Culture of United States of America - history, traditions, people, family, women, clothing, beliefs, food, customs.

 

Culture of United States - Orientation

Identification.

The name America ​​was often used to refer to the United States of America, but until the political establishment of the United States after the Revolutionary War, this designation was reserved for South America. The contemporary use of the term to refer to the United States underscores that country's political and economic dominance in the western hemisphere. The use of this term is not political from the point of view of Canadians and Latin Americans.

The United States has a politically and economically dominant Anglo majority. One of the characteristics of the country as a nation is the legacy of slavery and the persistence of economic and social inequality based on race.

The United States European roots come from English and Spanish settlers in colonial North America during British and Spanish rule. In contrast to other peoples of the British Isles, the British variety was the predominant ethnic group in the 17th century and made up 47.9% of the total population of 3.9 million. They were 60% white at the first census in 1790 (%: 3.5 Welsh, 8.5 Scotch Irish, 7.2 German, 4.7 Irish, 4.3 Scots, 2.7 Dutch, 1.7 French and 2 Sweden).

U.S. culture has significant regional influence. Most Americans are aware of this difference even though these areas have undergone economic transformations and Americans are a highly mobile people who often leave their home areas.

The Northeast is densely populated. Its sprawling urbanized corridors have been called a national "megalopolis". Once a leader in technology and industry, the Northeast has been taken over in those areas by California's Silicon Valley.

The Midwest is both rural and industrial. It is the home of the family farm and is the nation's "corn belt" and "breadbasket". In the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwest, the auto and steel industries are central to both community and economy. As those industries declined, the upper Midwest earned the moniker "rust belt."

The South was shaped by the secession of the Union before the Civil War and is associated with slavery and the subsequent battle for civil rights for African Americans. In contemporary terms, it's a country of sunshine, a retirement haven, and a new economic frontier.

The West, the last national frontier, is associated with the national dream and the myth of limitless opportunity and individualism. It has the most open landscape in the country.

California, along with the southwestern states were ceded to the United States by Mexico in 1848 following the Mexican-American War. The Southwest is distinctive because of its historical ties to colonial Spain, its Native American population, and its regional cuisine, which has been influenced by both Native American and Spanish cultures.

Location and Geography.

The United States is the fourth largest country in the world, with an area of ​​3,679,192 square miles (9,529,107 square kilometers). It includes fifty states and one federal district, in which the capital city, Washington, D.C., is located. Its forty-eight states are located in the center of North America. The continental United States is bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico, the Gulf of Mexico and the Florida Straits to the south. The western border meets the Pacific Ocean, and to the east lies the Atlantic Ocean.

Alaska and Hawaii are not joined by the other forty-eight states. Alaska is on the northern tip of North America, between the Pacific and Arctic Oceans, and is bordered by Canada to the east. The Hawaiian island chain is located in the east-central Pacific Ocean, about two thousand miles southwest of San Francisco.

Although Americans generally do not think of themselves as an imperial or colonial power, it does have a number of commonwealths and territories, most of which were acquired through military conquest. This territory includes Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands in the Caribbean basin, and Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, and Wake Island in the Pacific.

The physical environment is very diverse and often spectacular. Alaska's glaciers coexist with the flowering tundra that blooms in the arctic summer. The forests of the Pacific Northwest and northern California are known for their ancient trees, including Sitka spruce and sequoia. Niagara Falls, Yellowstone National Park, and the Grand Canyon are some of the more well-known landscapes.

The physical territories of countries overlap both national boundaries and cultural areas. For example, the Atlantic coastal plain extends from New England to the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. It is characterized by flooded river valleys which form large estuaries, such as the Chesapeake Bay.

The Appalachian Mountains cover two cultural regions. Located west of the Atlantic coastal plain, they stretch from the Mid-Atlantic state of New York to the southeastern state of Georgia. The Appalachians are old, eroded mountains that are now heavily forested. Walking the two thousand mile Appalachian Trail allows you to cross the entire range.

The lowland interior areas also cross national borders and territories. This includes the Midwestern corn belt and the Great Plains wheat-growing region. The Great Plains portion of the interior lowlands extends into Canada.

The Western Cordillera is a mountain range that stretches from Chile in South America to Alaska in North America. The highest peak in the country, Mount McKinley (Denali), is in the Western Cordillera in Alaska. The West Intermontane Plateau, or Great Basin, crosses from the mountainous country to the West.

The main navigable inland waterways include the Mississippi River, which cuts north to south through the east-central portion of the country; the great lakes of the upper Midwest, the world's largest group of freshwater lakes; and the Saint Lawrence River.

The physical environment has a significant influence on regional culture. The rich topsoil of the Midwest makes it an important agricultural area; its rivers and lakes make it a center for industrial development. 

However, settlers significantly changed their surroundings, recreating the landscapes they left behind in Europe. The vast prairies of the Great Plains, which are characterized by many species of tall grass, have been transformed by irrigation and modern farming methods into sustainable soybean and wheat fields. In the West, a series of pipelines and dams turned the Los Angeles and surrounding desert into giant oases.

American settlers weren't the first to change this landscape; Native American groups also changed the lands on which they depended. Fire is used in hunting, and this expands the pastures; irrigation is used in sedentary communities that practice agriculture; and corn, a crop that cannot grow without human manipulation, is a staple crop.

The idea that environment shapes culture or character does have cultural currency. More than a century ago, historian Frederick Jackson Turner theorized that America's frontier experience had played a part in shaping a strong, independent, and democratic national character. democracy, independence, and Wilderness are all common elements in American symbolism.

Demographics.

The United States has a population of over 280 million (2000 census), but the population is relatively sparse. The most populous state, California, with 33,871,648 residents, contrasts with Wyoming, which has only 493,782 residents.

The fact that the United States is an urban country is reflected in these population figures. More than 75 percent of the population lives in cities, of whom more than 50 percent is estimated to be in the suburbs. Population growth is at a below replacement rate unless immigration is taken into account.

One of the most significant facts about the population is that the average age is increasing. Baby boomers born in the period from the end of World War II to the early 1960s are starting to age.

