What is American Culture?

Being in Colombia makes me think about American culture and the difficulty I have had in tryign to describe American culture to Colombians. Everywhere we go in Colombia we hear salsa music, get treated to dances such as cumbia and salsa, enjoy looking at the traditional and colorful Colombian clothing and eat traditional Colombian foods. Each element of Colombian culture is presented to us with pride and excitement. 

I felt this cultural pride most strongly in the public schools of Bogota and the small towns surrounding Bucaramanga. Students played traditional instruments and danced salsa. Being at a Cambridge School I wonder how students here connect or see their culture. The curriculum at Gimnasio Cantillana focuses on western history and values. In one fourth grade class the students were reading a passage about Neil Armstrong and one student asked the teacher to name a famous Colombian astronaut. The teacher responded, ¨there are no Colombian astronauts because, as everyone knows, Americans are smarter.¨ I saw this pattern repeat itself throughout the day and continue to think about the possible connection between private education in Colombia and student diconnect from their culture.

On the other hand, I have also been thinking about American culture. When thinking about American culture, it is hard for me to pin point specific elements that I would present to an international visitor. Can we claim pizza and hamburgers as American food? Is hip hop American music? Are jeans American clothing? The more I think about culture in the United States the more I appreciate the vast melting pot we have in our country and the importance of embracing our cultural differences. Every group of people who comes to the United States has added to the melting pot and it is important for us to acknowledge that America, its population and demographics and culture, will continue to shift and change. The culture of change and cultural exchange and diffusion, of religious freedom, of appreciating that we are a country of immigrants is who we are as a people and how I can best describe out culture. Even if we cannot claim a typical food as American, we need to embrace our culture of acceptance and curiosity because that, in the end, is what unites us.