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Yeah I've heard that. Either individual white people or Italians, Germans.etc.
That's why I said, it's more people who've never left the states who think Florida is SOOO different from Washington. Those who've travelled internationally realise just how alike most of the States really are.
I have family born and raised in Haiti who settled in South Florida and can always tell the difference between Miami/South Florida and the rest of the nation quite easily.
^ Nothing to do with immigration but culture. An Asian American will be no different to a European American, unless they aren't fully integrated. The differences between a farmer from rural Cornwall and the Lake District will be more noticeable: indeed it might be hard for each other to understand each other at first. We're talking over 1000 years of differences compared to the 200, and in many cases 100 or 50 years, in the US.
In the eye of the beholder. But to an average American with no experience in Great Britain....well....(That's the look you'll get if you ask the average person the difference between a farmer from Cornwall and someone from the Lake District). Maybe it's our American ignorance and arrogance. But on the flip, this same ignorance can be applied to a foreigner who can't tell the major difference between cultural traits in different regions of America.
I think visiting rural areas is absolutely necessary if you want to see true cultural differences in the U.S. The mob mentality is at its worst in the metro areas, especially the suburbs. Rural people tend to hold onto traditions and regional accents long after it is "cool" to do so.
In a lot of ways, you could argue that there are similarities between international cosmopolitian cities such as New York, Paris, Toronto and Tokyo. I'm sure you could also find similarities in small towns in Vermont, Lousiana, Scotland and Malaysia. The cultures and language may be different, but they way those cultures are practiced could be similar.
Many American suburbs, unfortunately, have a certain blandness and uniformity to them. However, I've been to bland suburbs of Kuala Lumpur, Tokyo and Almaty.
Honestly, whenever I leave Cambridge, MA, I feel like I'm in a different world
Good point. LA may have just as much in common with Mexico as it does Boston.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cBach
If you really think that an Asian American is more similar to a European American than someone from rural Cornwall is to the Lake District, I'm not sure you see the forest through the trees.
I'm going to Scotland pretty soon, and if you look from a worldwide perspective, there's not much difference between Edinburgh or Glasgow, or even the Highlands. In fact, the differences between the Scots and the Brits are not as different as the difference between Northerners and Southerners in the US. I view the regional differences in the UK as the regional differences between Washington and California. Small but subtle unless you live there then the differences are greater.
Also, Miami and Seattle are about as different as you can get. Spanish style homes versus wood frame homes, tropical foliage versus northern latitude foliage, hot weather versus cold, Latin culture versus N. European background with some Asian influences, and vastly different cuisine.
You did get it right about NOLA. Southern Louisiana is vastly different than the rest of the country. Even you recognize that eating crawfish ettouffee is different than eating steak and potatoes in the midwest or what have you.
Culturally speaking, if they are both assimilated they are pretty much identical. Race is separate from culture, in case you didn't know. Just because Americans can't tell the difference between English/British accents proves nothing...in fact I'd wager they'd easily tell a Yorkshire accent from a London accent, they're as different as English and Scottish, which I'm sure most Americans can tell apart.
Culturally speaking, if they are both assimilated they are pretty much identical. Race is separate from culture, in case you didn't know. Just because Americans can't tell the difference between English/British accents proves nothing...in fact I'd wager they'd easily tell a Yorkshire accent from a London accent, they're as different as English and Scottish, which I'm sure most Americans can tell apart.
Race is really used as term for background, Ethnicity or ancestry in the US. Latino is not a race but in the US it's treated as such because of the cultural background. So if a American bring up race think more of background in general rather than skin color. With saying that American culture doesn't work like that assimilation in a American sense is basic stuff. Like learn English, American etiquette, be patriotic and etc but this has nothing to do with a family keeping ethnic tradition like a cooking tradition, celebrating a custom and etc.
You really got to understand that America was influence by different countries, that shape different regional cultures. Thus different regions have different heritages in addition to are national heritage. Seriously we have a state name after a British king another name after a French king, mean While another in Spanish referring to Flowers, a region call New England another name after the country below it Mexico. So of course there different Regional cuisine, accents and even historic architecture. My point is even America roots are not monolithic. Technical the British a once did claim Everything east of the Mississippi but they didn't colonize anything but the East coast. Like wise New Orleans, St Louis and Detroit were founded by the French.
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For all those historical differences the US is remarkably generic. I see a lot of French and Indian place names in the Upper Midwest, but culturally it's a substrate of German and English.
For all those historical differences the US is remarkably generic. I see a lot of French and Indian place names in the Upper Midwest, but culturally it's a substrate of German and English.
I'm not sure how a culture can be generic. As in... it's just like all of the other American cultures that are out there? Generic implies that it's not unique. Not sure how anyone could come to that conclusion.
Culturally speaking, if they are both assimilated they are pretty much identical. Race is separate from culture, in case you didn't know. Just because Americans can't tell the difference between English/British accents proves nothing...in fact I'd wager they'd easily tell a Yorkshire accent from a London accent, they're as different as English and Scottish, which I'm sure most Americans can tell apart.
Aside from the English/Scottish/Northern British accented difference, the UK overall as far as accents, race, culture, seems just as homogeneous to us, as the US seems to foreigners.
I didn't say there was NO difference, I just said they were exaggerated. Like some people who say (I've heard this on CD), 'why bother to travel to different countries when the US is so diverse?' Sure it's diverse, but nothing compared to other places, and more the same than different IMO.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Trimac20
For all those historical differences the US is remarkably generic. I see a lot of French and Indian place names in the Upper Midwest, but culturally it's a substrate of German and English.
I think the issue is that America has BECOME homogenized. To you who probably just watched America on TV and didn't come here and actually experience America before it became kind of this corporate suburb, it seems that way.
To us who've grown up here, it wasn't always this way.
Because of television, the internet, desegregation, Affirmative-Action, and a ton of cultural things, America has started to blend into one recently, but remember, this is the country of Hip-Hop & Country music. You'll never mistake Snoop Doggy Dogg for Garth Brooks.
We're the country of Rock N Roll & Jazz. Again, you'll never mistake Jim Morrison for Miles Davis.
There's parts of this country where you'll see no Black people, or Asians, or Hispanics, which greatly change the culture.
You have the New York that has it's Irish, Italian, and Jewish influences that permeate the entire culture. Compare that with Los Angeles with it's huge Mexican and Asian cultures. Hell, in Miami, Espanol is the main language.
All over America we have Chinatowns, Little Italys, and barrios, where people who don't even speak English live.
So, it's a combination of things, you not really either being perceptive or going to the right places
AND
America being less diverse than it used to be, because of the corporate culture of Wal-Marts, McDonalds', and Burger Kings everywhere
But you could also argue that globalization has diminished the differences in the world as well.
You have people like here on City Data who can communicate with people all over the world at any point and are constantly reminded that people in Australia, Germany, etc. . . . have the same likes, ideas, beliefs, hopes and fears as they do, so the cultural gap everywhere is shrinking. I can probably go to your country and find a lot of things that remind me of America there.
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(That's the look you'll get if you ask the average person the difference between a farmer from Cornwall and someone from the Lake District). Maybe it's our American ignorance and arrogance. But on the flip, this same ignorance can be applied to a foreigner who can't tell the major difference between cultural traits in different regions of America.
I didn't say there was NO difference, I just said they were exaggerated. Like some people who say (I've heard this on CD), 'why bother to travel to different countries when the US is so diverse?' Sure it's diverse, but nothing compared to other places, and more the same than different IMO.
