6.07.2008

Couldn't've Said It Better

"For all of our enormous geographic range, for all of our sectionalism, for all of our interwoven breeds drawn from every part of the ethnic world, we are a nation, a new breed.  Americans are much more Americans than Northerners, Southerners, Westerners, or Easterners...It is a fact that Americas from all sections and all racial attractions are more alike than the Welsh are like the English...It is astonishing that it has happened in the last 2oo years and most of it in the last 50.  The American identity is an exact and provable thing."
-John Steinbeck
Travels With Charley

With this being said, it's hard to explain this to my students who want hard evidence about traditions and customs- things that define them as a people and a nation.  It's one of the hardest aspects of being American for me here- explaining who I am.

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