Monday, August 3, 2020

Is American culture even a culture?

In the United States, we pride ourselves as an epcot of world culture and people's. It's a place where people come to make a new life without the sacrifice of their culture. However, there are so many heterogeneous cultures in America that it's hard to distinguish what exactly is American culture. Is American culture cow boys and western culture? Is it the southern barn house life? Is there even an American culture? Perhaps American culture is the making of all these cultures combined. American culture may be described through pop culture or what's running through the top of media. It's truly difficult to distinguish what American culture is because other cultures have defining factors that make the culture so unique. For example, Asian cultures are easily marked by their clothing, architecture, and food. Things like a colorful, long dress are very reminiscent of Asian culture. Even a simple bowl of pho is resembles parts of Asian culture. If we move over to America, however, there is nothing we can use to define American culture. What is American clothing? What is American architecture? What is American food? Which all these questions, it's easy to ask if there even is an American culture. What exactly is your stand point on this issue?

2 comments:

  1. I feel as the definition of American culture is very blurred because of our heterogenous population. The United States wasn't even completely heterogenous starting off as the settlers were comprised of Native Americans and Europeans. The Native American culture wasn't accepted by the Europeans and the two didn't integrate into each other as easily as different cultures today but they did still share the same section of the continent. In my opinion it's much easier to define the culture of a certain state rather than the entire country. New York, Texas, and South Dakota all have different characteristics and finding a description that matches all 3 of them would be extremely difficult.

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  2. I agree with the comment above. America isn't exactly known for its culture. America is extremely diverse and it's a country where all come together as one. I think that that is our culture. To use your example, Asian countries usually are able to be recognized for their architecture and food. America doesn't have a set culture, that is its culture (it sounds weird, I know). Where other countries are known for one specific set of things, America is not. There is every type of religion, every type of architecture, and every type of race.

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