americans and their " culture"

[Cod]

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Dumb question, Filing my taxes... er, do I make the check out for what I owe to IRS or US Treasury?

I did this last year, you'd think I knew!

iea

whoops, hit wrong buttons. that was supposed to be irs.

This is an interesting thread.

When I travelled around America a couple of years back I was amazed at the number of times I told people I was Scottish and they said, 'me too!' No irony at all. Most of them couldn't tell you the capital of Scotland, let alone actually been there! But I don't say that in a mean way, it is just that they know that maybe one of their grandparents are Scottish and they consider it part of their heritage....

But my great grandparents were Irish and I would never say I was Scottish-Irish... but then I think (as a previous poster said) it is because American's (except the Native Americans) came from all around the world originally and it is quite a young (and v cool!) country....

I guess, I find the idea of condemning someone's culture distasteful. I was brought up to try and understand different ways of doing things. That doesn't mean that I have to do things the same as someone else, but I was taught that just because they do things differently doesn't make them wrong or me superior.
ok...gotta go type my husband's homework for him...more later.

hey guys, hate to break the news to you, but even the "native" americans came from somewhere else. They came across the bering straits around 6000 (?) years ago from asia. And most of the world had someone else living there first before the current population arrived. It just happened a little more recently in the usa than in europe. Doesn't make murdering indians ok, but it also doesn't make us any more evil than the rest of the world, it's part of normal progressions of civilisation.

Thanks, Sofia, for some reason I'd written it out to US Treasury. I just looked at itl, about to send it off, and thought "That can't be right"...

Brits do bash other cultures, quite a lot. But they bash themselves most of all; the English are the most self-deprecating people on the planet. I don't mind English people saying what they think on other cultures as long as it's not downright racist.

some interesting posts on this thread. I like the idea that Irish American (etc.) is a culture in itself - no longer resembling contemporary Ireland. I get nostalgic about different European countries I have lived in, but my memories are coloured by the time I had and my age then, etc. Like living in France in the mid 1980s when baguettes and orangina and French advertising styles were all exotic. Where you have pockets of Frenchness in London it brings back that nostalgia to me even though France has moved on and people are just as likely to eat big Macs and thai curry as a bistro meal. It's interesting to think of the US as full of communities with collective imaginations creating new group identities.

Funny you should mention that SofiaAmes, I was thinking that further down the thread!

I guess the difference is that the "native Americans" don't sit there talking about their Mongolian heritage!

Pssst. Sofia, who was in America before those Asians crossed Bering Straits?

On your premise that all Europeans came from somewhere else, we must therefore accept that we are all Africans.

You seem to be getting a bit touchy on this topic.

I am neither American or Canadian but Belizean with a significant proportion of Native American blood. Belizeans living in America also wonder why Americans call them selves something-American. Belizeans have a tiny population, about 80% of which is mixed race - Meaning ethnic chinese, , sub-continent Indian, Arab, black, caucasian and Native American and coming from a variety of countries. I for one am Native American (Maya), Arab (Palestinian) and Spanish (European). Whatever the mix, we simply call ourselves Belizeans. And universally hate those ticky boxes we are presented when living abroad.

I believe that Americans hark on about their something-America to the detriment of solidifying their own identity. (these days many may question if that is a good or bad thing) It seems that they typically stress the European-ness of their blood - which is self evident anyway. Their ought to be a revolution in teaching of recent American history instead of the myths that are taught in schools. Not just about the decimation of the Native American peoples and their culture, but also about how an United States culture has evolved since 'The Encounter'. The Europeans moving to America came in waves of immigration spurred on mostly by some human catastrophe in Europe. The Potato famine took the starving Irish there. The Highland Clearances took the Scots. These peoples migrated to particular areas of the continent for particular reasons eg: many scots ended up in Kentucky, the Virginias, Tennessee, Pennsylvania because those were the 'new lands' that were not yet occupied by previous Europeans and with the industrial revolution starting, they had employment in the coal mines.

