Do Americans Have Their Own Culture, and Are Immigrants Degrading It?

“White people have no culture.”

This idea has produced some hilarious memes and videos.

Here’s some examples:

The premise, though, is something I think about often, when contemplating White Nationalism as a movement, anti-immigration rhetoric and the like.

Reading that immigrants are stealing our country, taking away our way of life, is deeply confused to me when I can’t truly identify our culture is. These questions are debated at the highest levels. From a paper about assimilation of immigrants by Stanford:

“Immigration has emerged as a decisive — and sharply divisive — issue in the United States. Skepticism about whether new arrivals can assimilate into American society was a key concern in the 2016 presidential election and remains an ongoing theme in the public debate on immigration policy. This controversy is not new. The U.S. has experienced repeated waves of hostility toward immigrants and today’s concerns echo alarms sounded often in the past. Both today and in earlier times, many in this country have viewed immigrants as a threat to the integrity of the nation’s culture, fearing that foreigners among us somehow make America less American“.

In today’s post, I want to outline some things I think are uniquely a part of the American culture. Some of these I’ll make fun of, because I view over-the-top nationalism as silly and/or dangerous. In all cases, I’ll dig into the roots and see if these unique aspects were built off the back of, or stolen from another culture.

Next, I’ll look into the data about whether immigrants meld into our culture, or change it.

First, let’s define “culture”.

What is Culture?

The definitions of culture vary. I found a collection of definitions from the National Center for Cultural Competence. The standout definitions are:

• “Culture is a set of meanings, behavioral norms, and values used by members of a particular society, as they construct their unique view of the world.”
• “Culture is conceived as a set of denotative (what is or beliefs), connotative (what should be, or attitudes, norms and values), and pragmatic (how things are done or procedural roles) knowledge, shared by a group of individuals who have a common history and who participate in a social structure.”
• “Culture is a shared pattern of belief, feeling, and knowledge that ultimately guide everyone’s conduct and definition of reality.”

Culture not only just encompasses verbal and nonverbal communication, but also material items. Specific clothing, shoes, accessories, etc., can be a part of a culture. Culture is not a racial group or a national origin. Race is different from culture, as race is primarily concerned with physical characteristics. National origin also does not stand in for culture. Having traveled to each distinct area of the US, I can tell you there is a difference in culture between the Midwest, the South, and each Coast. Being from the U.S. doesn’t guarantee you a specific culture – it depends on where you’re from IN the US.

Here’s some examples of things that are part of a culture. Material items like Japanese Kimonos, Indian Sarees, Hmong Ceremonial Dress, and the Ojibwe Jingle Dress are all items of cultural importance. Drinking tea for the English, coffee for us Americans, or Matcha for Brazilians are part of the culture. Christmas is part of many Christian-heavy nations, whereas the Festival of Lights if part of the culture of Hindu nations as it’s part of Diwali.

Now that we understand what culture is, let’s try to identify the culture of Americans.

What is our Culture?

The U.S. is a big country, with many different cultural groups. Some of the items on this list are going to be specific to my culture as a life-long Midwesterner. Other items will have a farther reach.

Let’s start with interactions with strangers. This is something that varies across the country and is also influenced by upbringing. These observations are, therefore, general. Here in the Midwest, we tend to be kind and helpful to strangers to a point. It’s been observed over and over that Midwesterners are hard to get to know. Our social groups are established at a young age, and tend to be difficult to penetrate as an adult. How many new friends have you made as an adult? My husband actively refuses to make new friends. “I have friends, why do I need more?”. I have made one or two new friends as an adult, but it was something I had to actively work at and be mindful of. My innate reaction to new people is part of my culture – I’ll gladly help out a stranger, but if they start asking questions about me I feel uncomfortable. Surface level is fine, but anything deeper is…weird.

From my experiences on the East Coast, people there tend to meet strangers with more hostility. Visiting a deli in Boston might allow you to witness the deli counter person arguing with the customer, or insulting them. This is so uncomfortable to see for a Minnesota Nice girl like me. We’re ALWAYS nice. Even when the other person doesn’t deserve it.

In the South, it’s far different in my experience. People will greet you like an old friend in the grocery store. They’ll invite you to their neighborhood barbeque if they learn you’re new to the area. When I was in Texas for a year with the Air Force, I was invited to join 5 new families met out and about in Wichita Falls. The culture of the South is different than the Midwest. I always figured this was the result of the proximity to Mexico, as Latin Cultures tend to be less individualistic than ours.

