Ameica the vast

April 7, 2004 5:59 PM

Here's what could be called an urgent question for Europeans who make their living writing (amongst other things) about the United States. How do you explain to intelligent Europeans that "America" is actually as big and varied a proposition as "Europe"? If not more. [More inside.]

Just as Americans have no idea of how diverse Europe is, Europeans think "America" is a collective noun of Republican cowboys interspersed with old-style Anti-Vietnam hippy protesters. They have no idea of the enormous geographic and cultural diversity of the U.S. New York; Washington; California; the Midwest - that's about as far as even the most sophisticated analysts will go. What good arguments can a European journalist give to show that America is a big country, where everyone is just as opposed to everyone else as in all the countries of Europe?

posted by MiguelCardoso to travel & transportation (20 comments total)

in my old hometown, one of the major streets traveled from a pure suburbia white as snow area to an all spanish and immigrant neighborhood. while driving down the street, you could see the billboards change from english to spanish. there were a lot of restuarants there too, advertising every style of cuisine in tens of languages. i think there was a burrito place that had a sign in english, spanish and korean (i think). this immigrant population was about 30 minutes from where I grew up. And I grew up surrounded by republican cowboys who felt that religion mattered and that kids could through keg parties even though they were 15. (i vividly remember my friend, at 17, asking his dad to buy him beer and his dad shrugged, got a little mad and said "this is the last time".)
posted by Stynxno at 6:10 PM on April 7, 2004

I call bullshit on your continued 'Europeans blah, blah' sweeping statements Migs. Maybe you just need to get out more?

As Bismark said, Europe is just geography. Drawing direct comparisons with the US is just dumb. It's a continent & a country damnit.

The best way for anyone to find out more about anything is to give up on just listening/reading & actually go out & see for themselves.

I hope that doesn't sound too testy Miggy as you know I respect you but dash-slot- called you on it recently & I think he has a good point. Enough!
posted by i_cola at 6:26 PM on April 7, 2004

I'd send them to visit Metafilter : >
Actually, newspaper message boards/forums (even CNN's) are good places to find a variety of views on local and national and international topics and that would show it. Or taking any one block here and explaining who lives there, and their histories (as in Stynxno's example). And someone recently traveled on every Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in the country and wrote a book about the people living and working on them.

It's really hard--people like being reductionist about foreigners I guess. (so many believe in a silly one or two-word reduction like: French=snotty or Italian=sexy, etc)
posted by amberglow at 6:31 PM on April 7, 2004

Well, a lot of us aren't very far removed from our immigrant roots - my office, for example, is split pretty evenly as to who is a naturalized citizen, who is second-generation, and who is third-generation or more.
posted by Sangre Azul at 7:01 PM on April 7, 2004

Well, start by informing them that America is set of continents, and that Americans speak more languages than you can count and live in more different nations than I care to count. If you wish to narrow it down to, say, North America, then make sure they know you're still talking about three nations, if one chooses to ignore the sovereign status of the many groups of indigenous peoples on that continent.

This isn't meant as snark, but rather as a means of illustrating that perhaps the real context is even bigger than you may have appreciated when forming the question. Canadians are Americans. So are Chileans. So are Hondurans.
posted by NortonDC at 7:37 PM on April 7, 2004

miguel: I guess you could use The Simpsons as a good example of caricature , I take you have seen some episode (who hasn't ? I hardly can imagine).

In any show you have a caricature of many american types (Burns, the evil capitalist tycoon (much worse then Uncle Scrooge), Homer the average american, Marge the afraid caregiving mother, Lisa the intellectual rejecting some of american shallowness, Flanders the highly religious etc) but you have some europeans and asians as well...for instace the italian Mafioso guy who at times helps Homer , and Apu the asian-indian storekeeper of Quicky Mart, and the italian restaurant owner who sells pizza and spaghetti.

In one episode the Frenchs were also introduced as child labor exploiters which sell adulterated wine.

They're caricatures indeed, but I guess they're used because they're common, well-known all over the states and therefore appeal the audience.

So al long as we (europeans or americans) rely on TV to show us what's on the other side of atlantic (in U.S. or in Europe) I guess we'll never see the incredible differences between regions as we're watching heavily censored, cutted-2-be-cute or appealing shows.

One has to travel and live in a country to really learn something about it.
posted by elpapacito at 7:46 PM on April 7, 2004

Here's what could be called an urgent question for Europeans who make their living writing (amongst other things) about the United States. How do you explain to intelligent Europeans that "America" is actually as big and varied a proposition as "Europe"? If not more. [More inside.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 5:59 PM PST

Look toward American art.

Hip hop, Palo Alto, David Wojnarowicz, Britney Spears.

America is where its at.
posted by the fire you left me at 8:23 PM on April 7, 2004

You could describe the various ethnic sections of the US; such as the various Little Italys, Boston's Irish heritage, California's Asian-American population, the Southwest's Mexican influence, etc..

In one sense, these places aren't "American" due to their connections with other countries, but in another they are definitely American since the US was founded and invigorated by immigrants.

Or just split the US into the various general segments that we do: New England, the South, the Midwest, the West Coast, etc.; and explain the various differences from there.
posted by bitpart at 10:41 PM on April 7, 2004

This isn't meant as snark, but rather as a means of illustrating that perhaps the real context is even bigger than you may have appreciated when forming the question. Canadians are Americans. So are Chileans. So are Hondurans.

In one sense, yes, but as the USA is the only country with 'America' actually in its name, it doesn't seem incorrect for her citizens to call themselves 'Americans', or for people to use 'Americans' as shorthand for United States citizens.
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 11:08 PM on April 7, 2004

How do you explain to intelligent Europeans that "America" is actually as big and varied a proposition as "Europe"?

