americans and their " culture"

[Cod]

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Hi all, sorry - had to step out for lunch here. Missed all these fab messages. Anyway, to answer your question, skerriesmum, I do the more open-minded people in America celebrate the differences of the various cultures in America. The more close-minded (some might call it 'purist') may shun them. The 4th of July is a celebration of America's independence, so it's not really a day to celebrate one's origin, iyswim. So, no, I haven't noticed people dressing up in their cultural dress. It's usually a day to wear red, white and/or blue. On St. Patties day, you might see people with the last names Jorgenson, Chang, Rosenberg, Tanaka, Patel or Ashraf wearing green. Does it mean they are celebrating their Irish heritage? Maybe so, maybe not. Cod, you're right about their being a certain amount of dilution, but who cares? If an American born person is half Irish and half Austrian, and they grew up eating Wiener Schnitzel, and they call themselves Austrian or Austrian-American or Irish-Austrian-American, are any of them really wrong or right?

It's not a question of right or wrong, just that it seems a bit odd. We have friends living in Princeton (moved over for work) and the DW is from Ayrshire. she's been amazed by the number of people who insist they are "Scotch" despite the fact that no-one in their family has been anywhere near Scotlans in living memory and that these proud "Scotch" folk don't seem to realise that Scotland and england are not the same place!

I don't describe myself as Spanish-British even though my paternal family came to the UK in living memory (fleeing Franco) and they now divide their time between the two countries. If I think of myself as anything it's Welsh because that's where I was born and spent most of my life so far.

I think this thread shows just how uneducated, small minded and intolerant of other people's views and cultures the British can be.

Why sofiaAmes? cos from what I can see a large proportion of the people contributing to this thread arent British so what does that say about them? Or were you only aiming that comment at the British people? Most whom it seems to me are discussing this from a sensible open minded and well educated view point just like those of other nationalities.
I find the thread very interesting as am Irish myself but am raising dd in England so am very interested in peoples views on who they are and where they come from.

I don't think anyone's been small-minded or intolerant Sofia, just slightly bemused! I can't see anywhere where we've said it's wrong and "shouldn't be allowed" . I know that many people from the US are equally bemused by European customs and just dodn't "get it" at times!

Examples of communities like the one JanH refers to are fascinating but on the other hand I find it difficult to relate to why someone like my friend's neighbour (who flies the stars and stripes from his flag pole and didn't even recognise the Scottish flag my friend put up as a joke) would introduce himself as "scotch".

As someone who is 1st generation born in the UK and doesn't have those feelings I'm intrigued. It certianly wasn't meant to be judgemental!

I grew up in an Irish-Scottish-American family and I was always puzzled by this harking back to a culture that was so detached from our current lives. My cousin had a tattoo of a shamrock on his shoulder and talked about the injustices in Ireland but most of the time he didn't have a clue what he was talking about. It was just an attitude and a stance that he felt set him apart from his friends.

Now that I'm an expat in England I do find that I try harder to hang on to some of my American identity. I always make a big fuss of the US holidays like 4th of July and Thanksgiving and make sure we have foods that I grew up with. I do hope that my children grow up feeling British-American as I think they can gain from both cultures. Perhaps this is what happened in American history and what we see now are the effects of all those immigrant great-grandparents clinging to the ways of the 'old country'.

I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing but I do agree that it can get a bit silly when people claim a culture but actually know so little about it. I guess though that what they've learned has been in a vacuum, so to speak. The traditions and cultures are generations old and have become diluted with time. My experience of America is very much based in the 80s before I left the US and I know things have changed a lot since then. If the only knowledge that my grandchildren had of America was what I passed down to them it would be a very distorted view but I would hope that they would lay claim to their 'Americaness' as it would a part of them and their family history.

There is a really strong American culture, things that are genuinely and uniquely American. All sorts of things you don't know about because they don't even get shown in movies, on telly... Ways people speak, what they do, how they dress, standards, expectations, habits, foods, etc... I have to think hard when I go visit my family to speak in American English, to do things American ways, follow their logic. But Americans also embrace and celebrate "different" and specialnes of the individual, thus the harking back to one's individual family history origins.

This thread begs the question "the English & their culture." What does define English culture in 2005? Or British culture? I don't really know, TBH!

When I asked a French friend of mine, "What images or ideas define England for you", she mentioned the (not so) royal family, cricket, Wimbledon, WWs 1 & 2, scones, charming cottages, class system, tabloids, Tony Blair, abduction & murder of young girls, Robbie Williams, Eastenders (so depressing, why do people watch it?), Hugh Grant...

Not that impressive, is it?

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Sansouci, Jeremy Paxman wrote a whole book trying to anwer that question. It's called 'The English' and it's very interesting. Never really found an answer though.

And to your friend's list I would add: tea, tweed, fair play, and gardening! Interesting about the abduction and murder of young girls?! Does that happen more in England than France?

tex111, I'm totally ashamed to admit that we actually have 2 copies of that book & I haven't even read it! I will do so as soon as I've finished my latest Gabaldon...