Another aspect of Midwestern Culture – we’re in a hurry. Always. We talk fast, drive fast, shop fast, even enjoy things fast. Go to the South and follow someone down a supermarket aisle. They take their time, browse. I would get SO frustrated with people down south because of my Midwestern desire to DO EVERYTHING FAST. In restaurants, the pace of the meal decided by the server is much, much slower. In the Midwest, I’m irritated if I haven’t seen my server for 5 minutes after we’ve been seated. In the South, they’ll get there when they get there. I once listened to a podcast that said people in the south moved slower back in the day because they had a high incidence rate of Hookworm. Seriously, check it out. Regardless of the cause, it seems to be part of our unique cultures. I’m primed to get everything done efficiently rather than enjoy things. I sometimes wish I could adopt the Southern culture and slow the heck down.

Our style of dress is another part of our culture. Growing up in rural MN in a highly religious town, modest dress was expected and enforced by the older generation. My mom made me put on a sweater to go visit my grandparents when I wore a low-cut shirt, not wanting to offend my grandfather’s eyes with my immodesty. I still wrestle with this part of my own culture; the style now is crop tops, mini shorts and no bra. Despite working out 5x a week and maintaining visible tone despite having created two little lives, I’m still uncomfortable showing too much skin. I don’t care if other people do it, it doesn’t bother me. When I wear a low-cut dress or crop top, I feel self-conscious and like everyone is starting at me judging. Other cultures, like in Europe and the Caribbean, welcome completely topless women. I visited a nude beach outside of Füssen, Germany, and wasn’t bothered by the other attendees. The same for a full-nude bathhouse in Munich. That culture is completely accepting of full nudity, whereas I’d say in the US, modesty is still considered throughout.

Now, for some fun ones.

Bourbon.

Bourbon is something uniquely American, and more specifically, ONLY can be called Bourbon if it came from Kentucky. The husband and I visited Lexington, KY and the surrounding areas, stopping at Maker’s Mark and doing the distillery tour. Personally, I can’t drink brown liquor because of the number of times I almost died from it in High School. Everyone has that ONE alcohol, right?

Bourbon, though, is something I’d consider a part of Midwestern and Southern culture. I hunted for days to find my husband a bottle of Weller, but as soon as a bottle comes in, there’s a line out the door to try to snag it. Same for Buffalo Trace. Having a bottle in your home bar is a sign of status, like serving pineapple at a party was 100 years ago. There are clubs dedicated to collecting and trying different bourbons.

Whiskey (spelled like that, not Whisky) is also important. Jack Daniels in particular is a feature of country music. Eric Church, David Alan Coe, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Miranda Lambert all wrote and sang songs ABOUT JACK DANIELS. Moonshining in the Appalachia region is part of their cultural heritage, bolstering the outlaw country culture that has cropped up and been adopted country-wide. These two brown liquors and one clear one is deeply ingrained in our culture, particularly in the South and Midwest. When I visited Washington, rare bottles of bourbon were collecting dust on the shelves. Apparently, bourbon and whiskey aren’t part of the PNW culture.

Next, Football. No, not European football that we call soccer. FOOTBALL. That, and baseball.

Football season is hallowed, country-wide. People wear their favorite player’s jersey, place bets, and organize parties to watch football with their social groups. People talk about football constantly, talking about a specific player’s chances. Most often in Minnesota, we talk about how much the Vikings are disappointments but also the Green Bay Packers can go to heck.

I don’t understand sports. I remember going to a Twins game with my family as a kid, and my grandma saying something to the effect of “I’m just here to look at butts”. That’s kind of how I feel about sports 🙂

Football, above all, is part of our National Culture. Baseball is as well, though I feel like it’s less impactful than Football. Even if you’re not a fan of these sports, you’re going to hear about them. You’ll know if we’re winning or losing, and you’ll learn the top players just by how often your coworkers talk about them.

There are more things unique to sub-cultures here in the US, but I’ll stop here and move onto to the data on assimilation.

Assimilation is a Dirty Word

Growing up in a mixed household with Native American culture involved, I learned to hate the word “Assimilation”. Assimilation is what white people tried to inflict on Native Americans, stealing their children and raising them the “white” way. This was horrific and caused generational trauma among the victims. Because of this, I hate the word and what it stands for.

That aside, assimilation is the word used to identify whether immigrants are “normalizing” their culture to align with ours. It boils down to, are immigrants adopted our culture or trying to bend ours to fit theirs?

Let’s start with economic successes. Do immigrant kids find success in their careers? Or do they arrive poor and stay that way? According to research done by Ran Abramitzky and Leah Boustan for PNAS Nexus, immigrant kids actually outperform native-born kids.

