posted
Boy George aside, I've been wondering about American culture. What outside cultures currently influence our own? For instance, our Hispanic population is growing rapidly; will America start to embrace and incorporate aspects of this culture?
posted
No, it's a melting pot of American. Money, aesthetics, and, um, money, would be the groundwork of their culture. And patriotism; who doesn't love their money? (Not trying to tick anyone off; by all means, poke fun at us Canadians.)
Posts: 165 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
I do appreciate everyone's responses on where Hispanic culture influences, but could you give some examples of *how* it influences American culture? I would really like to know more. We live in a city with a large Hispanic pop., but I don't think I've lived here long enough yet to see how it might be an influence.
posted
I guess it depends on the region... I think the core of American culture comes from it's English/Euro foundings, which evolved in a different way from the Old World. An example is that "country music" and "bluegrass" came from old Irish jigs and many other places... You can still vaguely hear the celtic influences... and the yodeling.
From that English core came the other Euro traditions and peoples...
The next major evolution of American culture came from the 20% of the population from Africa.
We are constantly growing... just like the new cortext brain over the old limbic brain. Add in some Hispanic and Oriental influences... and BAM! America. Posts: 4953 | Registered: Jan 2004
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posted
I remember hearing the Brian Adams (could you GET more white?) singing "When a Man Loves A Woman" a few years back, and loving it. I told a fried that I found it very interesting, and he said it would neve catch on because of the Spanish feel to it, which is why I liked it.
It became #1, and stayed there on the pop charts for months.
When you say "we" have a culture, you are assuming that Americans agree on what makes one "American". I have found that there is a lot of debate on this, and it is very hard to generalize to a population this diverse.
I have heard more and more music that is influenced by Spanish/Latin American cultures, and I see more of it on TV too. A lot of marketing and advertisement is being directed to hispanics now, far more that a few years ago.
From a pratical viewpoint, ask anyone who works in a courthouse, adn they will tell you about the overwhelming demand for Spanish translators. Not just on the criminal side of the courthouse, on the civil side as well. Anyone with a BA in Spanish, or who can pass a proficiecy test in Spanish, is in very high demand as long as they also have good English skills. Some places you have to have the degree, some you don't.
Stop signs are printed in Spanish and English, as are some road signs, and some palces hold their town meeting completely in Spanish, as their distrects/towns are Hispanic to the 96%.
I'd say the hispanic culture has made significant progress into mainstream America.
posted
Yes; a lot of the signs in our town are in both english and spanish. There was also an article recently in our paper about a meeting between members of our hispanic community and the police discussing language barriers. Here's another question for any of you - do you think we are moving into becoming a bilingual country? Or should we have the attitude that, "Hey, you moved here; learn to speak english." I volunteered for awhile at an english as a second language program, so I know that many immigrants are making the effort to learn english. Should this be a requirement, though?
posted
space opera, you probably don't notice a lot of the hispanic (and many other) influences on YOUR culture and on america as a whole simple because so many of them are quite fully integrated.
Posts: 3936 | Registered: Jul 2000
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posted
I have lived 39 of my 43 years within 200 miles of the mexican border, and 32 of those years within 15 miles of the border.
I have also lived in New Mexico about 120 miles next to the border and right next to an Apache Indian Reservation.
In El Paso, where I lived for about 28 years of those years, you also have a Tigua Indian Reservation and a large German Air Force contingent (at Fort Bliss).
I have spent so much of my life in a multicultural background that I feel odd when I visit somewhere in middle America (Kansas City, for example) where I am no longer in the minority (as an Anglo).
We're a melting pot. The ingredients in the pot change from time to time, but we are still a melting pot.
Posts: 279 | Registered: May 2004
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posted
The major unifier of a culture is the language. It is also a great divider of peoples. Look at ancient Rome and the split when the language changed between the two halves...or at Canada and it's almost breakaway province of Quebec.
We have a culture now in America that is kind of an "umbrella culture", hopefully celebrating diversity of its makeup cultures and languages.
BUT, there is still an issue. For our greater culture and nation to survive we must all be able to comunicate with each other. So, either we all have one language or we all learn everyone else's language or we have all our own local languages and one universal language. So we have America speaking only English, Europe speaking everyone elses language, or India were English is the universal language for all the local dialects. (Europe is like this too actually...everyone being bilingual: speaking their local tounge and then English for the world)
Since we in America already speak the current universal language, there isn't much point to mass education of other languages.
I'm not sure where to lead this because I have no idea how things will or should work out.
My first impression is to say that it would be dangerous for America to allow Spanish to take root in the southern areas without the teaching of English because we will have a situation like Canada...an area that grows more and more apart from the greater whole. This will do nothing but weaken us and them.
Either we teach all Americans to speak one language or we teach all languages to all Americans...
Posts: 4953 | Registered: Jan 2004
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