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I think Tex111 has hit the nail on the head. When US citizens (particularly those whose families have been in the US for a couple of generations or more) refer to themselves as 'Irish/German/Hispanic/whatever/American' the important bit in that mix is the American, and part of the American culture is a willingness to adopt the celebrations, food, dress and customs from the 'donor cultures' for specific populations and occasions.

What puzzles many in the rest of the world is that this Irish/American culture, or whatever, is in fact not Irish culture as it is experienced in Ireland today. It is a distinct hybrid in its own right which has evolved over the years and may not actually include much understanding of the contempory culture or politics of the donor culture. A trivial example is the number of Americans who refer to themselves as Scotch-American, where the very word 'Scotch' rather than 'Scots' can annoy the cr*p out of a lot of native Scots.

Does this mean American culture is 'inferior' in some way? Of course not. But I think sometimes people get confused about the difference between the donor culture and the American hybrid, and feel that the hybrid is in some way a 'fake'. It isn't, it's a very genuine thing, born of the group experiences of a large number of people.

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God, yes! Who could forget tea? We drink it every morning... good old Tetleys, so strong you could stand a spoon up in it, with milk, of course -- how could you get it down otherwise? And choccy digestive biscuits... yum.

As for the abductions & murders, the media takes care of that! I haven't a clue about similar happenings in France, except that poor schoolgirl who was raped & murdered in a dormitory. And she was English!

Well, I've always described my background as mostly "Southern white trash" and actually the South does have a pretty distinct culture in many ways. Some good, like the food and our pride in our Southern hospitality. Some not so good as in the terrible problems of racial injustice that mark our past. However there are people who work diligently at keeping alive the traditions of their forefathers. Many cities have large and thriving areas that celebrate certain cultures such as Chinatown and Little Italy in NY and San Francisco. As mentioned previously there are areas with large populations of Swedish descendants and also Norwegian (Minnesota comes to mind). So some people have become more a part of the "melting pot" than others. I don't think people should be looked down upon if they have chosen to celebrate the culture of past generations in their family. I think of it as a way of honoring the sacrifices made by so many immigrants when they left their home countries, many under dire circumstances, to start a new life here.

Yes, there are many, many things about America that make me very sad atm. I make no secret about that. Sometimes I feel that our country has been taken over by a rabid Puritanical element determined to destroy any diversity in their path. So, I have had to look hard at times for things to feel good about. Seeing people celebrate their differences is one of the things that I choose to see as a positive, not a negative.

Gizmo, I think that was very well said and you're right, Irish-American is a very different thing to being Irish.

One thing that always intrigues me is the way that English has evolved differently in the US and England. A lot of my American words sound old-fashioned to my English friends. Things like 'stove' and 'galoshes' are old English words that, for some reason, have stuck in the States. In England there are other words like 'whilst' that we don't use in the US anymore. I guess you could use that comparison to the way that culture evolves so that Irish-Americans, for instance, might be a very different culture when compared to the modern Irish.

very good post Gizmo but where it hits a snag is when as Cod pointed out in the original post is that they express an opinion on something by prefacing it with "well Im Irish/Sotch/french or whatever so I should know" when its quite obvious that their knowledge of how things are in that country is based on little more than the fact that an ancestor came from there. (Not anti them having an opinion just the bit about well Im x so I should know IYSWIM)

that was a very badly expressed post Sorry

Having been engaged to an american I can say that my abiding memory of his friends is what strong views thay held on subjects like the presence of the British Army in Northern Ireland and the Israel/Palestine situation whilst not even understanding basic facts about them (eg a Capt in the US Army arguing with me that the British Army occupy Southern Ireland and run it as a police state, and someone else saying that Beirut was in Israel, etc etc). Now I'm not saying for a minute that Brits are all tremendously well informed about world events but to contribute money to campaigns like Noraid (as one of these people did) whilst not knowing anything about the reality is bloody awful, in my opinion.

Jabberwocky, we must be related! I usually describe my heritage as 'Southern white trash-hillbilly'.

It is interesting when you find little pockets of different cultures in the US. Between Dallas and Austin there's a large community of Czechoslavakians (sp?). When I would drive home from university I would always stop at a gas station/bakery called The Czech Stop for kolaches. The owner's accent was as Texan as mine but he was very proud of his family heritage and had photos of his grandparents on the walls. Always loved that place.

Actually, I find it very confusing that the British don't have hyphenated identities. The children who used to live on my road were Bangladeshis, not British. If we said "You're English, aren't you?" they were emphatic that they weren't. Even though they were born in England, growing up & being educated here, will probably stay here in adulthood. There'd be no question that of course they would be Americans if they were born in Los Angeles... but here, they're not English because they have parents who were born abroad, the parents don't speak English well, the kids have a non-English first language, they are a "weird" religion (Muslims) and (most of all) they aren't white. Nobody feels comfortable with hyphenated identity in Britain, why not??

I think it's a shame. Encourages social divisions, too.

tex, we are kindred hearts!

btw tex, ds has wonderful stories of finding little spots like you mentioned. One was pierogis (sp?) in Michigan and rice popsicles in southern Texas near the border.