Here’s a chart showing sons and daughters, respectively, adult income percentiles based on father’s country of origin:

As we see, the U.S. is near the bottom for both men and women. Countries like China and India are near the top, with countries like Columbia, Brazil, Ecuador, and other South American countries landing amongst the middle. This shows that, as a whole, immigrants are coming here and working their asses off.

English proficiency is a popularly tracked metric of “cultural assimilation”. According to the Manhattan Institute, immigrants reaching the ability to speak. read. and write English “very well” is at an all-time high. The age group of the immigrant matters, where younger immigrants are more likely to be proficient.

We can see positive movement in English proficiency over time, where immigrants arriving in the 2010’s are more rapidly reaching fluency.

Choosing English-sounding names for their children is another measure of assimilation. My family allegedly had the surname of “Spaeth” before coming over from Germany. They changed this to “Hess” upon arrival. Unfortunately, Rodolph Hess gave this name a dark mark during Nazi Germany.

My husband’s family shortened their super German sounding name of “Krebsbach” to “Krebs” upon arrival. With the name Hannah Krebs, working for a German company, I still have German coworkers meeting me for the first time opening the conversation in German before realizing I’m American.

This type of shortening and name swapping upon arrival was common in the early 1900’s. Today, people immigrating still choose to change their names to American sounding ones, and give their children American-style names as well. This choice isn’t because they want to abandon their culture – they want to fit into ours. Studies find that people with American-sounding names get 50% more callbacks on job opportunities – just one of the benefits being called “Henry” affords more opportunities than being called “Heinrich”.

The last metric I want to reference is polling done by Pew Research. There is a particular concern about Muslim refugees assimilating into our culture at this point. The fear that they want Sharia Law to replace our courts is pervasive, propograted by the barely sentient Congressmen Ogles and Fine.

According to the research, they’re wrong the Muslims don’t want to assimilate. The research finds the following:

• 92% are proud to be American
• 60% say they have a lot in common with Americans, 28% say some
• 80% are satisfied with how their lives are going
• Only 36% say most of their friends are Muslim
• 10% have a non-Muslim spouse
• 67% say being a good parent is one of the most important things to them
• Only 31% say leading a very religious life is important to them

An additional Pew Survey added:

• 70% of Muslims feel Islam and democracy are compatible, with the primary driver of it being seen as incompatible being just because of how the US refuses to accept Muslims
• From 2007-2017, 25% more Muslims (52%) are accepting of homosexuality.
• 70% of Muslims feel that if you work hard, you can get ahead. Very American ideals.

I think these metrics show that the immigrants facing the most scrutiny, Muslims, really do want to become more American. Their views are changing over time, such as the example of acceptance of homosexuality. They value hard work and raising their kids, just like Americans. They’re making friends outside of their social sphere. Some are even marrying non-Muslims, a true sign of assimilation among a religious group. I know many white people who have converted to one Christian denomination or another for their spouse. Lutherans converting to Judaism or Catholicism, for example.

Conclusion/Rant Time: The Bad In American Culture

I think there is a subset of culture in America that is leading to the distrust, Nationalism and racism we are seeing in the media. I’m not sure what to call this culture. Nationalism comes to mind, but it seems more targeted than that. Instead of naming the culture, let me name the parts that I think are problematic:

• Nationalism, but really just thinly veiled racism. Not just “if you’re not from here, you don’t belong”, it’s “if you’re not white, you don’t belong”.
• Rejection of science – “raw milk” peddlers, anti-vaxxers, COVID deniers, and the like.
• Distrust of EVERYTHING – e.g. choosing to homeschool kids to avoid “indoctrination” by public schools.
• Tradwife ideals, where women glorify their position as a housewife and mother. This is fine, but they also demand it of others.
• Religious exclusion, whereas only Christianity is considered the “real” religion.

I can’t think of a good name, but I can say I’ve seen all of these tenants present in the same individual who belongs to whatever burgeoning culture this is. As I’ve said before, everyone is welcome to their opinion. It’s when their opinion infringes on the rights, health, or success of others that something becomes a problem. Anti-vaxxers have directly contributed to measles returning. Drinking raw milk makes us sick. Public racism has returned in a big way, leading non-White people to feel fear. Not even mentioning ICE. Muslims are being called the “enemy”, simply because they call the same God Christian pray to another name and read from a different holy book.

I think this is dangerous and has to stop. Why are we moving backwards in social acceptance? Why are we becoming less tolerant of other religions, even as the most stuffy religions, like Catholicism, are giving other religions a seat at the table? Why are we rejecting science that has reduced the infant mortality rate DRASTICALLY, and eradicated deadly illnesses from our country?

I don’t think we all need to sit around a proverbial campfire and sing Kumbaya, but, c’mon. Can’t we just be decent?

Thanks for reading!