Posted on 06/14/2007 6:54:43 AM PDT by fmkl
When it comes to issues of culture and ethnicity, most folks on this site, I hate to say, are stuck in tunnell vision.
Interesting you should judge it by pop culture. I would argue the same pop cultural trends are popular in the home country. Is there any kid on the planet who isn’t into hip-hop?
Hasidim good example of a very insular group.
http://www.rtoonline.com/Content/Article/Aug_06/HispanicMarketingLanguagePreference081606.asp
http://www.nshp.org/hispanic_business/young_hispanics_overwhelmingly_prefer_english_media
http://news.ucanr.org/latinobriefs/latinobriefs.cfm?story=139
Next time you’re in the Apple check out the Soho Grand or Maritime on a Friday night. Most amazing scenes. All international kids in their 20s. It’s like the UN with very expensive drinks.
True, but it is IMPOSSIBLE to TRULY maintain the home country in the face of mass media, social dislocation, etc.
While much of what you observe is so, it is a huge mistake to confuse the street life of the U.S. with anything approaching traditional culture.
I don’t expect everyone to act like Ward Cleaver. Personally, I find all low-brow American culture to be disgusting, but it seems to transcend race/ethnicity, unfortunately.
Then what is the measure of an American, as we call ourselves?
I never bought into the notion of multi-cultural. I don’t believe it exists, particularly for young people. Kids in Brooklyn will play in a band on a Friday night and email or post songs from the set to their friends in Italy, and it’ll play in a club in Milan on Saturday night.
We’re moving towards a uni-cultural world.
I don’t expect everyone to act like Ward Cleaver.
But he talked to the Beaver....what would all the little Beavers do without him?
I would like to add preserving our constitutional Republic, but it seems that only 10% of our population even UNDERSTANDS the concept, let alone is interested in preserving it.
There is an overriding sense of "Americaness" that most folks can't articulate it, but they live it everyday of their life. Underneath this overriding identity, are various subcultures, including hip hoppers, rednecks, secular urbanism, and fundamentalist protestantism, among others. All of these are as American as pineapple on a pizza.
There’s lowbrow culture everywhere, even in high class areas like Palm Beach.
I would agree if it weren’t for the persistence of poverty in the world, the persistence of large rural populations (alhtough this is changing, most notably in Latin America and Asia, the key factor behind the decline in birthrates in those regions), and the continued stranglehold of strong religious belief, particularly in the Islamic world.
Secular urbanism; that’s enough to pop my pineapple.
An argument could be made that those folks are irrelevant —”wards of the global state”
I haven’t reached that conclusion, but the argument could be made.
Well, strictly speaking, pizza isn’t “American” either.:)
A growing share of the population, even in places like Virginia, North Carolina, and, dare I say, Tennessee? Its the price we pay for the expansion of higher education and the pill, I guess.
Good gracious, poverty is the natural state of man; it is only our innate sense of the future that allows us to lift ourselves from its grasp.
Too many think we must gather up all the rest similarly situated and when we try, we all slip back.
Urban environments operate best when “secular.”
BTW: Its a myth that pizza was invented in the US. The first pizzas in Naples, however, were tomatoes, basil, and garlic, no cheese.
Don't get me started on the folks who still believe that old wive's tale about Marco Polo discovering pasta in China. The tomatoes for the sauce, of course, came originally from South America.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.