White men have a life expectancy of 73 years, and white women have a life expectancy of 79 years. African-American men have a life expectancy of sixty-seven years; in inner-city areas, the average life expectancy of African-American men is much lower. Infant mortality rates are higher among African Americans than among whites.

U.S. Census Categories identify the population according to whether they are of European (white) descent. Whites make up the vast majority at about 70 percent of the population. According to current census figures, in 2000 the largest minority were black people, who numbered about 35 million, or 13 percent of the population.

The Hispanic (Latino) population, which includes primarily people of Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban descent (who may be any color), is estimated at 31 million, or 12 percent of the population. Latinos are expected to be the largest minority group in the early twenty-first century.

Asian residents (including Pacific Islanders) are defined as Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Indian, Korean and Vietnamese. There are an estimated eleven million Asians, making up about 4 percent of the population.

Native Americans, which includes Alaska Natives such as Inuit and Aleuts, are estimated to comprise over two million people, a little over 1 percent of the population. Approximately one third of Native Americans live on reservations, trusts, territories, and mother lands under Native American jurisdiction.

Updates. The current population of the United States of America is 335,586,303 as of Monday, November 14, 2022, based on Worldometer, and accounts for approximately 4.25% of the world's total population. besides that the United States is in 3rd place in the list of countries with the most population in the world.

The population density in the United States now is 36 per Km2 (94 people per mi2) the total land area is 9,147,420 Km2 (3,531,837 sq. miles) 82.8 % of the population is urban (273,975,139 people in 2020) and the median age in the United States States is 38.3 years.

Linguistic Affiliation.

There is no official national language. If English is the unofficial first language, Spanish is the unofficial second. The United States ranks fifth in the world in the number of Spanish speakers.

Americans are expected to speak standard English. Within the social hierarchy of American English dialects, Standard English can be described as an acceptable example of correct usage based on the model of cultural, economic, and political leaders. 

There is no clear definition of what Standard English is, and it is often defined by what it is not. For example, it is often contrasted with the type of English spoken by black Americans (African-American Vernacular English).

Standard English grammar and pronunciation is taught by English teachers in public schools. Like "whiteness", it implies a neutral, normative and non-ethnic position. However, most Americans do not speak Standard English; instead, they speak of various class, ethnic, and regional variants.

Many dialects of spoken English have been influenced by Native Americans, immigrants, and slaves. These languages ​​include not only Dutch, German, and Scandinavian, African and Asian  languages, but less widely spoken languages ​​such as Yiddish, Basque, and Greek. So, spoken English reflects the nation's immigration and history.

As linguistic diversity has increased, and especially as Spanish has become more widely spoken, the language has become an important aspect of debates about the meaning or nature of American culture. Language and cultural diversity is welcomed in states such as New York and Illinois, where bilingual Spanish education is mandated in public schools. 

However, in California, where tensions between Anglo and Mexican immigrants are running high, bilingual education has been abolished from the public school system. State law prohibits even bilingual personnel from using Spanish with Spanish-speaking patients in hospitals or with students in schools.

Bilingual education is nothing new. In the nineteenth century, the Germans outnumbered all other immigrant groups except all the peoples of the British Isles combined. With the exception of Spanish speakers in the Southwest, foreign languages ​​have never been widely spoken. 

Special German newspapers and German and bilingual public schools were found throughout the Midwest and Oregon and Colorado and elsewhere from the mid-nineteenth century until World War I, when anti-German sentiment resulted in the abolition of German language teaching in public schools.

Other languages ​​used in the press and in public schools include Yiddish, Swedish and Norwegian. Thus, English-only advocates, who claim that bilingual education should not be given to Spanish-speaking immigrants because earlier immigrants did not have this advantage, ignore the fact that such immigrants are often schooled in their native language.

Education is important in spreading English as a standard language. Public schools play a major role; by 1870, every state in the country had committed to compulsory education. The percentage of foreign-born persons unable to speak English peaked at 31 per cent in 1910, by 1920 had fallen to 15 per cent, and by 1930 had fallen to less than 9 per cent. 

Among Native Americans, English was enforced by the Bureau of Indian Affairs as mandatory boarding schools for school-age children. Contemporary Native American speech patterns can be traced to that experience.

Symbolism.

The flag is perhaps the most powerful and contested national symbol. Consisting of stripes representing the original thirteen colonies and fifty stars representing the fifty states, it is featured on national holidays such as Veterans Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, and Independence Day. Public places and businesses raise the flag as a matter of course. People who fly the flag in their homes or yards are making explicit statements about their patriotic relationship to the nation.

Flags are also often used as a symbol of protest. In the nineteenth century, northern abolitionists flew the flag upside down to protest the return of runaway slaves to their southern owners, and the inverted flag continued to be used as a sign of protest. The use of the flag's stars and stripes design on clothing, whether for fashion, humor, or protest, is controversial and considered by some as treason and by others as an individual right within a state that upholds the individual. right.

Nationalism and community solidarity are often expressed through sport. In the Olympic games, patriotic symbols abound, and the victors are heralded for their American qualities of determination, individualism, and competitiveness. In the same way, football matches connect fans with each other and with their communities through the home team. 

The game reveals the important value of competition: unlike soccer, American football games can never end in a draw. Football also reflects cultural ideals about sex and gender; performer and cheerleader clothing exaggerated male and female sex characteristics.

History and Ethnic Relations

The Emergence of the Nation.

The first European settlements date from the early sixteenth century and include Spanish towns in Florida and California, French outposts in Louisiana, and English settlements in New England. The United States of America was declared in 1776 by colonists from England who wanted independence from that country and its elite representation in the colonies.

Contemporary national class, race, ethnic and gender relations are rooted in the colonial period. Unsuccessful attempts by English settlers to enslave Native Americans were followed by the importation of African slaves to work the cotton plantations in the South and white indentured slaves to work in the burgeoning industries of the North.

British taxes fell disproportionately on poor white workers and indentured servants. The sector was instrumental in organizing the protests and boycotts of British goods that led to the American Revolution. Women participated in the Revolution by running farms and businesses during the war.

