What is American?

Reposted 3/15/05 'cause I want to ask this simple question, "What is American?" is the core of my thesis for the Program in Religion and Secondary Education at Harvard Divinity School.  What is your first reaction when you ask yourself this question?  Try to think of your answer before you read the other comments in response to this question.  I would love it if you would share the gist of your immediate reactions here.  This will really help me in my framing and developing of my project on this question being a way to address complex but meaningful and perhaps socially relevant issues in humanaties.

Search Google, you get the

#1 American Cancer Society,

#2 Scientific America,

#3American Heart Association, but

#4 is interesting, the American Memory from the Library of Congress

#6 (#5 was AHA again) goes to American Psychological Association,

#7 American Diabetes Association (clearly not alphabetical now),

#8 American FactFinder (a program of the Census – very useful),

#9 American Red Cross, and finally a consumer link,

#10 American Airlines.

Updated 3/15/05 - My friend and colleague Ian White Maher, currently Intern Minister at the Community Church of New York City reminds us that "American" is inherently inclusive of the "America's" and that is in part my point exactly.  With this nuance in mind, ask yourself then, "What does it mean to be citizen of the USA?" which is perhpas more specifically my interest.

Comments

[Nathan Walker]

What is American?

1. Separation of church and state.
2. Democracy
3. Freedom of speech
4. Freedom of the academy
5. Freedom
6. Balance of powers: legislative, executive, judicial
7. Baseball
8. Musical Theatre
9. Jazz
10. Freedom of religion
11. Local government
12. The military's Don't Ask Don't Tell policy
13. Homophobia - the fact that 48 states deny same-sex marriages
14. Civil disobedience
15. Road trips
16. Reality TV shows
17. The divide between privatization and governmental subsidies for social services
18. Game shows
19. Hollywood
20. Shirley Temple

[lydia]

this is a really really interesting question for me as my major is comparative american studies, a program that came out of radical studies organzing for it for 7 years, its basically a combination of ethnic studies, queer studies, and american studies with a power analysis built in. It basically works to challenge A LOT OF THINGS.

Ok so now with my thoughts. I think there has been this myth of everyone can be american as long as people assimilate i.e. the melting pot myth. So for me what society has historically deemed as being american is whiteness, homogenization, unity at the expense of giving up cultural differneces. But to me I see this otherside of what I see as being American in other contexts, other communities. It means resistance against the status quo, it means embracing and treasuring differences (not just tolerating them), it means a lot of messed up stuff yes like the embrace of capitalism and racism and sexism and other oppressions, but there has always been resistance. Even it's been small, it's always existed and never completely died even with things like COINTELPRO and other form of repression. I don't know if this is coherent at all but thats what im thinking right now

[Kevin Hsieh]

America is a collection of ideas. It's the New World, where a new life, new community, new government, a new start can be found. It's a pioneering attitude. It's being able to import people, ideas, traditions, and technology from all over the world and mold it into something unique. We than take our "American" things and export them to the rest of the world.

America is a place where we believe in mobility. We believe in class mobility, and physical mobility. We are much more likely to live in several different cities while growing up, and then to move somewhere else. This is not so in the European countries that I am familiar with.

America didn't invent religion, but we sure put our own spin on it. I suspect that more denominations have been founded in America than most countries, with the probable exceptions of highly fractured societies such as India.

I think that the fluidity of Americans in organized religion is somewhat peculiar. To me, it seems like we have few lifelong XYZers. Talking to people, the community, and individual clergy members are more important than denominational/detailed theological differences. It's hard for me to believe that there is so much competition for church goers in other parts of the world. First of all, you're lucky if people regularly participate at all in a regular fashion. "Easter-Christmas" Christians and "High Holy Jews" seem to be much more of the norm in other industrialized countries. The US has a much higher participation rate in religion than any of the European countries, and possibly Isreal as well. I have no idea how we compare to Muslim countries, but I would think that they would need to have a substantial middle class in order to be comporable.

These are some of my thoughts on America, the noun. American is these things, the adjective. I hope that I've been helpful.

