Anglosphere

<,Several posters here have talked about various European influences shaping the culture of the US, such as Britain (of course) and Germany, in many ways.

But what about the non-European immigrants--such as Asians, Indians, and Latinos? >>>

But these people are still brought up in the 'European tradition' in education and the like. Well, at least the ones who will get educated and influence the direction of society. Yes, their original culture can have a strong influence, but it won't ever eliminate the big European base.

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***Americans rely on indirect nonverbal cues and value politeness above the truth (the exact opposite of Germany)***

That is really and truly spot on the button.....it's that kind of American approach which seems to irritate or puzzle most of the Brits who have moved over to the United States.....just scan through some of the threads on the British Expsts in the USA website to see that is the case.

Politeness before the honest to goodness truth - how can you really know just what an American is thinking? Scots are generally outspoken, and when I was in uni in Yorkshire it soon became obvious just how blunt and open the people there really are...no half measures - they tell you exactly what they think about you, even when it's far from the actual truth, but at least you know where you stand with them.

False politeness makes you either very uneasy or very irritated, and a strict adherenece to political correctness for the sake of not causing offence or hurt feelings all the time hides the truth as it really is, which generally leaves you hanging in mid air somehow.

Scots are indeed very outspoken. At work, we had a Scottish guy whose bluntness (largely humorous, of course) created a lot of friction with the rest of our American team. Americans have a good sense of humor, but it remains strictly within certain norms. They also strongly frown upon joking about sensitive issues like religion and patriotism. Instead, there's a veneer of respect that must always be observed. Even outspoken anti-Bush liberals in the US had respect for the sitting president when Bush was in office and refrained from direct insults. This is unthinkable in Britain, where politicans are assaulted much more directly.

If you think about it, America is actually a lot more respectful and civil than Britain, although many misinformed people seem to think the opposite. You never see hooliganism in the US, for example. Kids are raised to be extremely polite and civil. Believe it or not, American tourists are some of the best in the world, contrary to the stereotype.

**but it won't ever eliminate the big European base. ***

So that's the question, will it or won't it? Because everyone on TV here in America keeps saying how that base will be eliminated very soon. Our President is black, our Supreme Court justice is a Latina, and people are saying this pattern will actually increase.

I'm not putting any value judgments on this (good vs. bad), I'm just a neutral observer who's interested in how this will play out culturally. Will America indeed change as a result of this demographic change.

>>Also, Travis, I think your points about the connection b/w Germany and America may have some basis, but you're *really* exaggerating.<<

That is because I was not talking about the US as a whole with respect to such but rather about the Upper Midwest; such is far, far less applicable to the Northeast and the South to say the very least. As for the US as a whole, I was just saying that American culture as a whole is not English culture, or any other sort of British culture, transplanted but at the same time has a significant degree of heterogeneity with some areas such as the Northeast and the South being culturally *far* more British than others such as the Upper Midwest.

>>The austere religious fanaticism of American evangelicals is totally alien to the German experience, the land of good food and good beer. And Germans are much more blunt and straightforward, whereas Americans rely on indirect nonverbal cues and value politeness above the truth (the exact opposite of Germany).

I won't even go into the differences in attitudes toward sex, nudity, and alcohol.<<

Mind you that there is more than a century of distance in time between the bulk of German immigration to the US and the present, and while there has been other German immigration since then to parts of the US such as the Upper Midwest, post-WW1 and post-WW2 immigration had far less impact culturally than pre-WW1 immigration. The areas of the US which have received large numbers of German immigrants have been very greatly Americanized since then while Germany itself has changed significantly culturally between now and then in a fashion that bypassed German immigrants to the US. (Also note that Germany at that time as a whole was far more conservative than it is today, to say the very least. On the other hand, the politics of Wisconsin in earlier times definitely reflected the tendencies of many German Social Democrats who had left Imperial Germany for it due to the very conservatism of Imperial Germany; these political tendencies as reflected by the likes of Frank Zeidler et al though have largely been lost over time here due to both major social changes here and general Americanization of life here.)

And even then, such as I said before has a lot of regional variation; the Upper Midwest at least, for instance, has far more clear German influence than many other parts of the country where such is far lesser in degree. (The whole "good food and good beer" thing is still reflected here in Wisconsin today in ways, even though I would not say that much of the beer here is good by any means today.)

>>I would say that the US is not a country of Germans, and not even a country of Englishmen, but rather a country of Scots-Irish. These are actually the people whose descendants seem to be everywhere in the US.<<

That too is a regional thing in ways, as while they settled over much of the US, here in the Upper Midwest the main immigration from the British Isles from was from Ireland and the Irish immigrants here largely settled in the few large cities and did not really penetrate into any rural areas here. There are plenty of Irish here in Milwaukee and in Chicago, whereas the rural areas of southeastern Wisconsin are almost purely ethnically German in nature. (It is really weird, honestly - I am used to white people here in Milwaukee having a mixture of German, Irish, and Polish last names with some English, Italian, and Scandinavian last names thrown in for good measure, whereas it seems that in rural southeastern Wisconsin it seems that almost everyone's last names are German aside from the very occasional Polish last name...)

>>If you look at the map of how the US was first settled, most settlers did NOT come from England. Instead, most came from areas up North, such as Scotland and Ireland. There's a crucial cultural difference here. Also, the American accent has much more in common with Irish than with British English.<<

That is why I have been generally saying "British" here and not "English" in this discussion.

