What Americans Think It Means To Be American
Every two years, union-lovers across the world descend upon the city of Chicago (and sometimes Detroit) to stay in a union hotel, and talk about union matters. We learned about unionizing tactics and strategies so that when we leave, we can make the world a more labor-friendly place. It was the Labor Notes conference and I had a pretty rad time. I got to meet a lot of nice people, cool people, interesting people, smart people, and Canadian people.
There were a surprising number of Canadians in attendance.
Anyway, since I’m blogging now, I couldn’t pass up the grand opportunity before me: interviewing American workers about American identity — and some Canadians, too. (it’s always good to get an outside opinion!)
I asked people some variation of three questions: what does it mean to be American, what does it mean to live in America, or what do you think is the American Dream? Though I focused more on what it means to be American and focused less on what it means to achieve the American Dream. What follows is an examination of what I believe to be one part of the many facets of the American identity.
American pride
Larry Hopkins, a 51 year old rail crew transportation driver, was the first person I interviewed. He said to be American is to be proud; proud of your cultural heritage, and proud of where you come from. Larry didn’t go on to define what single culture Americans should be proud of, because he believed that we all come from different backgrounds, thus we’d all have different things to be proud of, and since we all had different things to be proud of — though we share a common history and common country — there was no singular culture for Americans to share. Rather than share a pride, Americans share their pride; our United States arise out of a mutual understanding, not out of a shared culture.
Matthew Thompson, 17, tended to agree. When I asked him what it means to be American, Matt said “to be a part of a culture that is a mix of cultures”. Since he didn’t believe there was one American identity but a meta-identity, I asked him if he thought there was a time when there was one American identity, to which he said no, and stated that, in the past, there had been a majority white identity, but never a unified national identity.
Others, however, questioned whether the pride was warranted, given America’s many different defects and social ills. Jasmine, of Canada, said that to be American is to like everything big, and believe that we are the best. She went on to say we have “poor work conditions” and allow people to die due to lack of healthcare. Furthermore, while America is extremely well guarded from foreign invasion, compared to other countries, we are less safe from malevolent forces emanating from within because of “gun violence, poverty which leads to gun violence and drug dealing”. Ultimately, “you have the opportunity to do a lot, but only for some”.
I’ll end the testimony section with the words of another Canadian, Gabrielle-Sophie, 21, of the Quebec region. On the whole, she found America “at the same time very repelling and very attracting”. How so, I asked? “It’s really difficult to understand American cultures…you see a lot of flags, ads for [the] Army, bumper stickers saying ‘God Bless America’, it’s very repelling”; in Canada, these things are not so upfront, they don’t have the love of yard signs or bumper stickers that we Americans do, and she connected it to the pridefulness of Americans. Where other cultures may have a tendency to hide their identity during day-to-day interactions — for fear of ruffling feathers or causing discomfort — we embrace our identity and wear our true colors on our sleeves and nonetheless strive for friendly interactions.
Gabrielle didn’t think America was all bad; the attraction of America did not implicate the abstract ideas she mentioned but rather the people she met; their stories of struggle and triumph, and our rich history of popular uprisings — the Civil Rights movement, the anti-war movement, our Labor movement — which challenged the world as it was, spurring change to create a world as it ought to be.
With all that said, how to synthesize it all into a final parting thought?
Like this: I’d say there is no such thing as an ‘American’ state-of-being, and that American pride can only be shown through action.
And isn’t this sentence a self-evident truth?
For while we like to believe in an American history where we all got along and believed the same ideals and bore the same values, we didn’t. Black folk weren’t even thought of as human, let alone American, for all of our country’s history. During World War 2, Japanese-Americans were removed from society and put into internment camps, for fear that their Japanese heritage would override their American identity, so they were not considered American. Prior to then, during World War 1, the same derision was this time applied to white German-Americans, who were treated with extreme suspicion in everyday life, because they might support the Kaiser since they were “Hyphenated-Americans”. And before then were the anti-Irish, anti-papist hysteria of the 1800’s — with the unforgettable “no irish need apply” posters — which culminated in the nativist know-nothing movement. And I’d be remiss to not mention the extermination and exclusion of Native Americans from mainstream American life. Basically, unless you were of Anglo-Saxon descent, you had to earn the title of ‘American’.
Because the definition of who is and is not ‘American’ shifts based upon the prejudices and predilections of the moment, this means there is no permanent, unquestionable, objective definition of American identity. If no observable or objective American identity is apparent, then how should we define it? Well, I would posit that American identity can only be expressed through action, that Americans are those who act American.
For example, if you see a group of teenage dudes doing tricks and shit on a skateboard, then you call them sk8erbois. I don’t know how to skateboard, so, unfortunately, I can’t be called a sk8erboi. Whatsmore, sk8erbois are defined by their activity — skateboarding — even when they are not doing that activity, and you might even identify sk8erbois by what they wear, because their clothing tends to be of a distinctive fashion sense, such as sk8er shoes and ripped jeans and a flat-bill hat and a shirt with at least one skull on it because skulls are cool. However, if you wear the sk8er outfit without knowing how to sk8 then true sk8er’s would rightly call you a poser trying to fit in, which is lame as hell and a total loser move.
Similarly, when you see someone wearing cowboy boots and a cowboy hat, you assume they come from America, but if they didn’t act American — like if they dressed as a sk8er without knowing how to sk8 — then you’re a poser who should not being wearing cowboy boots and a cowboy hat.
However, I tricked you with a bad metaphor! Because this metaphor would tend to have you believe that only those who wear cowboy boots and a cowboy hat are American, and this is almost certainly not the case! It is not what one wears which signals their American identity, but rather how one acts and behaves; to be a sk8erboi is to skateboard, and to be American is to share your cultural pride!
SO, to summarize: since American identity is not a state-of-being but rather expressed through action, and to be American means to be proud of your cultural background and heritage, then showing or sharing that cultural pride is an expression of American identity.
That’s all.