The Revolution's egalitarian rhetoric did not extend to slaves, and after independence, full citizenship rights did not extend to all white people. Men and women who do not own property do not have voting rights. (Women did not gain the right to vote until the early twentieth century.) The western regions of the Appalachians were inhabited by poor white people who sought land and autonomy from wage labor.

After 1820, when poor white men were gaining the vote in most states, women began to see their lack of political rights in a new light. The ability of women to attribute their powerlessness to men in relation to plantation owners made them active in the abolitionist movement. However, after the Civil War when freed male slaves, but not freed women or white women, were given the right to vote, the women's suffrage movement broke with the civil rights movement in the South.

State laws enacted in the South after the Civil War enforced racial segregation by keeping freed people out of skilled and industrial jobs, limiting their political rights through strict ballot registration practices, and enforcing segregation at all levels, including housing. And education.

Women were an important part of the industrial workforce in the nation's early years. Their work in textile manufacturing helped provide commodities to a growing population and freed up men to work in the agricultural sector. Women were active in union organizing in the nineteenth century.

Developing countries are also shaped by their territorial expansion. After the Revolution, the United States included only thirteen former British colonies in the Northeast and Southeast. Territories west and south of the original colony were acquired through later purchases and concessions. 

The most important of these acquisitions was the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, in which the country doubled its area. This purchase marked the beginning of western expansion beyond the Appalachians. It became the country's "real destiny" to develop from the east to the west coast.

During this time, the Indian wars that finally subdued the main Native American groups and pushed them west into the reservation lands were waged. In 1838, President Andrew Jackson rounded up thousands of Cherokee from North Carolina and marched them into "Indian territory," then the vast territory that included Oklahoma. One out of every four Cherokee died from cold, hunger, or disease, and the Cherokee people named this march the Trail of Tears.

Another major expansion occurred after the Mexican-American War. In 1848, Mexico was forced to sell its northern territories to the United States. The Guadalupe-Hidalgo Agreement recognized California and what is now the Southwest, greatly expanding the landmass of the United States and broadening its ethnic and linguistic profile.

In 1890, many Sioux were massacred at the Battle of Wounded Knee, and the survivors were forced onto the Pine Ridge Reservation. This battle marked the loss of the traditional Native American way of life. That same year, the Census Bureau observed that white people in almost every corner populated the continental United States. America's borders are considered closed.

National Identity.

Often referred to as a melting pot, the United States is popularly regarded as a country that assimilated or absorbed immigrant populations to produce American standards. This is a powerful cultural idea. The word "America" ​​conjures images of white, middle-class status.

All other peoples, including the area's indigenous people, are "hyphenated" or characterized by identifying adjectives: African-American, Native American, Asian-American, Mexican-American. The national census does not hyphenate Americans of European descent.

The massive wave of non-European immigration since the 1960s has made the United States the country with the highest immigrant population in the world. This fact, in conjunction with the numerous identity and civil rights movements that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, As a result, a new type of cultural politics has emerged that calls into question the country's Anglo identity and power base.

Ethnic Relations.

Since colonial times, indentured servants and other poor white people were a buffer between landowners and slaves, who were the lowest rung of the social ladder. Poor whites identified themselves as whites to associate themselves with the powerful landowning class rather than see their common interests with slaves. This process accentuates the domination of white racial identity over class identity.

The "whiteness" of buffer groups becomes ambiguous, changing with their position in the labor market. Although considered white today, the Irish immigrants who arrived in large numbers in the early nineteenth century occupied the bottom rung of the labor force next to slaves and were often referred to as "white niggers".

Between 1848, when land from Mexico was annexed, and the 1930s, Americans of Mexican descent were classified as white. When Mexicans became important as laborers in the growing agribusiness sector, they were reclassified as Mexican-Americans. The massive wave of immigrants that poured into the country from Southern and Eastern Europe between 1880 and World War I formed a new buffer group. This group includes many Jews who were not considered white for generations.

The relationship between racial and ethnic groups has been mediated by the relationship between status, whiteness, and position in the labor market. Between 1916 and 1929, African American laborers migrated North to work in the industry. Paid less than whites for comparable work, they were regarded by white workers as union busters and scabs.

African Americans also received less than their share of social benefits provided to whites after World War II. Federal programs for returning veterans include housing and education subsidies. Most of this white group considers their own rise to the middle class to be the result of sweat and determination.

Urbanism, Architecture, and Use of Space

The United States is an urban and suburban nation whose many cities each tell a story about its historical and economic development. New York, founded by the Dutch as a trading colony, was once a hunting and fishing ground for Native Americans. It became an important industrial center in the nineteenth century, but by the mid-twentieth century, the industry had declined, and most of its middle-class population had moved to the suburbs. 

As the twenty-first century begins, New York is a "global" city rising from the abyss with its role as a financial center in the world economy. Like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles have emerged as important cities in the connected world.

Many cities are noted for their special regional role. Saint Louis, located on the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, was an important transportation hub in the nineteenth century before railroads replaced riverboats as the most efficient form of travel. Once known as the "Gateway to the West," it was the last outpost of civilization as the country expanded westward. 

Today, it is possible to see the Arch, a monument to the expansionist past, from nearby Cahokia, which houses the ruins of one of the world's greatest cities at its time. Between 900 and 1300 AD, this city built by Indigenous Mississippi culture was larger than most contemporary European cities.

Cities were divided along racial and class lines during colonial times. Row houses, a series of attached dwellings, are a common form of housing. This represents the defensive posture of the early settlers, whose enclaves protected them from the wild wilderness and its Indian inhabitants. The elite lived in city centres, often with slave quarters behind their houses. 

The working class and urban slaves, who were eventually allowed to live apart from their masters, lived in the early suburbs and suburbs. In early American cities, there was no separation between work and home. Most of the goods are produced by artisans who live and work in the same building. As an industrialized country, homes and workplaces are different.

During the nineteenth century, the suburbs transformed from spaces for social outcasts and the lower class to spaces for the elite. A number of factors led to the suburb that is the center of modern American life. A romantic engagement with the countryside arose as the frontier stretched west and the wilderness receded from view in the East. 

