The U.S. Culture(s) thread

In short, our culture has lost the knack of allowing different generations treating each other as adults with agency when living under the same roof — even when their kids are having kids isn't always enough for grandparents to take hints that their babies kind of would like a say in a few things. The Swiss kind of have it down with intergenerational mortgages meaning anybody in the family can chip in — which can help. "Look, I put more into the pot last year than you did, I get to have the last word over the extention — nana-nana-na."

Incidentally, quite a few Swiss wound up hitting various colonies around the world as "Germans" because of feuds. Because even waving a piece of paper about doesn't solve you or your siblings being unbearable jackasses.

edited 24th Apr '17 6:34:06 AM by Euodiachloris

Hitting?

Relocating in. Quite a few wound up near where I lived, in East London (Google "the German Settlers' Monument, East London" for some horrible '60s "style").

Heck, East London has had a Mövenpick for decades.

Namibia has a fair few families with a traceable Swiss background, as well.

You find them dotted about pretty much anywhere Plattdeutsch of various descriptions hit the locality. I would bet money on Pennsylvania.

edited 24th Apr '17 2:59:21 PM by Euodiachloris

I know there's a ton of people of Swiss descent living in the mountain towns of British Columbia.

A lot of "dutch" in America were German. The german stream into the US was mostly north, along with Scandinavia (Sweden, Norway, the Dutch, Finns).

Funny, the South, mainly Texas, saw a lot of the "White" (Tzarist) Russians after the revolution. Nowawadys Russians and Eastern Europeans settle near larger coastal cities.

Somalis are in the midwest and Mexicans are everywhere.

If were talking about populations, the DC area has a growing Asian community; namely Rockville in Maryland. I also remember going to Pentagon City and seeing tons of Asians there, so assuming they aren't traveling from Maryland and live around the area, NoVA has their fair share, too.

edited 25th Apr '17 4:20:10 AM by PhysicalStamina

Question for any tropers from Boston, Massachusetts:

The Boston Cream Pie. It's obviously a cake. Why call it a pie?

It is a question that has haunted my soul ever since I ordered it and saw a cake on my plate when I expected pie.

edited 4th May '17 12:16:09 AM by M84

Just noticed this thread. I love culture in America in general and talking about it.

Most White Americans today are German or have German blood.

In California, I haven't found a single Anglo-American. Nearly every white guy/girl I talk to is either Irish, Scottish or German. A few East Europeans too.

Mexicans are mostly concentrated in what some call Occupied Mexico (the Southwest). Despite the controversial name I used, white people were the majority until very recently.

California and New Mexico's Hispanic population are already higher than their white population. Texas and Arizona are soon to follow in the next decade. The entire southwest is going to eventually be made up of castizos if my experience in California is anything to go by with how much Hispanics and European Americans are inter-mingling.

An American version of a castizo family would be an intermingled American white-Mexican Mestizo families where the kids speak Spanglish, partake in Mexican culture to an extent and all the kids are varying shades of pale to tan with black hair and darker eyes. That's what I foresee anyways.

So it's going to be interesting in the Southwest in the next 40 years to see how much the culture is going to evolve.

(And although a lot of racist whites are afraid of it, Mexicans do sometimes joke about it being a Reconquista although most of us aren't serious because none of us really want to be part of Mexico again.)

edited 4th May '17 12:56:10 AM by MadSkillz

And Alaska is Occupied Russia.

Not the same.>: (

Russia willingly sold Alaska.

Mexico sold the Southwest with a gun pointed to its head. Not that I want the Southwest to go back to Mexico but it was unjust.

I once read that Germans are the largest minority in the US...but also the most silent, due to a couple decades of laying low and not making a big deal of the own heritage.

Another thing which keeps happening in TV shows and movies and I ever wondered about: Are the groups in high school really that clear cut?

Re: Boston cream pie

Quoting from Wikipedia

Germans are the largest white ethnicity in America.◊

Yeah, that's true. There's hardly any cultural differences between German descendants and Irish descendants (besides religious differences) from what I can tell. North Europeans all pretty much partake in the same standard American culture. (South Europeans are a lot more resistant though.)

