Socio-Cultural Nebula:
Exploring the American National Identity
Justin Mills
Greed is good, get get get, I want what you have, don't touch mine." This is what a friend of mine said when I asked for his conception of the American national identity is.1 Although this statement seems informal and absurd, it accurately reflects the dog-eat-dog world many people believe to be the American capitalist culture.2 Whether my friend said this with the intent of comic relief is inconsequential. Whether he knew it, the informant reflects his cultural identity.
Many ambiguities surround the establishment, formation, and retention of a national identity. To what extent can a national identity be individualized? Does every individual, regardless of origin, possess the ability to engage in the national identity? Can an individual abandon his or her "cultural self?"3 Can non-American citizens who reside in America create multi-national identities of their own? Is a national identity predestined, or does an individual exert control over it? There is not one definitive national identity in any society. America is marked by the diversity of both people and ideas.
The aim of this paper is not to establish a universal conception of national identity from the basis of history and documented facts. Rather, I am attempting to form a holistic definition of the national identity from my fieldwork with the widest possible variety of college students.
Hernando, a native of Sacramento, considers himself a Mexican-American, yet he declares himself to be of indigenously American descent. He states, "If you trace my lineage back, I am actually from the United States. My family came from Texas and California before it was taken over by the United States." Despite Hernando's Mexican ancestry, he prioritizes his American heritage and prides himself on his participation in the American identity.
Hernando defines the national identity as "the coming together as one people from a mixture of races, and basically cultures, including socio-economic borders and such." He proceeds to explain that because America is a "melting pot" full of diversities in cultures, ideas, and lineages, retaining a universal national identity is not possible. Hernando justifies this statement by offering an example of a country where he believes a national identity has been established. He says, "The Germans have created a national identity; what do you have there? Germans, people of German descent."
Iago, a nineteen year-old Puerto Rican male claims, "Socially and economically, I have an American identity. Ethnically, no, I do not have an American identity." A firm believer in humanism and individualism, he considers the concept of a national identity in any context to be irrational. He continues, "A national identity represses the evolution of social and economic diversification." Iago claims that he is altogether devoid of a national identity. Is this possible? Can a person willingly select which aspects of a national identity to apply to his or her personal culture?
Maya, an eighteen year-old native of India, insists that the national identity is "a lot of different people living together and being able to live together." Instead of classifying the nation as a unified whole, like Hernando has, she concentrates on the ability and necessity of co-habitation in America.
Maya herself is an excellent example of this co-habitation. While conducting the interview, we are constantly interrupted by many of her friends. She seems so sociable and comfortable; she could pass for a native-born American with little or no effort at all. She tilts her head backwards, tosses her hair aside, and proclaims, "I love this country, I really do." Yet Maya has an Indian "cultural self" that she is reluctant to abandon. As a result, she indicates that she does not consider herself a part of the American national identity.
After asserting her exclusion from the national identity, Maya contends, "If I live here for a long period of time, then I might become Americanized; but I will still be Indian." If Maya were to become Americanized, which identity would she then be associated with? Maya's account reaffirms the need for the existence of multi-national identities in America.
Maya's last comments concern identity superiority. When I ask if she considers some identities to be stronger or more resilient than others, she automatically responds that she feels India's national identity is stronger than America's. She justifies this by stating that India's age, especially when compared to America's, allows for a much stronger cultural identity to exist. Maya also asserts that the Indian identity has remained static throughout the centuries. This rationale is explained by "naturalizing discourses"; "they [nations being observed] regularly represent particular identities as if they were rooted in biology or nature, rather than in history or culture, thereby making them appear eternal and unchanging."4
Pedro is a half-Mexican, half-Guatemalan freshman in college. He portrays the national identity as "the types of things that are universally valued within the whole nation." He continues, "American people are very self-focused, yet their progressive attitude benefits everyone." Much like Hernando, Pedro immediately associates himself with the American national identity.
