American Identity

The US is a weird place. In some ways, it really lacks a sense of identity as a culture--and seems to make up for this in other ways, like a person with low self esteem and an enormous ego. In some ways our culture is really cohesive. Steinbeck wrote that an American anywhere in the country is more similar to another American from a completely different part of the country than a British person is to someone from another part of Britain, even though they may be much more distant geographically. My observation seems to support this, to a certain extent.

I think this may partially stem from the fact that British culture grew up before all these advances in transportation made the spread of culture so possible and prevalent, leaving them with many more local cultural differences. The US, on the other hand, developed as these advances were taking place, so we as a people seem much more homogeneous. This is probably why there seem to be many more differences in culture and accent between the northern and southern US East Coast than there are between the East Coast and the Midwest. (I've never been out west, but I've heard it's pretty similar. Steinbeck says so, too.)

But for all our cultural continuity and even our new-found patriotism (seen, of course, in the display of flags and yellow ribbons rather than an actual involvement in the political process), we remain vividly aware of the fact that most of our ancestors came from Somewhere Else. Not that this awareness leads to a concern for Native rights... but that's another issue. (Related, yes, but not quite the point here.) Probably a majority of Americans identify not simply as Americans, but as __________-Americans. I don't just mean 'minorities'; most white people, if asked (or, more often, even if not asked), will proudly identify themselves as "Italian", "Irish", "Scottish", "Scotch-Irish" or "German". Now, if these people actually had a parent or even a grandparent who had recently immigrated to this country, I could understand their identity with their chosen "country of ancestry". Or even, maybe, if all of a person's ancestors actually came from one single country, they might have retained something, but even then it would be tempered with the fact that they'd been living in the US for the last however many years.

What gets me is the way people seem to seize on just one part of their ancestry and claim that as their identity. Because, of course, most Americans' ancestors come from a variety of countries. I happen to know that various ancestors of mine emigrated from France, Wales, Scotland, Ireland and England, with some Iroquois mixed in as well. It would be absolutely ridiculous for me to claim any one of these and call myself _______-American, particularly since the most recent emigree in my family came to this country more than 150 years ago. My maternal grandmother and her family are from Maine, but I don't claim to be "of Maine descent".

And yet, for all that I scorn it, I do sort of understand the sentiment. Because, examining my own prejudices, I find cause for this sort of grasping for roots. For instance, although several of my friends growing up were born in Raleigh, as I was, I inwardly considered myself to be somehow more "from here" because my father and grandmother had also grown up in Raleigh (even though I myself had grown up in Wake County's few remaining rural pockets), and my father's family has been in North Carolina for hundreds of years, whereas their families had moved to the area more recently, with the software companies. Because when one grows up in one place, but one's family is from somewhere else, one lacks a certain rooted feeling which comes from the stability of having grown up in the same place as one's parents and grandparents. Even I had this, to a certain extent, since my Mum and her family are all damn yankees, even though they moved to Raleigh when she was about 12, with the first wave of software folks for IBM.

I think the United States feels this on a country-wide level. This is what I mean about lack of identity; lack of roots. It's just that it seems like after 400 years, we'd be pretty much From Here. The wild horses and honeybees have acclimated, why can't we?