Che Guevara who after he became a notable revolutionary received a letter from a blue-blooded Spanish woman who said that it may be possible that he was a scion of her family. He wrote back to her saying that Madam, in his opinion, he doubted so. He believed that it was much more likely that his family ran away from drudgery and near starvation in Europe to risk a better life in an unknown land. That was the case for most Americans. Why do they care about harking back to this continent that was only pleased to watch its wretched sail away?

I think that in the usa people in part identify with their cultural heritage as a way of joining a group. I think of myself as a Jewish Italian American. Although my ancestors were also German, Russian, Romanian, Polish and Austria-Hungarian (to name a few), the Jewish and Italian parts are what I identify with. When I meet another person of jewish or italian ancestry, I usually find that we have some amount of upbringing in common regardless of our economic background or which part of the usa we grew up in. (It's a bit like supporting a football team...it puts you in a group.)

In England I find that this identifying tends to be more centered around where you grew up both from a geographical point of view and an economic point of view. (not often do doctors and builders seem to mix socially).

PS: Native Americans would not sit around and get all nostalgic about their Mongol heritage as there was no Mongolia back then. Just stone age peoples. Funny, Europeans don't sit around and reminisce about their Neanderthal cousins or or stone age relatives either

(I am not getting prickly. it is all tongue in cheek because of the confusion of meaning that your post bases its reasoning on.)

I am a little tired of everyone else thinking that americans should behave like them. I am perfectly happy identifying with my european roots. I don't think it makes me less or more worthwhile than someone who doesn't. If you are happy identifying with your belizean or english or scottish or irish home, then good for you. I don't expect you to do it my way. I also don't constantly profess amazement that you do things differently. I fully understand there is more than one way to think.

Sofia: your last post was the most helpful and enlightening. It makes lots of sense. The English are some of the most tribal I have met. That is DH's observation said and he is from an ex-mining village in the NorthEast.

my dh is also from an ex-mining village in the northeast. maybe they are related.

Never said that anyone else ought to do it my way. I frankly don't care what Americans call themselves. I just thought I had something worthwhile to contribute at this point. I don't profess amazement about the American way either. I am sharing the fact that on a Belizean message board based in the US, Belizeans have raised this topic too. They can't see why they can't just call themselves Americans. They even said things like if you are going to hyphenate who you are, Americans ought to say American-something, rather than something-American because they are Americans first.

Well like in the deep-south they are all 'cousins' anyway, iykwim.

yes if dh's family is anything to go by.

I once knew a connational who used to make fun of all those people proud of their European blood. Although his looks made him unequivocally local, when other people started claiming the percentages of foreign blood they had he would say that he had Irish blood, as some of his ancestors may surely had eaten one

SofiaAmes, thanks for the tip about the Lebanese delis. We're in SE London near Bromley. I'm going to drag out the yellow pages and plan a little excursion. The really good dill pickles are great for morning sickness.

Sofia, I think people who are actually European are a bit bemused by Americans who have never been to Ireland or Scotland (Scotch-land!) claiming these nationalities. Fair enough if they are just referring to their own culture - "My grandparents came from Ireland" but not if they then claim to have some superior understanding of another country and culture merely by virtue of Great-Granny's passport.
Look at all the millions of pounds raised by the IRA in the US - mainly from people who have never been near Ireland. How many bombs did that buy? I lived in London during an IRA bombing campaign (when my aunt was a kid she and her contemporaries were taught never to play near letterboxes for fear of IRA bombs, FFS). I think I'm entitled to resent - even despise - any American, whatever they call themselves, who donates to Noraid. They were trying to kill me, after all.

To date, Alux made the most sense on this thread! Be interesting to read responses to what s/he said.

Could someone, american or otherwise, define in a nutshell, american "culture". What exactly is the "american" culture? We are all talking through our hats, until we get a definition.

Confidence, Baseball, cheap cold beer, lots of loud opinions, can-do-it attitude, life is here to be enjoyed, cheap material goods and lots of materialism, diversity, friendliness.

In the English language we put adjectives (subjectively qualified attributes) before nouns (permanet objects). Therefore it makes sense to call some1 a Belizean American -- one is an American most solidly, but with Belizean flavour.