…plus c’est la même chose

Yesterday I was rereading Susan Coolidge’s In the High Country, which turned out to be just the right thing for the Fourth of July. It’s the last of the series that starts with What Katy Did, but instead of focusing on Katy or her sister Clover, it centers on Imogen, an English girl who comes with her brother to live in the High Valley in Colorado (where Clover and Elsie have married and settled), and was published in 1890.

Granted I haven’t met anyone who thinks all of America is full of wolves and bears and wild natives (though I have gotten asked about cowboys and Indians a few times) but otherwise, people spend the first half of the book trying to have the same conversation with Imogen that I’ve had so many times in the last 4.75 years: “No, you can’t assume you know the US if you’ve seen one city of it. It’s a big and diverse place. Yes, we can get stroopwafels / milky pearl tea / other local delicacy there – maybe not just anywhere, but there are places that sell it. Not only is the US diverse, but your compatriots are well=-represented there and they’ve brought their traditions with them. No, we’re not all fat / lazy / obsessed with making money / rich / fill in stereotype here. No doubt some of us are, but really there’s no one thing we all have in common except living within certain geographical boundaries. Oh, and a high number of us voted against whatever politician you’re reviling.”

Of course a lot of that is true about most other countries as well; you can even buy stroopwafels in Taiwan! And stereotyping isn’t a safe practice anywhere. But I do think the US varies more than people realize, even many Americans; I’ve heard people commenting that “Back in the States we do so-and-so without realizing that it’s only done that way in their part of the States. For example, I heard a Southern woman in Italy compaining because men didn’t rush ahead to hold a door open for her. Well, they don’t do that in the US North, either. Similarly, Southerners sometimes think Northerners are rude without realizing that they are actually being polite but are following a different set of manners. (E.g. holding the door for the person behind you, regardless of gender – so a Southern woman might be perceived as rude for not holding the door for a Northern man.) And of course Northerners sometimes make similarly weird assumptions about the South (no, they’re not speaking slower because they can’t talk fast! There’s a host of reasons from tradition to heat to manners.)

But it was interesting to see the same conversation happening a hundred twenty years ago!

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