Re: CHAT: American Culture (was Re: "Whiteness" Re: Obseneties)

Barry Garcia wrote:

"But for a quick classification of myself I go with Filipino-American
because i am physically more Filipino looking , as well as I have a definate
sense of what it is to be Filipino than it is to be American (what does it
mean? What defines American culture specifically? That's one of the
problems)."

To which Thomas Wier responded:
     "That's an interesting question.  The answers is, I think:  there is no
one American culture, and there never has been."
     I am reminded of a fascinating article which appeared in the local
Gazette not too long ago.  The article describes alternative American
literatures being taught at Harvard: slave journals written in Arabic,
Puritan literature in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, Spanish and French colonial
literature, Native American tales, etc.  It is archived at

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/1999/02.25/sollors.html

    "While English eventually emerged as the universal public language among
those of European descent, that by no means implies that everyone suddenly
gave up their ancestral habits just because of that.   New York City (former
Nieuw Amsterdam), to cite just one example, kept its archives in both Dutch
and English until 1825 IIRC, and there are still members of the Dutch
Reformed Church in that city."
     Dutch was still spoken in New York until the turn of the last century,
and it is still apparently spoken in some isolated areas of New Jersey.  I
know that there is a community of African-Americans in Jackson who speak a
Dutch creole.  It is a little known fact that these African-Americans (and
many others - New Jersey had the largest population of slaves north of the
Mason-Dixon, most of whom were brought by the Dutch) were settled in New
Jersey long before the English speaking colonists arrived on the scene!  Of
the original Dutch, Swedish, and Finnish settlers - there is no trace.
They've all assimilated completely.
     It's about time someone revived Jersey Dutch.  Or, perhaps Jerriaise.
The Garden State badly needs an infusion of culture beyond the normal
Starbucks-Barnes&Nobles-Sbarro's type.
-Chollie
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