The noise and pollution of nineteenth-century industrial cities, as well as the presence of the working class, made them less attractive to the elite. These factors combined with the transport revolution made possible by cable cars and trains.

Cities were havens for new immigrants, who soon began moving to the suburbs, and permanent territories of the working poor and, until recently, black Americans of all classes, who were kept out of the suburbs through discriminatory real estate practices and zoning. The suburbs were organized along class and ethnic lines, and the cities became the repository of the most disadvantaged.

The elite class early suburbs were characterized by large houses and architectural uniqueness. Beginning in the early twentieth century, federal subsidies such as deductible mortgage interest and loan programs made suburban life possible for working-class and middle-class immigrants. Standard designs and fast-building methods resulted in unattractive architecture but relatively inexpensive housing.

The use of automobiles and the growth of highways allowed the expansion of national suburbs where shopping malls and motels were reminders of ubiquity. Americans have a complex relationship with the suburbs. In a way, it represents success, family life, and safety from the chaos and dangers of the city, fulfilling the distinctly American promise that every family should be able to own their own home. The monotony of this landscape, on the other hand, serves as a metaphor for cultural conformity, social isolation, and racism.

For women, suburban life is very ambiguous. Suburbs promise spacious homes and yards and safe and healthy places to raise children, but single-family homes isolate women from extended family networks and friends that make parenting less onerous.

Suburbs are often called bedroom communities, suggesting that suburban people depend on the nearest city for jobs, services, and cultural activities. However, the growth of suburban industries and services that enable suburban residents to work in their own communities demonstrates a declining dependence of the suburbs on the city center.

In the 1970s, white flight from cities created an urban-suburb landscape aptly described as the Brown City/Vanilla Suburb of the racial segregation of blacks and whites. Cities are mythological in the popular imagination as wild and dangerous places full of crime, gang violence and drugs. Young black males and welfare mothers are symbols of social problems.

Beginning in the 1980s, young urban professionals began to "reclaim" cities, rehabilitating the aging and often dilapidated housing stock. This process of gentrification turned cities into America's new frontier, where professionals attracted to large financial centers like New York and Los Angeles were "pioneers" and black and Hispanic residents were "Indians."

Food and Economy

Food in Everyday Life. 

Americans eat large amounts of processed, convenience, and fast food. The typical diet contains a lot of salt, fat, and refined carbohydrates. An estimated 60 percent of Americans are obese. Preferences for packaged and processed foods are culturally rooted. Americans, as a whole, enjoy the taste of hamburgers, hot dogs and junk food. Processed foods are generally considered to be cleaner or safer than unprocessed foods.

Industrial food manufacturers use advertising to associate processed foods with desirable modern and industrial qualities such as speed, cleanliness and efficiency. Speed ​​of preparation is especially important in countries with nuclear family households where the wife and mother have no relatives to help them and are usually only responsible for food preparation.

However, gourmet, regional, and alternative dining styles go a long way. Gourmet food, including high-quality fresh and local produce, imported cheeses, quality coffee and European varieties of bread, is available in every city and many cities.

Regional cuisine, from cheesesteaks in Philadelphia to green chilli stews in New Mexico and grits in the South, are culinary reminders that this country encapsulates many distinct traditions.

The health food movement is an alternative tradition that includes a preference for unprocessed foods as well as fruits and vegetables that have not been chemically treated or genetically altered. Some health food advocates are especially concerned with avoiding the heavily processed foods that comprise a large part of the traditional diet. 

Others also see the consumption of organic produce, which is generally produced on small, labour-intensive farms, as a way to combat the ecological damage caused by agrochemicals and challenge the corporate nature of food production.

Food Customs at Ceremonial Occasions. 

Americans have several occasions that they call ceremonial. Some food rules still apply when it comes to weddings, funerals and other ceremonies. Most weddings, whether religious or secular, include a large tiered cake. 

After the wedding, the newlyweds feed each other a piece of cake. At Jewish funerals, fish, usually smoked or pickled, and eggs may be served as symbols of continuance of life. Some Americans, especially those in the South, eat hopping john, a dish made with peas, to bring good luck in the New Year.

Americans have many fixed food rituals to accompany events and occasions that are not generally considered ceremonial. Wake up with coffee. Social events usually include alcohol. Hot dogs and beer are ubiquitous at sporting events, and popcorn and candy are consumed in movie theaters.

Basic Economics. 

The United States has a highly mechanized advanced industrial economy. The gross national product is the largest in the world. The country's economic needs are more than met, and it is the world's leading food exporter.

The main challenge facing the economy is maintaining profits by keeping production costs low and increasing the consumer market. In addition to mechanizing production to reduce labor costs, companies subcontract production to less developed countries where costs are much lower. 

At the same time, the advertising companies that help market these goods to consumers at home and in other countries are now one of the largest industries in the country. The basic unit of currency is the dollar, with one hundred cents making a dollar.

Land and Property Ownership. 

Land ownership is largely based on private ownership, but the government owns large amounts of land. Private property is valued culturally, which is best expressed in high homeownership rates. Historically, the United States was an agricultural country, and culturally it has a romantic image of a small, self-sufficient farming family struggling against the elements on the prairie.

How federal land is distributed to settlers and developers, constitutes mixed inheritance. Land grants awarded to pioneer families and state universities in each state demonstrated the democratic division of land. However, many private companies gain access to large public lands. 

For example, federal land grants made for railroads in the nineteenth century resulted in the consolidation of wealth by railroad company directors who sold the plots of land and by lumber companies who bought large tracts of forest land from the railroads at low prices. Contemporary land tenure patterns in the Pacific Northwest reflect the legacy of the accumulation of this land by several large logging companies.

Commercial activity. 

Most businesses are grouped within the service industry, including finance, advertising, tourism, and various professions.

Big Industry. 

Important manufacturing industries include petroleum, steel, motor vehicles, aerospace, telecommunications, chemicals, electronics, food processing, timber, and mining. The family farm is clearly in decline. 

Most people who claim to farm as their occupation work for an agricultural company and do not own land of their own. Since 1940, the United States has been the world's largest producer of wheat, corn, and soybeans, producing more than 40 percent of the world's corn and 45 percent of its soybeans. 