I think your example is apt, actually. If Europe is what Europeans are familiar with, then it's probably a good analogy.

It consistently amazes me how wrong people in the U.S. get other states -- even those nearby. I was talking to a co-worker today about this.... once, upon introducing himself as from Utah (home state for both of us), the person he'd introduced himself to said "Oh. I rode a horse once." Neither he nor I have ridden horses more than a handful of times, and I believe it's been years since anyone here rode them for any other reason than recreation.

Or I'll talk to people about California, another state that I've lived in and love dearly. "I could never live there," I'll hear people say. When I ask why, it's because "it's too crowded." People who've never lived there think of it as San Diego, Disneyland, LA, and The Bay Area. I try not to correct this misconception so my California won't be ruined as quickly, but it is a misconception.

Likewise, some people don't believe that Arizona could have real natural beauty -- it's just a big pit of sand, plus the Grand Canyon. But along those lines, it is indeed a dry place -- a lot of land West of the Continental Divide is semi-arid, if not outright desert -- and runs off of irrigation and is much more susceptible to volatile precipitation. People in the East rarely have a grasp of what a struggle water resources are out here.

There are other examples I could give. I haven't even touched ethnic and religious divisions or the usual top-level geographic divisions. Others can probably do that better. But it really should be obvious: America is not a small place, and the variances in geography and culture and to some extent even language are wide.
posted by weston at 11:46 PM on April 7, 2004

This is only personal perspective. Major western cities in Europe and the U.S. have grown to resemble each other in a way that they did not twenty years ago.

So these analysts you speak of - it seems perhaps that they know America from its major airports. I can't blame them. I never tell people I've been to England - I say I've been to London. I have no idea what England is really like, as I never got a chance to give it a proper look.

In fact, I met exactly two native Britons during my two weeks there. They were both cab drivers. Everyone else I met was Australian, American, Indian, Swedish, French - no Brits. Couldn't fathom it at the time.

Five years ago, after I returned from my little European visit, I'm sure I felt very smugly about my worldliness and my knowledge of other cultures. Then I moved to the American Midwest after having grown up in California and Hawaii. It's been three years, and the culture shock is still reverberating through my system. I'm a little less smug now that I've seen a little more of the U.S. People, amazingly, are not the same everywhere. Who knew?

The United States is mind bogglingly huge. 99.9% of U.S. Americans have no clue how big this place is. I have seen maybe a third of the states, and just about all of them from the air. Flying across the Atlantic from Los Angeles helps when you realize that it takes longer to fly from California to Ohio than it did to fly from New York to Greenland.

I think all this useless personal exposition is to make one point - you can hardly expect Europeans to understand how large and varied the United States are when most Americans don't understand it themselves.
posted by annathea at 5:49 AM on April 8, 2004

Europeans think "America" is a collective noun of Republican cowboys interspersed with old-style Anti-Vietnam hippy protesters

I think its silly to generalise as to the European view of Americans like this, in the UK for example we see Americans simply as fat and stupid.
posted by biffa at 6:13 AM on April 8, 2004

This isn't meant as snark, but rather as a means of illustrating that perhaps the real context is even bigger than you may have appreciated when forming the question. Canadians are Americans. So are Chileans. So are Hondurans.

NortonDC, don't take this personally, but that argument is so old and tired I'm surprised to hear it coming from you. The literalists have already lost this battle: America is a word with multiple meanings (the United States of America or the New World, although the latter meaning is in decline), but "an American" is, for all accepted and standard practice, currently only a resident of the United States of America. The only people I have ever met who give the lame argument you give are Americans. The peoples you are speaking on behalf of don't seem to care about your argument. (And everyone else can stop that "USAian" garbage, too: that's also a lost battle).

Miguel, when my European friends start talking about "you Americans" I always find a way to remind them that the difference and distance between New York City and LA is about the same as the distance between Moscow and Madrid.
posted by Mo Nickels at 6:51 AM on April 8, 2004

I think it's appropriate given that the spirit of Miguel's question is to make people understand the richness and complexity of the area.
posted by NortonDC at 9:47 AM on April 8, 2004

Compare the US of A to the DS of E (Disunited States of Europe.)
posted by callmejay at 12:02 PM on April 8, 2004

How about through food?

'American' styles of cuisine like pizza, chop-suey-type Chinese food, or the taco. There's lots more.
posted by Miles Long at 12:16 PM on April 8, 2004

i_cola: Don't be too hard on Miguel, he's just trying to get us to write his article for him so he can spend the evening boozing it up.

Migs: How about a list of American newspapers in languages other than English or Spanish? There are scores of them in NYC alone.
posted by languagehat at 1:42 PM on April 8, 2004

Mig: You seem to get it (you're Portugese, no?) why not tell us? I think if you ask us Americans (really, does anyone else besides us USians really refer to themselves as Americans) you will likely get too divided a country.

Example. I'm relocating to Memphis and many people (from memphis) have asked what I think about moving to the mid-south. Now from my perspective, Memphis is the *south*, but everyone there wants to differentiate themselves from those living in alabama and mississippi (the deep-south).
posted by jmgorman at 2:47 PM on April 8, 2004

Well, there was a time when Europeans saw America differently back when Europeans emigrated to the US in very high numbers from around 1870 to 1920(?). What was the perception of America then. Perhaps look back in history and re-surface those same ideas now.
posted by stbalbach at 4:52 PM on April 8, 2004

biffa: Isn't it fatter & stupider these days?!

languagehat: I should can my idea for blogging my US trip then ;-)
posted by i_cola at 5:36 PM on April 8, 2004