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The American Identity Crisis

american identity

One of the main characteristics that has defined the US over its history is immigration. Starting with just a few states on the east coast and expanding across the continent, immigration has provided the manpower to keep the biggest economy in the world going and growing.

It has, largely, been a white man’s country through history. European immigrants dominated the early country, and the various nationalities generally blended together. It got race focused, first as slavery became an issue, then after the Mexican War saw large populations of hispanic peoples. Native populations also saw the short stick… and arguably still do.

The important thing about America though, was that anyone coming, would ostensibly be American, as soon as their citizenship was recognized. The only thing they ask is your loyalty.

What they do have unique is the ability to tell the world: “If you want to come, come on over, we don’t care where you’re from.”

This is a bit different in practice. Subconsciously, there were always people who were “more American than others”. When there were only European immigrants, the Irish were the lowest on the rung. And as time went on, people could collectively pick on any other immigrants which were sufficiently new and different.

However, that lack of a specific national culture makes it unique, particularly today when immigration is fairly common in developed countries.

Unlike Europe, the USA has no specific, long-established national-ethnic culture. They’ve tried in a way to make one, and in a way it has… but in 20 years, “white people” will probably be just another minority. There’s obviously some resistance to this from people who might feel that America is traditionally white.

But what I think is that the US really does have a unique opportunity here to become that country of all countries. They don’t have the same culturally and ethnically specific nation-identity that many other countries do.

In Europe, assimilation can be difficult because people know damn well what being German, Italian, or Spanish means. They’ve had hundreds of years knowing it to be somewhat consistent. Immigrants *can* assimilate, as is generally the case in France, but even then there, there’s resistance because deep down in every Frenchman’s heart is the nagging suspicion that real Frenchmen were always white down the centuries. You can be French-Algerian, French-Moroccan and so on, but to be really French, it would seem that your family had to have lived there for a great many generations. There’s a defined ethno-culture there. But the US has a fairly unique opportunity to say “Hey, technically, we’ve never had a tradition of it.” After all, the US is a nation of immigrants. Probably there are a bunch of people who can trace their family back to the Revolution, but most people have come from somewhere else, by this point. And everyone who’s been there for a generation or two seems to want to say “Hey, I’ve been here for a while too. I deserve a say in what happens.”

The political and social system is generally designed to be open to this. Anyone can run for government office, and anyone can open a business if they have the money. Anyone should be able to get a job, and so on, and so on. In practice it doesn’t always work.

America’s race problems could be interpreted as a product of that fear and constant competition for the top. The “Chinese Exclusion Act” was probably the only government law that was racially specific, and it was in place for 50-60 years, stunting their assimilation into American ‘culture’. (This is one of things not all that many people know. It is even today the only official government document which is nationally discriminatory. Aren’t you glad you read this?)

Some people like to say “America has no culture, unless it’s T-shirts, hamburgers and hotdogs” and similar superficialties, and this would at least be partially wrong. But now that I think of it, it’s possible that this very lack of history may be a virtue, not a failure. In fact, if it works at its best, America can say “Maybe we don’t have a specific one, but we have all of yours” to the world.

The United States is not the only democracy in the world, anymore. It might have been the first (since Athens) and had a style different to English Parliament, Swiss Community Vote, or Iroquois confederacy, but it no longer can simply say how free it is to define its qualities. A lot of places are “free” by their definition now.

What they do have unique is the ability to tell the world: “If you want to come, come on over, we don’t care where you’re from.” It’s in their capacity to represent everyone, to themselves, if they so will it.

There are emails sent around which try to scare people, saying “Soon, there will be enough Muslims to elect the president!” but this is not a bad thing. Think what a difference a Muslim president would have had on dealings with Muslim countries. It’s already a big thing that Obama is half-black, so just imagine the possibilities. And it’s within the American legal system to do this.

All there is in the way is a rather unfounded perception that to be really American you have to be white, or possibly black. There’s so much more potential than that. What stops this? Old, stubborn people who feel that their being there for longer makes them more American.

I don’t entirely believe that one has to love baseball, eat hamburgers, and watch so much TV they know pop culture inside and out, to be American. I don’t feel that their national cultural definition is even as specific as that. The Oath and Pledge of Allegiance simply ask for loyalty. That’s all it legally needs to be American. Maybe it’s time that people realized it.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Posted by Uncle Dan at 3:35 am on December 5th, 2008. Comments
Categories: Articles, Featured Articles.