However, between 1940 and 1990, the number of farms fell from just over six million to just over two million. Despite occasional attention paid to "the woes of the family farm," agribusiness growth did not result in major open conflict because most Americans saw enterprise growth as the fair result of free enterprise and competition.

The tension arises in cases where the public owns the property. During the nineteenth century, the federal government reserved large portions of western land for federal and public use. Logging and grazing are restricted on these lands and require permits. 

During the sagebrush rebellion of the 1980s, private developers and ranchers who wanted free access to these lands claimed that federal restrictions on private property ownership were anti-American. The language of this rebellion resonates with westerners in impoverished rural areas who believe the federal government is seizing valuable land at their expense.

Many environmental conflicts turn into battles between private and corporate developers and the federal government. Federal regulations, for example, protect endangered species. In the Pacific Northwest, these laws mandate the protection of the spotted owl's habitat, prohibiting logging in areas with nesting owls. Loggers perceive the protection of the owls as an attack on their livelihoods and their constitutional right to private property.

Labor Division. 

The labor force has always been divided based on race, ethnicity and gender. Skilled manufacturing and management jobs are usually more accessible to white men than black men or women of any race. In the service industry, there is a technology gap. Blacks and other minorities fill lower-skilled jobs such as food service and are less likely to be found in managerial positions or emerging high-tech industries.

Social stratification

Class and Caste. 

Most Americans do not believe they are a "class" society. There is a strong cultural belief in economic mobility and equal opportunity. Stories of rags to riches and gambling and lotteries are very popular. However, there is evidence that mobility is limited in many cases: the working class tends to remain within the working class.

The top 1 percent of the population has also acquired significant wealth in recent years. Similar gains have yet to be achieved by the poorest sectors. In general, the gap between rich and poor is getting bigger.

Social Stratification Symbol. 

Stratification is seen in many aspects of everyday life. The social segregation of blacks and whites in cities reflects their segregation in the workforce. The ruined housing stock of black people downtown contrasts with the giant gated suburban homes across the country. Speech, manners, and clothing also signify class position. With a few exceptions, a strong regional or Spanish accent is associated with working-class status.

Political Life

Government. 

The United States of America is a federal republic consisting of a national government and fifty state governments. The political system is dominated by two parties: Republicans and Democrats. One of the characteristics of American democracy is low voter turnout. On average, less than half of eligible voters participate in federal elections.

Also referred to as conservative and liberal, Republicans and Democrats differ on certain key social issues. Republicans are generally conservative on social spending and moral issues. They support cutting federally sponsored social programs such as welfare. They believe in strengthening institutions such as marriage and the traditional family and are usually against abortion and gay rights.

Democrats tend to support federal funding for social programs that support minorities, the environment, and women's rights. However, critics argue that these two parties set very narrow ranges for political debate. Third parties to emerge left and right included the Greens, Socialists, Agricultural Labor, Reform, and Libertarians.

The Federal government's powers and responsibilities are outlined in the Constitution, which was adopted in 1789. The national government consists of three branches intended to provide "checks and balances" against abuses of power. 

These branches are executive, legislative and judicial. The President and federal agencies that regulate everything from agriculture to the military are part of the executive branch. The legislative branch includes the members elected to the upper and lower houses of Congress: the Senate and the House of Representatives. 

The judicial branch consists of the U.S. Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals. At the state level, the government is structured similarly, with governors, senators, elected council members, and state courts. The smallest government unit is the county, which has an elected council, but not all states have a county government system.

Except for the President, officials are elected directly by popular vote. The electoral college elects the president. Each state has as many electors as it has senators and representatives, the latter being awarded according to population. Voters vote as a bloc in each state. This means that all electoral votes in a state are awarded to the candidate with the plurality of the popular votes in that state. 

A candidate must win 270 electoral votes to win the election. This system is controversial because a President can win a national election without winning a national majority of the popular vote, as was the case in the 2000 presidential election.

Leaders and Public Officials. 

Except for local-level offices, politics is highly professional: most people who run for political office are lifelong politicians. Running for high-level political office is very expensive; many politicians in the House and Senate are rich. The cost of winning the campaign requires personal wealth and corporate sponsorship in the form of donations.

Social Problems and Control. 

Although crime rates have fallen, the United States remains the world's most violent industrialized country. The capital, Washington, D.C., has the nation's highest per capita crime rate. In the country as a whole, African Americans, the poor, and the youth are the most common victims of both violent and nonviolent crime.

The country has more people in prisons and more people per capita in prisons than any other industrialized country. The prison population is over one million. This number has increased since the 1980s due to mandatory sentences for drug-related crimes. Although African Americans only made up about 12 percent of the population, they outnumbered white inmates in prison. 

Both African-American and Hispanic men are far more likely to be incarcerated than white men. Although imprisonment rates have increased for women, women are far less likely to be imprisoned than men of any race or ethnicity. The United States is also the only Western industrialized country to allow the death penalty, and the execution rate for African American men is higher than for any other group.

Cities are considered particularly dangerous, but crime rates are not consistently higher in urban areas than in rural areas. Older people tend to be the most afraid of crime but not the most common victims. Severe punishment for violent crimes is often considered a solution, and it is on this basis that the death penalty is maintained. Interestingly, Florida and Arizona, which have the death penalty, have the highest violent crime rates in the nation.

White males commit the vast majority of crimes in all categories, but in popular culture and the popular imagination, violent criminal tendencies are often associated with African-American and Hispanic males. This perception legitimizes a controversial practice called racial profiling, where African-American and Hispanic men are randomly stopped, interrogated, or searched by police.

Historically, groups of immigrants who constituted the urban "folk" of their time were subjected to intense policing efforts and were believed to tend to commit crimes and crimes.

Military Activity. 

The country has been officially at peace since World War II but unofficially is in almost constant military conflict. These conflicts include frequent interventions in Central and South America, the Middle East, and Africa. 

During the period between the end of World War II and the breakup of the Soviet Union (1989), military intervention often involved a Cold War motivation. Since then, the country has used its military might against Iraq and has supported efforts by other governments to fight the drug war in Central America.

