Chapter 1: UNDERSTANDING THE CULTURE OF THE UNITED STATES

1. Summary
Edward T. Hall once said “Culture hides much more than it reveals, and strangely
enough what it hides. It hides most effectively for its own participants. Years of study
have convinced me that the real job is not to understand foreign culture but to understand
our own”. Not many people are clearly aware of their own cultural characteristics.
Sometimes, they do not know the reason why they have to practice some rituals and
customs. The most effective way to learn about our own culture is to study profoundly
another foreign culture and figure out the cultural features, then make a comparison with
the source culture. This essay includes some specifically typical features of American
culture and the comparison with Vietnamese culture. From that, the core of both culture
will be manifested.
The USA’s Culture
A Nation of Immigrants
Statistically, American population is up to 335.297.748 occupying 4.2 percent of
worldwide population. US is the third densely populated nation all over the world but the
most of American people are not originally from USA. To know why this phenomenon
appear, let’s back to the time before the United States is established. In the 1500s, Spain
established settlement in Florida, California and Southwest, and France claimed large
territories in the center of North American continent. In the late 1800s and the early
1900s, many of these new immigrants start settling down in United States. In 1882,
40.000 Chinese arrived, and between 1900 and 1907, there were more than 30.000
Japanese immigrants. The number of immigrants did stop increasing until 1921 when
United States began to limit immigration and the Immigration Act of 1924 had virtually
closed the door. From that, the quantity of immigrants still gradually developed in the
moderation. The immigrants are distributed all over the country, especially, California,
New York, Hawaii and Texas. That created a picture of diversity and made United States
a nation of immigrants.
Cultural Pluralism
In United States, numerous different cultures intertwine to create cultural diversity
that is not only a distinguished spot but also a challenge for the whole country. To
prevent the reunification from cultural conflict and dominant, cultural pluralism was
promulgated. Pluralism is a political institution which allows minority ethnic to maintain
their original beliefs, tradition, custom, … as long as they are not antagonistic to the
wider community and the current legislation. The census of 2010 recognized the increase
in the diversity of the American population. The regularization of cultural pluralism is
obviously manifested by the enthronement of Barack Obama – the first African American
presidents in American history.
Beliefs Generalizations
There is a difference in belief among American people. That is why there are no
completely correct generalizations of beliefs. However, it is not impossible but hard to
making an objective generalization. That task requires such a considerable know-how and
enthusiasm to be finished.
2. Personal impression & comparison
There is some information in the chapter making me impressed. The first thing is
about the size of United States. It is thirty times vaster than Vietnam, the United States
include many separate types of climate such as temperate zone, tropical zone and frigid
zone. The United States area also includes many time zone. Both of corresponding
corollaries of the big size bring United States an outstanding feature and simultaneously
offer drawbacks. For example, it takes us a lot of time even one or two days to travel to
another states while we just need to take a few hours to go to another province in
Vietnam. Secondly, the immigration is not typical in Vietnam; however, it is a striking
phenomenon in the United States. The cultural diversity in Vietnam comes from ethnic
variety while it comes from racial mixture and cultural pluralism. Nevertheless, the two
types of diversity also enrich generally national culture and significantly contribute to the
cultural diversity of current human civilization. Last but not least, there are a similarity
between Vietnam and United States that we can’t not easily to make a generalization of
beliefs. For example, United States is known as the country of liberalism. However, not
all of American people value the liberalism, or their level of believing in the tendency
extremely different. There is the same thing happening in Vietnam. The beliefs of
Vietnamese people are generalized that they are traditional and conservative. But the fact
could be distinctive when we expose to different people in different circumstances.
In conclusion, there will have many interesting things about culture. And the
journey of discovering another culture will assist the investigator to know more his own
culture. That’s wonderful to learn more and enjoy new things especially about cultural
diversity.