It is amazing how many Americans define and see themselves personally and as a nation. When the Americas were first being settled the American identity was anything that was not European. Then as we graduated through time it morphed, changed, was modified by modern thought to become a new identity. Americans now have a different view on the world, how they see the world, how the world sees them, and how they see themselves. I can’t give a perfect definition on what the new American identity is, but I can say it is still not European. It can be said that different Americans have a different identity, but all Americans must have one universal set of beliefs, single idea, or just common perception of something. This is what I will try and explore more thoroughly.
American identity can be traced through a great deal of audible and visual. If you watch a movie made in the sixties, there will be certain views Americans felt placed in the film. If you read a newspaper published during world war II then you would also see American propaganda proliferating America’s ideals and self perpetuation of the American identity as being the best, and as being right. You can also tell an Americans identity by the way the make, view, process, publish, and articulate different kinds of maps.
Look at how many ways America has been mapped. We have the most political maps in the world and the most studied political maps in the world. These maps include voting precincts, percentages
, red maps, blue maps, non-voters percentages; a plethora of maps just identifying political analysis. Is political mapping considers Americas identity? No, I think not, but perhaps it helps us understand what America’s identity is. Look at a political map. What does it tell us as viewers? Does it say the country is divided in two? Does Americans with different views hate each other? No, what it does say is what was stated earlier, even thought Americans have different views on something does not mean the have a different identity. There is still something that ties all Americans together.Other maps have influenced how Americans think besides political maps. Political maps are just taking facts (hopefully truthful facts) and displaying the information visually. We can look at settlement maps and base what Americans identity is based on where they settled. Flow maps of where people came from could give us an idea of a common bond.
Maps are a way of communicating data visually and American identity can be pulled out of specific maps that target what American identity means. I can not classify American identity, but based on what you think about various maps, readings, movies, books, and radio; you can define an American identity. This will probably differ from what somebody else version of the same topic is, but all American identity truly is, is an individuals ideas on Americans as a whole. Of course this idea will change from person to person. But that does not make any one person wrong or right on the matter. So, choose for yourself what American identity is after you have thought about it, and looked at the American culture through its ideas.
Here are some sites for other research on American Identity:
Picture curtesy of: http://www.mnplan.state.mn.us/maps/ancestry/us/italian.gif
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