Social Welfare and Change Program

The Great Depression, which lasted from 1929 until World War II, posed a real threat to the American economic model's legitimacy in the public's eyes. During that period, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt established social programs collectively known as the New Deal. 

Many of those programs, including government-backed pension plans, banking insurance, and unemployment benefits, still exist. These programs, intended to provide a buffer against the inevitable decline of the economic cycle, were also a response to serious social unrest, including strikes and socialist organizing.

Americans generally have nothing against social benefits such as social security pensions and bank deposit insurance. However, the general assistance program for the poor, known as welfare, is highly controversial. 

In a country that believes all citizens have equal opportunities, where opportunity is limitless, and where only the lazy are poor, programs for mothers and children and the poor are vulnerable to cuts. Recently, the federal government passed a sweeping reform to welfare laws requiring working mothers on welfare to receive benefits.

Non-Governmental Organizations and Other Associations

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are less influential than in less affluent countries. Among the NGOs operating within the country, the most prominent is Amnesty International, which has made political prisoners and torture in American prisons a major issue in recent years.

More influential than NGOs are many non-profits. These groups have no connection to government or corporate interests. They cover a broad spectrum of advocacy and public interest groups working on consumer, environmental and social justice issues. 

Non-profit organizations are a prime locus for alternative views and left-wing politics. Examples include the American Civil Liberties Union, various Public Interest Research Groups, Justice and Accuracy in Media, Planned Parenthood, and Women's National Organization.

Gender Roles and Status

Gender Division of Labor. 

Although most women work outside the home, household responsibilities and raising children are still the responsibility of women. Women's "double day" consisted of working and then returning home to do household chores. This situation persists despite the cultural belief that men and women are equal. Studies conducted in middle-class homes, in which spouses claim to share household chores, show that women still do most of the household work. Although young women as a whole spend less time on household chores than their mothers, this is not due to the fact that men do a significant share of the household work but to the fact that women spend less time cooking, cleaning, and cleaning. Nurse. For children than they did previously.

Women are paid seventy cents for every man's dollar for comparable work. The occupation continues to be defined along gender lines. Women perform secretarial or lower-level administrative jobs so heavily that they are called pink-collar jobs. In the white-collar world, women often occupy middle management positions. 

With a few exceptions, the "glass ceiling" kept women out of high management positions. This situation is justified because women take time from their working lives to raise children and therefore do not spend the same time developing their careers as men do. Jobs that require parenting skills, such as teaching and nursing, are still dominated by women.

In the blue-collar sector, women are underrepresented in jobs that are perceived as requiring physical strength, such as the construction industry and firefighting. Women often fill low-paying positions in industries such as assembly, sewing, and electronics assembly jobs. 

This is justified on the basis that women are more dexterous by nature and their small hands are suitable for assembly work. It is more likely that the low wages offered by these factories explains the recruitment of women workers, other options may include less desirable seasonal and temporary work.

Relative Status of Women and Men. 

By law, women have the same formal rights as men. They can vote, own property, choose to marry or divorce, and demand equal pay for equal work. They also have access to contraceptives and abortions. In comparison to many other countries, women have a very high status in relation to men.

Women, on the other hand, do not receive the same social and economic benefits as men. Women are markedly underrepresented in elected political office and are more likely to live in poverty. Women's work both at home and at work is rated lower than that of men. Women are more likely than men to suffer feelings of powerlessness and have a distorted or low self-image.

Marriage, Family and Kinship

Wedding.

Marriage is formally a civil institution but usually takes place in a church. Statistically, marriages appear to be on the decline. Half of all adults are single, including those who have never married and those who are divorced. Marriage rates are higher among whites than among blacks.

Except for Vermont, civil unions are legal only between heterosexual adults. However, gay marriages are increasingly common, regardless of whether the state officially recognizes them or not. Several religious denominations and churches recognize and practice gay marriage. The high rates of divorce and remarriage also increase the importance of the stepfamily.

Domestic Unit. 

The typical family model is the nuclear family consisting of two parents and their children. After marriage, the adult couple is expected to form their own household separate from any of their biological families. 

The nuclear family is a cultural ideal but not always a reality. Immigrant groups have reportedly relied on extended family networks for support. Likewise, among African-American families, where an adult male was often absent, extended bonds of kinship were especially important for women raising children.

Inheritance. 

Americans trace their ancestry and inherit through both mother and father. Surnames are most often adopted through the father's line, with children taking the father's name. Women usually adopt their husband's surname upon marriage, but it is increasingly common for women to take their own surnames and for children to take their fathers' and mothers' last names.

Kinship Group. 

Family can refer to the nuclear family group or the extended family group. A mother, a father, and two or three children constitute the "ideal" family. Americans often distinguish between blood relatives and relatives by marriage; Blood relatives are considered more important. The bonds between nuclear families are generally closer than those among extended family members. 

Although adoption is common, reproductive technologies that enable infertile and gay couples to reproduce are highly valued. This reflects the importance of the concept of biological kinship in culture.

Alternative family life models are important in American culture. Much scholarship has addressed the historical and economic conditions that have led to the high proportion of households headed by women and the incorporation of unrelated members into the family unit among African Americans. 

However, this trend is increasing in the population as a whole. A large number of Americans from all ethnic backgrounds live in nontraditional families. These families may include unmarried or single-parent couples, gay couples and their children, or childless gay families.

Socialization

Baby care. 

Baby care varies by class. In New York City, it was common to see women of Dominican and West Indian descent caring for white children. Rich people often hire nannies to look after babies. Caregivers, who often have children of their own, may have to rely on family members or their older children to look after their babies. 

Rich or poor, the majority of mothers work outside the home. This, coupled with the fact that many people cannot rely on their extended family to help care for their newborn, makes baby care a challenge. Some employers offer short maternity leave for mothers and, increasingly, paternity leave for fathers who are the main caregiver.

Child Care and Education. 

Parenting practices vary, but some challenges are common to all families. Enrolling children on childcare programs at an early age is common. For wealthy families, this entails finding the most elite daycare centers; for less affluent families, this may involve finding a scarce spot in a federally funded program. 

