What is American culture, anyway?

What is American culture, anyway? September 30, 2016

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AArian_Foster_fumble.jpg; By AJ Guel (originally posted to Flickr as Fumble) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Is this “American culture”?
As follow up to my post from the other day:

A performance by a Mexican folk-dance group, or an African drumming group, or a few minutes on the evening news highlighting a celebration of Chinese culture at Chinese New Year, or marveling at the intricacy of the embroidery of the traditional clothing of some other group:  “what a beautiful, vibrant culture they have!”

American culture?  The conventional answer is:  “you have no distinctively American culture other than football and Thanksgiving, and football on Thanksgiving; suck it up, buttercup!”

Is that right?

Or is there an “American culture” that we just can’t see because we’re immersed in it, in the same way as we can’t hear an American English accent because it’s what we hear everyday?

Or would anything we come up with not “count” because minority groups — namely, blacks and Hispanics — don’t identify with whatever items (pioneer celebrations? folk music?) a white person might put on the list?

Just looking for input and perspectives here.

 

image:  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AArian_Foster_fumble.jpg; By AJ Guel (originally posted to Flickr as Fumble) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons


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