a significant drop in business, either :stuck_out_tongue: .

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Because, unlike most parts of the world, you can travel 3,000 miles and still be in recognisably the same country. The news is still read by Peter Jennings, the big sports are still football and baseball, local politics is still Republican vs. Democrat, numerous customs and practices are the same, and so on… in other words, it’s basically the same culture, local variation notwithstanding. A natural consequence of being a big country.

80

Who, incidentally, was born in Canada and received his U.S. citizenship in May, 2003.