and bilingual, a function of how I grew up, not of me or my abilities. I can see both American and Argentine culture from the inside and also as an outsider to them. This is called cultural relativity.
I first learned about US culture and history from my parents. Then on each of the two obligatory furloughs, which occurred before I turned eighteen, I went to public schools in Fort Worth, where I was born and where I live now, and learned more about US life and history. During both furloughs I also learned about aspects of US life that did not jibe with what I had been taught about it, either by my parents or my schools. But I am getting ahead of my story here. I did my last three years of high school in an American school in Buenos Aires in order to transition smoothly to college in the US. We studied American history in the 11th grade, where I learned still more about the country. When I moved here for college I had to socialize as an adult American, not an easy process, but a beneficial one. My bicultural condition drove me to think about the themes that characterize US life, where these themes came from, and where they may be leading. Through reflection, travel, and reading (both US history books and keeping up with events as they happened while I lived here) I have continued to learn to this day. My ongoing understanding of Argentina followed a similar process.
I would like to share with you what I have discovered. Walking through as much American history as we can in a single volume, I will organize the review of US history by cultural themes, that is, by the ways of acting and thinking that are easily observable but rarely noticed. These themes constitute assumptions that drive our ideology and actions and filter out certain concepts about ourselves while letting others through. By way of example, some of the themes are the family farm experience, which dominated until the mid-twentieth century, an uncritical assumption of American exceptionality, the place of sports, whom we consider persons of value, and so on. I will trace these themes through highlights of our shared American experience and in so doing hope to convince you that history is endlessly fascinating.
It should not be forgotten that all histories are personal. I admit up front that this is my take, this is how I try to make sense of the present by studying the past. The writer of any history chooses what is important, significant, and interesting and what is not, thus giving you his or her selective and personal vision. It could not possibly be any other way. The book you hold in your hand may be the first that organizes the history of the country around organically American cultural themes and values. Perhaps it will bring to light matters that have necessarily been overlooked before now. I invite you, not to agree with everything I say, but to follow along for the enjoyment of it.
My purpose in this book is not to be critical or judgmental, but rather to enlighten. Some topics I touch on are sensitive and negative, but that is because, like every other country, we have had episodes in our history which are at variance with our admirable principles contained in the Declaration of Independence and in the Bill of Rights. I also hope to highlight our strengths as a country which we can draw on to improve our future prospects. I am proud and happy to be an American, and equally glad I had the privilege of growing up in two cultures.
If you want to explore how our cultural assumptions shape what has happened to us as a country and as individuals, read on.
I. You Can Take the Boy out of the Country
The sign on the barbecue restaurant proclaimed with engagingly naive gusto that “In order to serve the needs of our customers, in summer we are open until 8:00 p.m.” I was flabbergasted. In Buenos Aires a handful of restaurants opened for dinner at 9:00 p.m. and most never did before 10:00. My adolescent mentality scoffed. I had much to learn. Over time I observed that in Lubbock people ate dinner around 6:00 p.m. But why? The easy answer is “Why not?” of course, but that did not satisfy me.
There were other puzzling differences from what I was used to. Lubbock boasted a population of around one hundred forty thousand but I could not cover any significant distance on foot, as I would have been able to in any similarly sized city where I grew up. The campus at Texas Tech was uncommonly large, with buildings spaced widely from each other, large expanses of walkways and grass connecting them. There was plenty of room to fit two or three enormous structures between each pair of existing buildings. You could easily build a thriving and very populous mixed-use neighborhood in the area covered by the campus. Except for a small area in the old downtown, no two buildings in the city shared walls. All the houses were separated by generous and assiduously irrigated lawns. Clearly the city layout was designed with cars more in mind than people. It seemed that everyone except me had a car. Still, why were the houses all detached with so much room around them?
One day I was crossing a parking lot on the way to class. In the driveway which connected the street with the lot, one exiting car had stopped right next to an entering car. The drivers had rolled down their windows and were engaging in an extended conversation. Suddenly I had the image of two men on horseback talking on a vast expanse of ranch. What I was seeing was what people did on the farm before cars had replaced horses as the preferred means of transportation, and here they were exhibiting the same behavior in the middle of the city, on a busy parking lot. People still do that. A few days before I sat down to write this, I had to honk at two cars, one in front of me and the other in the opposite lane, whose drivers had stopped to converse with one another. Nothing wrong with that per se, but it is a country way of doing things, not exactly the most appropriate procedure in a city of over three quarters of a million people in a metropolitan area of nearly five million.
I have just alluded to one of the major themes of American life: a country culture which has moved to the cities. Culture, however, changes slowly. The learned ways of doing things and the assumptions which underlie them persist over generations. When I arrived at Texas Tech in 1967, the majority of Americans still lived on farms or in small towns. It was a rural, not an urban country. I had grown up in a thoroughly and historically urban society which owed much of its culture to Spain. I needed an attitude adjustment. The US is to this day heavily influenced by its rural history and culture, and why not? My own mother lived on farms until she enrolled in college. Consequently probably most Americans still follow the pattern of eating dinner early, before the sun sets and getting up with the sunrise, as their parents and grandparents did all their lives on the farm, not because it is strictly necessary in an urban setting, but because culture changes slowly and traditional patterns persist.
Another incident from my first year at college remains vividly memorable. I had been charged out-of-state tuition although my family’s permanent official address in the US was in Texas. That was something I needed to deal with. First, however, something more urgent came up. On Tuesday of registration week I saw a number of students walking around with a punch card in hand. I asked,
“What is that?”
“It’s my registration permit. Don’t you have one?”
“No, how did you get it?”
“It came in the mail a couple of months ago.”
“I never got mine,” I commented.
“Well, you better do something about it. If not, you won’t be able to register.”
Perfect! I thought. Just what I needed. It was a good thing that I had asked. I went to the registrar’s office to see if they could issue me a permit. The middle-aged woman who attended me rummaged through a drawer in a file cabinet against the wall, pulled out a folder and told me,
“We mailed you your permit two months ago.”
“Well, I never got it!”
“It’s not my problem. You probably threw it away by mistake.” She was clearly on the defensive.
“I would never throw out anything that came from the university.”
“Don’t question me. I can’t do anything for you.”
She clearly resented my persistence and her demeanor oozed an attitude of assumed superiority over a mere student. Another person in the office took pity on me and asked me, “Where do you live?”
“Buenos Aires.”
She thought a moment and then suggested I try the