Child care can be a source of anxiety and guilt for all working families. Negative media stories about child abuse in these centers speak more to this anxiety than the quality of care. The state makes few provisions for the care of children because most mothers work outside the home.

From the age of five to eighteen, public schools are provided by the state and are universally available. Schooling is mandatory for children up to the age of sixteen. Public school education in suburban areas and small towns is usually adequate or very good.

Inner-city schools are underfunded and have a high proportion of minority students. It reflects the history of white flight to the suburbs and the system under which the school was funded through local property taxes. 

Thus, in cities left by wealthier whites, both the tax base and school funding have declined. The reputation of inner-city schools is so bad that families living in cities send their children to private schools when they can afford them. Private schools are mostly white enclaves.

Access to an equal education has long been a problem for African Americans. Until the Supreme Court overthrew the "separate but equal" doctrine in 1954, all educational institutions in the South were segregated based on race. However, the legally permissible separation of the past has been replaced by a de facto separation of the present.

Higher education. 

The level of educational achievement is high. Most Americans completed high school, and nearly half received at least some tertiary education. Nearly a quarter of the population has completed four or more college years. Graduation rates from high school and college attendance are significantly lower for African Americans and Hispanics than for whites.

The quality and availability of colleges and universities are excellent, but the state does not fund university education as in many industrialized Western countries. The cost of higher education has soared and ranges from a few thousand dollars per year in public institutions to more than ten thousand dollars per year in private institutions. At elite private colleges, tuition fees exceed $20,000 a year.

Among the middle class, paying for college is a source of anxiety for parents from the moment their children are born. Students from middle-income and low-income families often pay for college with student loans, and the size of this debt is growing.

Etiquette

Personal attitudes can often appear harsh, harsh, and overbearing to people of other cultures, but Americans value emotional and bodily restraint. The permanent smile and unremitting enthusiasm of stereotypical America may mask strong emotions whose expression is unacceptable.

Bodily restraint is expressed through the relatively large physical distance that people maintain from one another, especially men. Breastfeeding, yawning and passing gas in public are considered bad manners. Americans consider it rude to talk about money and age.

Religion

Religious beliefs. 

The majority of the population is Christian. Catholics are the largest single denomination, but Protestants of all denominations (Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, and others) outnumber Catholics.

Judaism is the largest non-Christian religion, followed by Islam, which has a significant following among African Americans. Baptists, the largest Protestant sect, originated in Europe but grew exponentially in the United States, especially in the South, among whites and blacks. 

Apart from the many Christian movements from England and Europe which reestablished themselves early in the nation's history, several religious sects emerged independently in the United States, including Mormons and Shakers.

Although religion and state are formally separated, religious expression is an important aspect of public and political life. Nearly every President adheres to some variation of the Christian faith. One of the most significant religious trends in recent years has been the emergence of evangelical and fundamentalist Christian sects. As an organized political-religious force, fundamentalist Christians significantly influence the political agenda.

Another trend is the growth of New Age religions, which blend elements of Eastern religions and practices, such as Buddhism, with meditation, yoga, astrology, and Native American spirituality.

Religious Practitioner. 

In addition to practitioners of world religions such as pastors, priests, and rabbis, the United States has a tradition of practitioners of non-ordained and non-traditional religions. These people include evangelical lay preachers, religious leaders associated with New Age religions, and leaders of religious movements designated as cults. Women are increasingly entering traditional male religious positions. There are now priestesses in many Protestant denominations and women rabbis.

Rituals and Sacred Places. 

The country has no designated religious rituals or shrines that have meaning for the population as a whole. However, Salt Lake City is a sacred city to Mormons, and the Black Hills in South Dakota and other places are sacred Native American sites.

There are many shared secular rituals and places of almost religious importance. Secular rituals include baseball and football games. The championship games in these sports, the World Series and the Super Bowl, respectively, are major annual events and celebrations. Important places include Disneyland, Hollywood, and Graceland (Elvis Presley's estate).

Death and Afterlife. 

Americans have an uneasy relationship with their mortality. Although most of the population is Christian, the value placed on youth, strength, and the world's goods is so great that death is one of the most difficult topics to discuss.

Death is considered a sad and solemn event. At funerals, wearing black clothes and speaking in low tones is customary. The cemetery is a solemn and quiet place. Some people believe in an afterlife, reincarnation, or other energy or spirit continuity forms.

Medicine and Health Care

The dominant approach to medicine is biomedical or Western. Although many people are attracted to alternative approaches such as acupuncture, homoeopathic remedies, and other therapies, the United States remains less medically diverse than most other countries. 

The frequent use of invasive surgeries such as caesarean sections and high doses of psychotropic drugs characterizes biomedicine. Besides limited government care for the elderly and disabled, health care is private and profit-based. This sets the United States apart from other rich industrialized countries, which nearly all provide universal health care coverage.

Secular Celebration

Several secular national holidays are celebrated but are regarded less as a celebration of patriotism than as a family holiday. The fireworks display on the Fourth of July marks the Declaration of Independence from England in 1776, but it's also the time for summer outings such as picnics and camping trips with friends and family members.

Thanksgiving is a part of national history that every school child understands. This annual feast celebrates the hardships of the early colonists starving in their new environment. According to legend, the American Indians came to their aid, sharing native foods such as corn and turkey. 

Thanksgiving is important not so much for its symbolism, but because it's the most important family holiday of the year, one of the few big, elaborate meals families prepare.

Arts and Humanities

Support for Arts. The level of public support for art is much lower than in other wealthy countries. Coverage for unknown artists, writers, and individual performers is scarce. The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has a minuscule operating budget to fund everything from public broadcasting to individual artists. 

In recent years, the NEA has come under attack from Congress, whose conservative members have questioned the value and often morality of the art produced with NEA grants.

Support also comes from private donations. These donations are tax deductible and a popular hedge against estate income and taxes among the wealthy. Generous gifts to prestigious museums, galleries, symphonies and operas, which often name halls and galleries after their donors, are an important means of subsidizing the arts.

Literature. 

Much American literature revolves around questions about the defining properties or characteristics of nations and attempts to distinguish or describe national identities. American literature found a voice for itself in the nineteenth century. 

