The Stereotyped American

The Stereotyped American

            On Monday April 28^th at 12:00 noon on the third floor of the BMU, Tasha Dev hosted a forum in support of International Education Week discussing myths and facts about American stereotypes.  Accompanied by a panel of international CSU Chico and American students who have studied abroad, Tasha opened the discussion by making the analogy, “a fish out of water can describe water”, which basically summarizes the fact that when someone is out of their natural environment (i.e. native country) they are better able to distinguish differences.

            Some common misconceptions presented in the forum where what people from other countries desire.  It is often thought by Americans that most people around the world like to live in the U.S. and that most pursue wealth.  In actuality, most people prefer living in their own country and do not have a capitalist point of view.

  The discussion further examined what American academics claim to be American values.  A few examples of these values are personal control, competitiveness, future oriented, being informal, direct, practicality, action/work oriented, open and honest, embracing of change.  I found it interesting that these “values” are extremely idealistic; it is what Americans what to believe they embody but realistically do not.

In opposition of Americans self proclaimed values, stereotypes developed through mass media and believed by people of other countries, are such ideas as Americans are informal, loud, rude, boastful, extravagant, ignorant of other countries, always in a hurry, and lack of class consciousness.  These characterizes are not admirable to say the least.  Although some are very true, most of these negative ideas are based on a few individuals who, unfortunately, have the opportunity to fling their obnoxious antics around the world.

Having spent a significant amount of time over seas myself and being married to a foreign national, I can affirm some of the points made by the international students on the forum panel.  Generally, Americans that are able to travel abroad for the sake of tourism are wealthy and have a tendency to act like going to other countries is like going to the zoo.  I often find myself being embarrassed to identify that I am American when I encounter these types abroad.  A couple of other noticeable differences mentioned were how restaurants offer too many options for meals and why American girls insist on wearing short skirts and little tops in the dead of winter.  These differences may be more noticeable from a female perspective, but one which is noticeable to all is the epidemic of obesity in Americans.  I can attest to this difference in that most all other countries do not have near the amount of fat people.  Quite a shame.

Whether thought of as glutinous and obnoxious, or exceedingly driven and body modified, the message sent to the rest of the world is far from accurate.  In most cases, Americans lives are more the same as others around the world than different; people interrelating in attempt for a better existence.