Comment by quacked
2 years ago
Outside America, this is true. Inside America, if you are unaware of pronounced regional cultural differences arising from the settler groups that form your ancestry and local culture, you're either ignorant, or not American.
But you’re already using perfectly good American regional identifiers for those regional differences in your original post.
Pet peeve from a European: the American habit of using their distant ancestor’s European ethnicity as a shorthand for stereotypical personality and culture today a) undervalues the massive political and cultural changes in Europe since their ancestor’s emigration und b) undervalues the regional differences inside their ancestor’s origin country. Being german I find both Ask and Guess culture here, just 50 km apart. And often in the same place, differing by class or the rural/urban divide. Describing „German“ as just Ask culture is rather wrong from my perspective. I know the outside and Hollywood stereotypes differ.
(And c), I think, distant ancestors ethnic stereotypes undervalues the melting pot/salad bowl effect over generations of the US itself.)
You can’t experience a culture until you leave it. When you’re in it, it’s just water. That’s why travel is interesting.
Ditto with Spaniards. Most of the "Hispanic coulture with flamenco, sun and beaches" won't apply to a whole 80% of the country. The North has beaches, but the Sun it's an English tabloid. The middle Spain has Sun, but water is something you see in rivers in reservoirs. Also, cold as hell winters.
Now try to figure that across the pond with zillions of native cultures merged with an (older than North America itself) Southern Hispanic culture from Mexico to the Patagonia close to the South Pole.