[Dr. Solar Wolff]

I really can't speak for Americans "back East", but in California "White" does not mean only WASP. As an immigrant from the Bible Belt once told me, "it is nice that, when you meet someone new, the second question they ask you is not 'where do you go to church'." Nor is it specific to any ethnic group. Some blond Arabs would certainly be considered white while others who are dark would not be considered white.

Our ideal was that when a person came to the USA, they renounced all alliegence to their mother country, learned English, and became loyal to America. This is why so many people of German ancestry fought against Germany in two wars. In recent years and with all the non-white immigration, this ideal is slipping and we have all become hyphenated Americans (Irish-Americans, Anglo-Americans, Italian-Americans, etc.). This new trend may indicate a breakdown in whatever cultural cohesion we had.

Evidently, some of you are really interested in what constitutes American culture. I don't know why this is but I will tell you honestly, without jokes, what it is. American culture is really on two levels. It is shared popular culture, movies, books, television, printed material and our very recent history as country. On the second level, American culture has been called "an opportunity" because of the immigrant outlook. It is a body of shared laws, including the Constitution. It is also a presumed sharing of values and morals. It is this second level of culture which we fight over, internally, all the time. Lately it has taken on the name "culture wars". Recently, with the rise of Christian Fundamentalism, this war has taken a turn toward the irrational or faith-based. Faith based foreign policy is at odds with the more secular and rational policies which the USA had in place for years and may be one cause of the sterotypical American viewpoint as seen by Europeans.