Pedro also states, "National identities are always changing. For instance, in the 1800s, slavery was a significant part of the national identity. But we [the United States] aren't racist anymore, at least not purposefully." This lends additional credence to the idea that national identities are dynamic, as opposed to static.
Some descriptions of national identity incorporate standards or symbols. For instance, Melissa, an eighteen year-old female student of Jewish descent, believes that one's ability to be included in the national identity relies upon one's ability to "fit" into the general American stereotype. She also feels that the national identity is formed through the creation of a prototype of the ideal American person. Although Melissa believes this stereotypical identity is essentially logical, she asserts that the methods with which America carries out this process are unsound. Furthermore, she is frustrated because she does not "fit" into what she thinks is the "blond, blue-eyed, white, rich, and cliquey" American prototype. Therefore, Melissa does not perceive herself as participating in the national identity.
To define the national identity, each informant uses key metaphors.5 For instance, Melissa employs an organic metaphor to illustrate her idea of the American prototype. An "organic metaphor applies the image of a living body to something [else]."6 In this context, Melissa applies the image of her "six-foot tall, blond, blue-eyed, white, rich, and cliquey" female to generalize how she believes American society as a whole views the national identity.
Conversely, most of the informants establish an outlook containing societal metaphors that refer to the social order.7 Hernando uses this class of metaphor in his definition of the national identity as "the coming together as one people from a mixture of races." Additionally, Hernando's reference to socio-economic borders correlates with Schultz and Lavenda's idea of the social order.
The societal metaphor Hernando uses to describe his perception of the national identity develops via an articulated style of reasoning that "tend[s] to break the world into smaller and smaller pieces, which can then be organized into larger chunks."8 Hernando demonstrates this reasoning as he describes the process by which individuals in a society assemble to form a national unity. Inversely, Pedro's comments demonstrate a global style of reasoning, indicated when he defines the national identity as "the types of things that are universally valued within the whole nation. American people are very self-focused, yet their progressive attitude benefits everyone." Pedro's beliefs are based in the concept of the nation as a whole. He then focuses on how we, as humans, retain the ability and the obligation to benefit society.
The beauty of holistic fieldwork lies in the unpredictability and diversity of every informant. As a novice anthropologist, I have gained useful experience within the context of this fieldwork. Issues and hindrances that one would conventionally think of as problematic are as vital to fieldwork as the verbal exchanges themselves. In fact, if not for these aspects, the results of this research would be dramatically different.
Contextual differences, informants' reasoning, and the various conversational frames-or "ways of showing how we mean what we say or do and figuring out how others mean what they say or do"9—differed from informant to informant. Asking the informants specifically about their conception of the national identity is the framework I employed to determine a holistic definition of American national identity.
I argue that it is the diversity of ideas, rather than the ideas themselves, that collectively forms the true American identity. Granted, each informant's perception of national identity is personally valid, but it is when they are put together that the real national identity is formed. Furthermore, if an individual constructs what he or she believes to be a definition of any given national identity and just one other person disagrees, it can no longer encompass the national identity, as the term "national" in this case connotes everyone. Instead, the national identity of America lies in each and every one of us and in our freedom to create our own personal interpretation of our country's national identity.
Notes
- There is a distinct difference between "the" national identity and "a" national identity. "The" is used in the context of the United States and "a" refers to the universal construct.
- In this discourse, the term "America" refers to the United States.
- Emily A. Schultz and Robert H. Lavenda. Cultural Anthropology: A Perspective on the Human Condition, 5th ed. (California: Mayfield, 2001) 120.
- Ibid., 328.
- Ibid., 160.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid., 109.
- Deborah Tannen. That's Not What I Meant! How Conversational Style Makes or Breaks Relationships. (New York: Ballantine, 1987), 74-75.
Bibliography
Schultz, Emily A., and Robert H. Lavenda. Cultural Anthropology: A Perspective on the Human Condition. 5th ed. California: Mayfield, 2001.
Tannen, Deborah. That's Not What I Meant! How Conversational Style Makes or Breaks Relationships. New York: Ballantine, 1987.