Blessings,
Kevin

[Hollis Huston]

With one huge exception, the various American populations are united in the hope that they can leave behind the oppressions and disappointments of an old world and create a new heaven and a new earth here. They will do this, they think, through their own talents and virtues. Those who emigrated here are the people from their respective cultures who are hopeful in this way. Those who didn't believe didn't come.

The exception is of course the population of Africans who were enslaved and came here against their will, and whose home has therefore been, in various changing senses through our history, "over Jordan." The healing of our great racial divide, and the expiation of our original sin, are complicated by the essential difference in the original meaning of American-ness between those who were enslaved and other Americans who saw their arrival here as escape.

[Ian White Maher]

I feel like something of a wanker saying this, but the very question exposes itself. Other than the person who mentioned the various American communities we, or this is how I think you are asking the question, are refering to the U.S. and not the the rest of the countries in the Americas. Even North America, as a term, is loaded since it is often used in a way that excludes Mexico. So I think "What is American?" is in part about the exclusion that is inherent in that question.

What is being said when we said Asian-American versus Asian-Canadian or Asian-Cuban (okay, we never say that, but we might say Cuban Chinese)? I don't really know what to do about it, but even our language seems to colonize.

[rj*vinson]

What is an American?
An American is the label we in the USA use to describe any person born on US soil or who have become naturalized citizens.

[James Field]

I'm torn between two extremes from literature. One is brutally honest, the second is slightly more hopefull and integrationist in its outlook:

First, from Tony Kushner's Angels in America:

Belize: You know what your problem is, Louis? Your problem is that you are so full of piping hot crap that the mention of your name draws flies. Just to set the record straight: I love Prior but was never in love with him. I have a man, uptown, and have since long before I first laid my eyes on the sorry-ass sight of you. But you didn’t know cause you never bothered to ask. Up in the air, just like that angel, too far off the earth to pick out the details. Louis and his big ideas. Big ideas are all you love. America is what Louis loves. Well I hate America, Louis. I hate this country. It’s just big ideas, and stories, and people dying, and people like you. The white cracker who wrote the national anthem knew what he was doing. He set the word 'free' to a note so high nobody can reach it. That was deliberate. Nothing on earth sounds less like freedom to me. You come to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean. I live in America, Louis, that’s hard enough, I don’t have to love it. You do that. Everybody’s got to love something.

Second, is Langston Hughes, Theme for English B:

The instructor said,
Go home and write
a page tonight.
And let that page come out of you---
Then, it will be true.
I wonder if it's that simple?
I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem.
I went to school there, then Durham, then here
to this college on the hill above Harlem.
I am the only colored student in my class.
The steps from the hill lead down into Harlem
through a park, then I cross St. Nicholas,
Eighth Avenue, Seventh, and I come to the Y,
the Harlem Branch Y, where I take the elevator
up to my room, sit down, and write this page:

It's not easy to know what is true for you or me
at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I'm what
I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you:
hear you, hear me---we two---you, me, talk on this page.
(I hear New York too.) Me---who?
Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.
I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.
I like a pipe for a Christmas present,
or records---Bessie, bop, or Bach.
I guess being colored doesn't make me NOT like
the same things other folks like who are other races.
So will my page be colored that I write?
Being me, it will not be white.
But it will be
a part of you, instructor.
You are white---
yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.
That's American.
Sometimes perhaps you don't want to be a part of me.
Nor do I often want to be a part of you.
But we are, that's true!
As I learn from you,
I guess you learn from me---
although you're older---and white---
and somewhat more free.

This is my page for English B.

1951

[Kevin Hsieh]

I would like to follow up on what Hollis said about the slaves who did not yearn for the Americas, but were brought here in servitude. It is a fairly unique experience, and if marks a distinction between the descendants of slaves and newer immigrants from Africa and the Carribean. They tend to be more like other immigrants. The Native Americans I would say also have a much different perspective on the question even means to them.

[Christopher Donshale Sims/UniverSouLove]

What is American?

Good question! :-)

At this moment in time, I really don't know, so,
let me try to answer it with a flow, here goes:

American?

When I think of America(n),
I think of baseball, the American flag
and apple pies
Jets flying high in the skies
Ghettos and suburbs
Progressive words
from Poets.

