c.u.l.t.u.r.e.

After a grueling SuperCardio session with India’s own Russell Simmons, complete with short shorts and a screaming voice, H and I settle into comfy pleather sofas at Costa Coffee, ordering Caramel Cappuccinos and warm blueberry muffins.

Shortly after setting up shop we are joined by two students to our left. Fatima, an Iranian, and Mohammad, a Saudi Arabian, both completing their masters in India. A conversation of cross-cultural understanding, travel, and acceptance ensues. Trying to understand the United States, as both of them realize they will probably never gain the coveted visa access to the States, Mohammad asks, “So what is the culture of the United States?”

H and I respond with the token phrases of “melting pot”, “land of immigrants”, “diversity”, “capitalism”, but he is not satisfied.

“I know how to communicate with others from the Middle East because of a shared Arabic culture, so what is American culture?” We cannot answer cohesively.  It quickly becomes apparent that neither H nor I can actually describe where it is that we come from. We have accepted the United States as a conglomerate, never truly questioning what it is about its culture that makes it a nation, an identity.

Yes, the United States is massive and encompasses many different cultures, religions, languages, belief systems, but what is it at its base that makes it America? What do I, as a white, Presbyterian, moderate, female, with ancestors riding in on the Mayflower, share with a black, Muslim, conservative, male, with ancestors speaking French, that leads us both to claim “American” as our nationality?

Maybe it is the inherent desire for individual success, the power placed in human initiative and drive, the honor associated with hard work. The American Dream, the ability for social mobility, the space endowed for critical thought and cringe-resulting questions. The idea that nights with no sleep pay off, that running will get you somewhere other than where you began. Freedom to exist as you wish to exist, while under a protection that enables you to exist.

It includes gluttonous spending, credit-driven consumerism, placated ignorance, lazy self-indulgence. Surgery rather than accepting the reality of age, anti-depressants to numb pain. Christmases focused on presents, businesses run on shredded files, dreams of nothing more than comfort.

There are parts of this culture that I do not like and there are parts intrinsic to my very being. I am still working through understanding what this all means, so that the next time some one asks me what it means to be an American I can answer them directly, succinctly, and truthfully. For how will people from different cultures ever understand each other, if they do not even understand where they come from?