In the early decades of the century, essayists Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson established enduring themes of personal simplicity, continuity between man and nature, individualism, and self-reliance. Walt Whitman celebrated democracy in his free poetry.

Other nineteenth-century writers, such as Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Mark Twain, articulated the moral and ethical questions of the new nation and were highly influential in their critique of American puritanism.

Turn-of-the-century writers like Edith Wharton, Henry James, and Theodore Dreiser tackled those themes but paid particular attention to social class and class mobility. They explore the nature of American culture and the tension between the ideals of freedom and the realities of social conditions.

In the early decades of the twentieth century, writers such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway began to question the values ​​that earlier writers represented. Fitzgerald questions the reality of the American dream by highlighting the corrupting influence of wealth and doubting the value of mobility and success. 

Like other modernists, Hemingway addressed how one should live after losing faith in religious values ​​and other social guidelines. Other early twentieth-century writers, such as Nella Larsen, William Faulkner, and Zora Neil Hurston,  introduced race and racism as central themes in American literature.

In the 1930s, the Great Depression inspired writers such as John Steinbeck and Willa Cather to write about rural America. Their novel romanticized the hard work of poor rural white men. Implicit in these novels is a critique of the wealth and excesses of the metropolis and the industrial system that supports it. Although these novels are filled with multiethnic characters and themes, Anglo is generally the focal point.

Issues of identity and race have been explored by black American writers before. A generation of black writers after World War II made this a permanent theme in American literature, depicting the poverty, inequality, and racism experienced by black Americans. 

Many black writers explored the meaning of living inside black skins in white countries with a legacy of slavery. Among these authors were Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, and Richard Wright. Toni Morrison is the most influential contemporary writer to work on these themes.

An important school of literature known as Southern Gothic discussed the nature of rural southern life from the perspective of poor and middle-class whites. Writers such as Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, Carson McCullers, and Shirley Jackson explored the contradiction between privileged whites and culturally deprived southerners. 

These novels feature lonely, queer, and underprivileged white characters who are the superiors of their black playmates, servants, and neighbors but are culturally inferior to America.

Beginning in the late 1950s and 1960s, the generation known as the Beats challenged the dominant norms of white American masculinity. They reject family conventions and sexuality, corporate success, and money. Among the Beats were William Burroughs, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allan Ginsberg, and Jack Kerouac.

Beginning in the 1960s, women writers began challenging the notion that women's place was in the home. Early feminist writers who criticized marital paternalism included nonfiction writer Betty Friedan, novelist Marge Piercy, and poets Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath.

Feminist themes and issues of ethnicity and otherness continue to be important in American literature. Ana Castillo and Gloria Anzuldúa demonstrate how female and Latina identities intersect. The novel by Louise Erdrich and Leslie Marmon Silko depicts how a Native American family tries to survive and reclaim their traditions amidst poverty and discrimination.

Other contemporary novels attempt to deconstruct the experience of the "norm" in American culture. Ann Tyler's character is often empty and unhappy but unable to find the source of those feelings. Don Delillo writes about the corporate world of immorality, America's obsession with consumer goods, and the chaos and anxiety that underlie the serenity of suburban life. Joyce Carol Oates is interested in the macabre aspects of social conformity.

These novels are not the most widely read in the United States. Much more popular are genres such as science fiction, crime and adventure, horror and romance. This genre tends to repeat cherished cultural narratives. 

For example, Tom Clancy's novels present the United States as the moral victor in the cold war and post-Cold War terrorist scenarios. Roman Harlequin idealizes the traditional male and female gender roles and always has a happy ending. In horror novels, violence allows catharsis among readers. Much science fiction revolves around technical-scientific solutions to human problems.

Graphic Arts. 

The most influential visual artists are from the modern period. Much of the early art imitated European styles. Notable artists include Jackson Pollack and Andy Warhol. Warhol's art documents such icons of American life as Cambell's soup cans and Marilyn Monroe. His work is intentionally humorous and commercial. Most of the graphic arts are produced for the advertising industry.

Performing Arts. 

The performing arts include many of the original genres of modern dance that are influenced by classical forms as well as American traditions, such as jazz. Notable innovators in dance include Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham, and Alvin Ailey. Cinemas in every city that once hosted plays, vaudeville, and musicals are now showing films or have closed. In general, performing arts are only available in metropolitan areas.

The United States has produced several genres of popular music that are known for blending regional, European, and African influences. The most famous of these genres are the African-American invention blues and jazz. The most important jazz composers and musicians are Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, Thelonius Monk and John Coltrane. Although considered classics today, blues and jazz standards were the popular music of their time.

The music fits into both the "black" and "white" categories. Popular swing jazz songs were standardized by bandleaders such as Glenn Miller, whose white band made swing music very popular with young white people.

Rock 'n' roll, now a major cultural export, has its roots in earlier popular forms. Major influences in rock and roll include Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Bruce Springstein. Although rock 'n' roll was predominantly white, soul and Motown, with singers such as Aretha Franklin, the Supremes, and the Temptations, produced popular black music.

Country music, another popular genre, has its roots in the early American folk music of the Southeast, now called country or bluegrass. This genre processes gospel songs and traditional hymns to produce songs about the everyday lives of poor white people in the rural Southeast.

Popular music in the United States has always manifested a separation between its commercial and entertainment value and its intellectual or political value. Country and folk, blues, rock 'n' roll, rap and hip-hop all carry strong social and political messages. As older forms become standardized and commercialized, their political prominence tends to give way to more general content, such as love songs.

State of Physical and Social Sciences

The United States is a leading producer and exporter of science and technology. Key areas of scientific research include medicine, energy, chemicals, weapons, aerospace technology, and communications. Funding for research comes from government agencies, universities, and the private corporate sector.

The role of private companies in research is controversial. Pharmaceutical companies often fund research that leads to cures and treatments for diseases. One consequence is the absence of research on diseases specific to emerging countries. Another consequence is that drugs are marketed at high prices for the poor both at home and abroad.

In the face of technology and science as cultural values, a cause for increasing social concern is that American schoolchildren do not do well on standardized science tests.