American is the President
operating in a residence
where the hungry and the homeless
live nearby

Where guys are shot and young
black men die.

American is War
American is not Peace

When I think of American
I think of the belly of the
beast.

What is American? What a question to ask,
especially since America the "Beautiful"
has such an ugly past.

American is drama:
Whether it be office drama
or the kind that's created by
a "baby's mama."

American is MTV, BET and degrading vidoes
Fast cars, HUGE SUVs, bling bling, and clothes.

American is what I strive not to be
'Cause America(n) doesn't really represent
me.

Christopher Donshale Sims

[Christopher Donshale Sims/UniverSouLove]

What is American?

Good question! :-)

At this moment in time, I really don't know, so,
let me try to answer it with a flow, here goes:

American?

When I think of America(n),
I think of baseball, the American flag
and apple pies
Jets flying high in the skies
Ghettos and suburbs
Progressive words
from Poets.

American is the President
operating in a residence
where the hungry and the homeless
live nearby

Where guys are shot and young
black men die.

American is War
American is not Peace

When I think of American
I think of the belly of the
beast.

What is American? What a question to ask,
especially since America the "Beautiful"
has such an ugly past.

American is drama:
Whether it be office drama
or the kind that's created by
a "baby's mama."

American is MTV, BET and degrading vidoes
Fast cars, HUGE SUVs, bling bling, and clothes.

American is what I strive not to be
'Cause America(n) doesn't really represent
me.

Christopher Donshale Sims

[William R. Bunge]

First, I think that being an American is being able to make a comfortable living, even is one does not have political connections.

Second, it is enjoying the privilege of speaking your piece without the fear of being chastised.

Third, it is enjoying freedom of and from religion.

Next, it is being able to talk things over, and to find common grounds on which one can formulate decisions that redound to the greater good.

It is practicing a modus operandi –what I call “culture”-- that emphasizes problem solving rather than saving face.

However, the culture of this country has changed a lot since I immigrated in 1943.
Intransigence seems to be the dominant character of being an American these days. I believe it was Justice Brandeis who said that freedom consisted in thinking that our interlocutor may be right: unfortunately, this is not the prevailing attitude today.

Of course, this is an ideal, which may be more or less true for most WASP’s of my persuasion. Members of certain minorities, e. g., blacks, have lived in what could be considered a fascist state. They would have a different concept of what is to be an American. So would Evangelicals for a different reason; they are waiting for the parousia.

[TransparentEye]

I see America as having two roots, the northern root based on the Massachusetts colony, and the southern root based on the Virgina colony. Despite it's Puritan origin, the northern root is the progressive one. The southern root is the one that is now in ascendency.

I also see Emerson as quintessentially American. In his notion of self-reliance, liberals can find the non-conformity of a Thoreau, while conservatives can find the entrepreneurial spirit.

[pam]

my first reaction: anger.

All the experiences growing up Asian here have led me to automatically resent the the complex identity of being American. throughout the US, i have never been treated as a "true American", as if my bone straight black hair, deep toned skin, and almond eyes preclude me from my actual birthright, in essence i have felt the constant foreigner. oddly enough, i become conflicted when traveling outside the US, which are the only times i am identified/identify as "American"; even then only half of the time. i sometimes feel anxious and slightly shamed when i accept the title when traveling, for all the obvious reasons of US imperialism and cultural domination. Although, i also get stragely defensive when i think about the life or death decisions my parents had to make in order to come here, if not i would not have been born. so the term is fairly complicated...at least for me. perhaps i can gather my thoughts more coherently next time. peace p

[Brence]

To overstand more about what an American is, u should find out how other nations view Americans? Such as Cuba, Nigeria, Venezuela, etc.

For me though an American applies to the first people that came here from Europe by choice. All others are just people who are descendents with no feelings about leaving countries where they felt they were miss treated, or treated unjustly.

[Allan]

The political term “American” can be defined only as a person living in the USA that pledges allegiance to the Constitution and enforces the Constitution’s Oath of Office on elected Officials.

Allan - ahampton@suddenlink.net

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