John Sidline has been involved in Republican politics for nearly two decades, serving in a variety of party leadership positions. John has formulated policy for state and local candidates, been both a speech writer and a campaign spokesman and a featured guest on numerous radio programs in California and Oregon. His political articles and columns have appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner and The Oregonian, among others.

JOHN SIDLINE

Only in America
A singular American cultural identity persists despite multiculturalism.
December 1, 2001





We must take a stand against terrorism in the world and combat it with firmness, for it is a most cowardly and savage violation of peace. We must remember our heritage, who we are, what we are and how this nation, this island of freedom came into being.

I dont know when it began, although I can tell you it was prevalent in the mid-1980s when I attended university. There is a growing acceptance in our society of the belief that America does not possess a singular American culture. That the United States is a land of hyphenated segments: African-Americans, Native-Americans, Mexican-Americans and so forth. That we are not a melting pot where immigrants add to an ever-changing American culture their own influences born of Old World cultures and experiences. No, America is a mixture of many co-equal but separate cultures. America is multicultural.

Multiculturalism is a concept with which I have many problems. It serves the smallest common denominator. It allows for bad policy such as bilingual education. It makes socially acceptable a ban on flying the American flag in the workplace or ceasing the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in the classroom.

Multiculturalisms most egregious by-product is a revisionist history that blames all the worlds problems on white males who dared open the New World to people from the Old. Its a history being taught today to American children in American classrooms.

As the quote above from a 1980 speech by candidate Ronald Reagan suggests, multiculturalism could be an enemy within as we wage the First War of the Twenty-First Century. Now more than ever we must turn back this tide of multiculturalism and rediscover our singular American cultural identity one that embraces all people from all backgrounds who live here in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

So, here I sit in my most worn and comfortable blue jeans and the baseball cap I like to wear while writing, drinking a hot cup of coffee and listening to a mellifluous and Kind of Blue Miles Davis on my CD player wondering how best to define American culture for those who believe it does not exist.

Anthropologists define culture as a system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, and artifacts among members of society that are passed down from generation to generation. The ingredients of culture are traits such as food, clothing, houses, language, art, music, literature, patterns of behavior and beliefs. If this definition is good enough for anthropologists, it's good enough for me:

If there is one phrase, one clich, that encapsulates the existence of American culture, it is Only in America. Where else can you start your day with a jalapeno bagel from Noahs and a decaf-nonfat white chocolate mocha from Starbucks, lunch on a Chicken MexiMelt at Taco Bell and finish the day with dinner of stuffed-crust pizza at Pizza Hut? Only in America.

Cowboy boots, baseball caps, blue jeans, t-shirts, sneakers are all American.

If you had your choice, would you live in a thatch-roofed house in Europe, a mud house in Afghanistan, or a day ranch in California? Perhaps a Cape Cod is more to your liking? How about a brownstone in Manhattan?

We are a nation united for the most part by a common language English. It is the language of commerce and government. How far can one go in this country without knowing how to speak, read and write English?

Ever lose yourself in Aaron Coplands Appalachian Spring, George Gershwins Rhapsody in Blue or the music from Leonard Bernsteins West Side Story. If symphonic music is not your style, try Jazz, Blues, Country or Rap all uniquely American forms of music.

Read a good book lately? Perhaps you might try one from the works of Edgar Allen Poe, Mark Twain, Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson or Walt Whitman. Too dated? Try Toni Morrison or Stephen King.

You could spend all day in the Smithsonian Art Museum and still not see all of the more than 37,000 pieces that span over three centuries of American Art. While very large, the Smithsonian Art Museum hardly contains all of Americas best-known works of art. You wont find James Whistlers famous painting of his mother there, for example, because that hangs in Paris in the Museum dOrsay.

The American cinema is perhaps our countrys biggest cultural export. Directors Cecil B. DeMille, Frank Capra, Orson Welles, Francis Ford Coppola, Woody Allen, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and John Singleton Americans of very different backgrounds have each left an indelible mark on the art form.

When one thinks of performing arts, one cannot help but think of Broadway and Carnegie Hall, vaudeville and burlesque, Rogers and Hammerstein.

The Fall Classic, Super Sunday, the Final Four are American traditions. True, the stadium is a Roman invention. But the tailgate party and the wave are American cultural phenomena.

Where else in the world do people celebrate St. Patricks Day, Cinco de Mayo, Fourth of July, Columbus Day, Oktoberfest, and Thanksgiving, among others, in their own towns irrespective to their own ethnic background? Only in America.

That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is at the core of the American belief system. We are one nation, under God, but our cultural beliefs respect the rights of all people to believe, or not believe, in the religion of their own choosing.

A cornerstone of American culture is generosity. American generosity twice volunteered American blood to save our European allies from conquest in two bloody World Wars. American generosity gives millions of dollars in aid whenever there is a natural disaster around the world. American generosity gave 140 million dollars in humanitarian aid to the people of Afghanistan six months before the September 11th terrorist attacks. After the attacks, Americans gave more than one billion dollars to aid those who suffered.

American spirit tamed the West and opened a continent by rail. It sent men to the moon and brought them safely home. It sends probes into space beyond our solar system and will send astronauts to Mars in the not too distant future.

American ingenuity gave us assembly lines, skyscrapers and suspension bridges. It led the world through the industrial age, the space age and into the information age.

American know-how put planes in the sky, beer into cans, lasers into printers and billions more pages of information than contained in the Library of Congress onto the World Wide Web.

Why did people come and continue to come to our shores from distant lands? Is it to preserve their own culture in separate ethnic enclaves? No, it is because it is known far and wide that our culture is accepting of immigrants who are free to pursue their own American dreams. It was our culture that allowed for America to become the Land of Opportunity.

There was a recent local news story about a Lebanese immigrant subjected to harassment because he is of Arab descent. I was moved by the picture which hangs proudly on a wall in his restaurant, a picture of him being sworn in as an American citizen. He may be from Lebanon, but he is American.

Our unique culture is derived from the immigrant populations that built this great nation. Although our urban centers may have ethnic neighborhoods, there is no question that each group of immigrants contributed noble parts of their Old World cultures into a grand American culture.

If by now you still doubt the existence of an American culture, you might want to ask Usama bin Laden his opinion. He has not hyphenated his hatred. He has declared war on Americans.

America indeed has a culture, a strong, enduring and dignified culture. Lets hold on to it, celebrate it and cherish it. Lets teach our children to honor it. Lets teach the world to respect it. We are bound together by far more than our location on a world map. We are together members of the American family. Where else in the world can you find such a pluralistic and cosmopolitan society bound by one culture? Only in America.

Write to John Sidline at rightturns.com

This column first appeared on RightTurns.com, used by permission.