***areas such as the Northeast and the South being culturally *far* more British***

I don't consider the Northeast to be British--I consider it Italian. Maybe Irish, to a smaller degree.

If you go along the MD/PA/NJ/NY/Mass corridor, all you see is Italians.

I've lived in the NE the majority of my life so far, and I've never encountered a single Anglo-Saxon last name, neither in school nor at work. Italian and Irish, plenty.

The only time I started seeing Anglo-Saxon names (and facial features!) was when I got a job in Washington, DC, and moved down here.

Note that I was including Irish and Scots-Irish in there under "British"; there is a reason I did not say "English" there.

Sorry but when I hear "British", I automatically hear, "NOT Catholic."

But the people in the Northeast ARE Catholic (Italians and Irish). And indeed the entire culture has Catholic elements.

I can group Englishmen, Scots, and Welsh under the Protestant "British" umbrella, but there's no way I can include Catholic Irish people in that term, sorry! That's just a completely different culture.

Heh - I am just not used to thinking of things in such, well, sectarian terms. While Catholicism has had a quite strong influence here in southeastern Wisconsin, it has certainly not been sectarian in nature in that kind of way here. In particular, the ethnic German population here has had both very large Catholic and very large Lutheran elements in it which really have had little such a division. For instance, *the* traditional meal here in southeastern Wisconsin, the Friday Night Fish Fry, is distinctly German Catholic in origin, yet it has been thoroughly secularized in practice to the point of having no direct religious connotations today (even though it definitely has ethnic connotations in its most traditional form). In more recent years, it has been quite popular amongst more liberal or simply disaffected Catholics, such as my fiancée, who is from a traditionally German Catholic family, to defect to the Episcopal church here, due to it being in many ways quite similar to the Catholic church yet lacking some of its more disliked aspects in practice; the fact that the Episcopal church is nominally Protestant is not an issue at all for them overall.

(Mind you that the Episcopal church has a reputation here of essentially being the Catholic church minus the Pope, the probition on priests and like marrying, the more onerous rules on who one can marry in the church, the confessionals, the issues with child molestation, the Catholic schools and the reputation of how they were run in the old days, and so on; the word "Protestant" here generally connotates the likes of the Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Methodist churches rather than the Episcopal church.)

<<Sorry but when I hear "British", I automatically hear, "NOT Catholic."

But the people in the Northeast ARE Catholic (Italians and Irish). And indeed the entire culture has Catholic elements.

I can group Englishmen, Scots, and Welsh under the Protestant "British" umbrella, but there's no way I can include Catholic Irish people in that term, sorry! That's just a completely different culture. >>

You gotta be kidding me, ESB!

I never think about religious preference when I hear British -- I assume they come in all flavors, like anyone else. And as for British and Irish being "completely different cultures", I can't even begin to agree -- they are virtually identical to me. They may seem worlds apart from the perspective within the British Isles or by people interested in that part of the world, but to the rest of us outsiders, they're about the same thing. (And isn't it always those who are closest to each other in every respect who then insist on fighting like cats and dogs?)

I don't know that there has really been all that much cultural impact on the US from non-European immigrants. Asians haven't ever been a huge component of the population, except in the big cities and on the west coast. (My apologies, Duke, but when I say "Asian", I mean from the Far East, which is how most Americans use the term. Immigrants from India and Pakistan and Iran, etc. are present in the US, but are pretty negligible in terms of numbers or impact.) Latin Americans are really much like Americans -- they're mostly post-Europeans. They bring a pretty European-derived culture with them. They are to the Spanish what we are to the British -- cousins who've moved away and gone off on their own, but are still recognizable at family get-togethers. So to say that they are taking us in a particularly new cultural direction isn't really true.

"I can't even begin to agree -- they are virtually identical to me."

I imagine that some people think like you do, Uriel, but the Irish seem distinct from English people to me. Why this is, I don't know, but I did know some Irish folk in France and worked for English people in another country and they seemed different. Irish people seem more, uh, can I say this, openly emotional.

"cousins who've moved away and gone off on their own, but are still recognizable at family get-togethers."

I almost wrote the same thing, lol, then I saw this. Yes, Brits are like cousins.

***Believe it or not, American tourists are some of the best in the world, contrary to the stereotype***

I so wish I could say the same about us Brits, but I can't without telling one enormous porky pie! Brits, especially those under the age of 30 which I'm sorry to say is my own age group at present, are notorious throughout Europe, and I believe in the USA, for their bad behaviour and drunken exploits, no different from the way they are here at home.

It's a national disgrace the British Government, and other official organisations, are currently working out the best ways to deal with this problem which sadly seems to be a particularly british phenomenon...yobs who are ready cash rich (often courtesy of the hard working British taxpayers) and common sense and basic standard of decency poor.

Don't worry - I believe you about American tourists. I come from Edinburgh where we have tourists visit us from all over the world throughout the year, but especially at this particular time in the summer as the international Festival is set to begin. We're used to seeing plenty of Americans, and although most of them like to make their presence heard in no uncertain terms, and who, quite rarely to be fair, throw a hissy fit when they have their US $bills declined as payment in UK stores, I have never, ever seen an American tourist, of any age, behaving in an unruly and uncivilsed way, and most definitely, never, ever have I come across an American drunk in public....not ever, of any age.

Of course, I've no idea how some of the younger ones, similar in age to our own drunken louts infesting the streets of night-time Britain and the holiday spots or stag night venues of Continental Europe, behave back home in America, but I doubt very much that it is anything like the British experience at the present time.