  • A.D.Watkins
    Uncle Dan; You make some great points so I won't argue too much. When I was a child there were still plenty of folks in Texas who spoke German, now it is Vietnamese. Ok, not too different. I would think though that the Tejano/Hispanic population is already assimilated, if not an essential part of what makes Texas unique. That it is a predominately white culture is irrelevent, the people are primarily white, but as the people change so will the culture. But I have no doubt in my mind that if you imported a few million pygmies right out of the forests of Congo, in twenty years it will remain uniquely "Texas". You'll find that combination of people and landscape no where else, and thats part of what makes the culture, people adapting to the location.

    Still, a wonderful article, very well thought out. I may not agree with the idea that culture is just baggage, but I've got to agree with the premise that as a culturally diverse society is stronger. Not necessarily better, that was one of my first TCK revelations, stronger/faster/richer/poorer/etc doesn't mean better just different, but maybe stronger.

    The culture (whether it exists or not) of America WILL change, that much is undeniable. The question is whether the main stream will embrace the change, or if they will resist it. Me, I'm all for it.

    To recap, I like the article, great job, you and I just see things slightly differently.
  • Uncle Dan
    I agree with you, America does have a culture. But respectfully, I feel that you may be missing my point.

    Firstly, what you say is true. America does have its subcultures in its states and so on. This is irrefutable. I was born in Texas too, and traveled somewhat through the US. Plus, that thing that the rest of the world says "Yeah, that's American" is probably somewhat rooted in a national culture they have. BUT, as I might not have mentioned, it is largely the "white" populations' culture.

    Taking Texas for example, if I go there and do/see the whole Texas culture thing: barbeque, Tex Mex, what-have-you; I'd still be missing out on a reasonable percentage of what's going on. Some 4% of Texas is Asian, and from experience, largely Vietnamese. Try as they might, some part of them will always be more Vietnamese than Texan. That's why you have shops and restaurants with Vietnamese signs, and surprising numbers of people who still stubbornly keep to Vietnamese as their preferred language, than English. Some 35% is Hispanic, which may not be as different as Vietnamese, but nevertheless have their own thing.

    Secondly, I apologize I may not have made a significant point out of the simple fact that white people will likely be one among many racial minorities within the next few decades. That means that these non-white populations will increase, either through immigration or simple growth. And in general, immigration outpaces assimilation.

    Considering that up till now, most American culture has been dominated by the accomplishments of "white" Americans, it may be that the American culture you describe may not persist. If there's anything about culture we can know, it's that it isn't static, particularly as populations move. The new immigrant families won't have served America in Vietnam, or World War 2, marched for Civil Rights, or be able to trace their roots to the Civil War or even the Revolution. But they can still be American, at least on paper.

    And my final point, as it is in the article, is that the point isn't about who has a culture and who doesn't. Consider culture as "baggage", that Americans may not need to have. The promise of America has always been that anyone could go and make a life for themselves there. This has been historically limited somewhat by some levels of racism in which "white" people have often prevented other ethnic minorities from having a significant say in the country (Chinese Exclusion Act, genocide against Native Americans, slavery/segregation, all that) but as the country moves towards a different image of America, one which is no longer dominated by the older European immigrants... You will probably see a change, but it should be one for the better.

    This is not to say that White America has been bad. I'm sorry if that hinted as much. But the domination of hot-dogs-and-baseball White America won't be the same, with large numbers of foreign immigrants who won't do the same thing. There will be some, yes, but not at such a rate that outpaces the immigration of new people who, culturally, are not white.

    But again, this change is not a bad thing. Like the new precedent of a leader who is not white, it is not necessary to define America by a culturally dominant race. The entire promise of America is, in a way, like a national TCK. It can be everywhere, if it wants to be.
  • A.D.Watkins
    I wish to humbly disagree. We do have a culture, or more correctly we have many cultures. The problem is simply one of scale. The people of France have a wonderful and well defined culture. My home state of Texas does too. What a coincidence that they are almost the same size, Texas being 695,000 KM2 to France's 643,000 KM2. Neither group would have any difficulty picking things that are uniquely "French" or uniquely "Texan".

    The problem is that there are forty nine other states, a few territories, and that administrative district from which our bad press springs.

    Our motto reflects this E Pluribus Unum, "Out of many, one." We are fifty different peoples trying to form a cohesive whole. Every state I've visited has it's own unique culture. It may be more subtle, buried under the relatively recent onslaught of television, but it is there in every case.