German-Americans also assimilate really fast because they tend to come to America already speaking English and living around mostly white Americans.

"Another thing which keeps happening in TV shows and movies and I ever wondered about: Are the groups in high school really that clear cut?"

Probably not. High School tropes are pretty dated to like 1981 or so. When I was in High School, back in 2008, bullying was extremely subtle when it happened, there weren't really well-defined cliques, and there wasn't this bizarre hierarchy or etiquette for who associated with whom. There were popular and more isolated people, sure, but I grew up in a suburb where my high school class was mostly unchanged since Kindergarten. By the time I was a senior, I had known dozens of them for upwards of thirteen years, and we learned to get along, even if I wasn't friends with everyone.

The only exception were the rotating crop of kids who came from military families, because my town houses most of Hanscom AFB. They were more right-wing or libertarian than the rest of the class, were more likely to be working-class in general, and had slightly grittier personalities. The ones that managed to stick in Massachusetts generally started to meld into the local culture and became seamless members of the community.

I'd actually say that German-Americans were forced to assimilate to the point of being virtually indistinguishable from other "white" ethnic groups. Up until two certain tumultuous events within the last century, there were dense German cultural enclaves spanning across the entire northeast.

During the Civil War, the numbers of Germans fighting for the Union was so large that the US Army had entire formations whose officers and men communicated in German. Beginning with the first of said tumultuous events, German-Americans stopped speaking German in public out of fear of being ostracized (which did wonders to prevent newer generations from speaking the language) and many anglicized their names to avoid unwanted attention (i.e Schmidt became "Smith" and so forth).

edited 4th May '17 9:10:47 AM by FluffyMcChicken

And Drumpf became....

Because it sounds like a pile of manure being dropped on damp mud?

His full name actually means : the ruler of the world, graced by God and a descendant of a drummer.

Drumming eh? Making a ruckus really is passed down the line with them.

And also a duck with diction issues.

Even Donald Duck showed plenty of compassion to others he didn't know.

Speaking of changing one's name to adjust to a different culture...

I've said before that I'm Taiwanese-American (with Chinese roots since my grandparents are from mainland China). When my Taiwan-born parents immigrated to the USA they didn't bother changing their names, aside from the whole "putting family name last instead of first" thing. But when I was born, they decided I needed an English name and a Chinese name. The Chinese name had actual meaning behind it, while the English name was picked out of a book at random.

I wonder if having a more "normal" name in the USA while growing up made a difference. Would my life have been different if I only had my Chinese name?

I think it would depend in part on how difficult the Chinese name is to say. I used to know someone with a really Polish name, like sounds absolutely nothing like how it looks to English-speakers, Polish. She had problems making friends because of that and eventually just told everyone to call her Sally, because that was part of her first name and people could say it. But, mostly, unless the name is super out there and hard to say, I think a lot of people would just roll with it. Well, unless the name happened to sound really embarrassing in English I guess.

edited 4th May '17 9:28:37 PM by Zendervai

...<flashbacks to the cruel jokes endured after revealing their Chinese name to classmates>

It doesn't sound as embarassing when pronounced properly, but without the proper accents it sounds really humiliating.

edited 4th May '17 9:33:07 PM by M84

I think the name makes a world of difference...having an English name suggests to possible employers: At least second generation, most likely no problem with a notable accent or wonky language skills.

This is a general rule, btw. In Germany, parents from poorer social status are apparently watching too much TV and have started to give their children names like Kevin, Justin, Chantal, Jaqueline, or simply name them after some celebrity. Those names not only stick out, they come with certain connotations. Even the teacher subconsciously expect that "Kevin" will be a problem student because in their experience, a lot of "Kevins" are. Employers are less likely to invite a candidate if he or she happens to have one of those names.

Honestly, the best thing a parent can do is just giving the child a "normal" sounding name for the region said child is living in.