    You will never find more welcoming and friendly folks than those from Georgia, they will bury you under a mountain of food and insist that if you need any little thing just holler. They likely do this to keep you from noticing the still out behind the shed, it is the birthplace of NASCAR after all. Native Floridians are generally the most laid back and unbreakable people in the USA. Hurricanes, tornadoes, intense heat, biting insects, lightning, sharks on the beaches, alligators that invade swimming pools.... To a native, these are barely worth mentioning. In Louisiana, Hurricane Katrina (a category 3, NOT A 5 no matter what wikipedia tells you) practically shut down the state for a year. Florida had five category 3 *or stronger* storms in six weeks the year before and they were back to work the next day. And speaking of Louisiana, do we really need to apply the "no coherent culture" argument here? My God, what a culture! The Carolinas most definitely have their own culture. South Carolina has it's cotton, rice, and shipwrecking. North Carolina is famous for it's tobacco, though I'll comment that there is an awful lot of corn too (used for moonshine more often than food).

    I could go on for days (though it will be a cold day in hell before I say even one nice thing about Missouri), we have TONS of culture! It's just not the same across an area only slightly smaller than all of Europe (9,836,000 KM2 to Europe's 10,180,000 KM2). We don't say Europeans have no culture, please don't say the same of us.
  • Oh wow. I was just about to comment with "What happened to this page? this is so cool!"
    and then I read Brice's comment.
  • Brice
    This is officially our first featured article. Congrats Uncle Dan! :)
  • Uncle Dan
    A friend of mine just reminded me of Australia, which has a similar situation to the US, if not the same focus on political freedom as an integral part of itself.

    Nevertheless Australia also had a vast, mostly empty land to tame. It is also populated entirely by immigrants, in which the aborigines are arguably better off socially than Natives in the US, but I don't know enough. Even so, there was all that fuss from Pauline Hanson some years back, who didn't consider aborigines real Australians.

    It's a melting pot country which isn't sure what it is. It founds its traditions in the stuff that the "Australia" film seems to romanticize, much like the Wild West does in the US. But that's not quite the Australia of today, which has vast immigrant communities it's not sure what to do with but it knows it needs, even if the average white Australian doesn't want them.
  • Uncle Dan
    Something I just thought of belatedly, is the case of similarly new countries, for example Singapore.

    In its case, Singapore is somewhat famous for attempting very hard and spending a lot of money to develop the idea of a uniquely Singaporean culture in the last 20 years or so. Being a former colony, and quite without its own history, it too has a strange sort of cultural flux that it constantly seeks to fix.

    Watch a TV sitcom in Singapore, and they always try to say "All the local ethnicities make up Singapore. Look at the Indian, the Malay, and the Chinese person all living together with their own little quirks." It's thoroughly unconvincing when specifically directed from above as such, but succeeds at a ground level with the proliferation of Singlish as a English Creole dialect that Singaporeans are rather proud to have. It mixes words from the dominant Chinese dialects (mostly Hakao), Malay, and Tamil into English.

    So what's the lesson to learn from this one? Americans also created a sort of culture, guided softly from above but mostly led from the ground up. From above, government said "Do what you like, here all men (except women, people of color and people we don't like, until a certain date later) are free." From below people worked hard and achieved for themselves in the famous American Dream, and made their own culture from that. They value their rights, their individualism, and their ability to achieve by their own hands.

    But like Singapore... it sometimes feels artificial.

    The point is to perceive it out of context. Singapore says "Hey, these other countries around us have a strong culture. We need it too!" The perception is that countries with culture are deeper than those without. The educated thing to say is that a nation is stronger with a backing culture. It can be argued that many African countries have suffered as a result of their lack of culture outside of being former colonies. Angola thrives because its extremely destructive civil war gave them pride as Angolans.

    But in successful states, such as the US, with its solid institutions and 200ish years of history of having worked at least reasonably well, lack of a strong national culture may not be necessary. Yet many people still think inside the box: "Oh those Americans, they have no culture." "Those foreigners, they think we have no culture!"

    Outside the box, one might see that it's not necessary to have one, and that the nation might thrive because of it.
  • Daniel, you raise some good points here. I do agree that U.S. has a lack of history and a specific national culture.

    To share my personal experience, before immigrating to the U.S., I personally thought adjusting to the new life here will be easier since adopting to a new culture was something i had been doing all my life. I feverously looked for the formulas to apply (looking for words and behaviors that are set in stone as in countries like Japan). After living in the States for sometime I was utterly confused because there was no formula to follow. There wasn't something obvious and tangible. Unlike in other countries where older figures taught the younger what is right or wrong, here no values were enforced on another. Everybody was right in their own ways.

    ""If you want to come, come on over, we don't care where you're from." It's in their capacity to represent everyone, to themselves, if they so will it."
    -> I think this opens up a lot of doors to the future. This means no longer sticking to the stubborn traditional values but welcoming new era of people, people from no where and everywhere :)
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