Cultural and Ethnic Identity in North America.

[Susi]

Time for a Susi-ramble. I will probably post more later, but right now is an introduction to what I will probably discuss later.

Just a short definition of the term North America, I ignore Mexico because.. well it is relatively homogeneous (if one can say that) and it is not so much of a "mixture" as the USA and Canada.

I will start this topic with a personal view (i.e. firstperson).

Living here, in Canada, I feel identity-less. Yes, I am Canadian, but what does that really mean? There are so many different people here that I can't possibly fit in. I don't feel as if I can connect with these people. This country is an uncomfortable mixture of the entire world.

I feel this leads to misunderstandings about European culture. Many supposedly "European" people cannot place their apparent country of origin on a map, let alone name anything about it other than the stereotypes. If I ask a "German" where Germany was.. he will probably point to France. If I ask him to name something cultural from Germany, and he will say "sausages and beer".. I guess this is cultural, but I would be looking for an answer about music and art and literature (etc).

I feel really too tired to expand on this right now. I had some ideas written down but I cannot find them. I will post more tomorrow.

edit: if you're curious about my plans for this topic, it will probably be me posting a series of essays/articles or whatever you want to call them on the topic. .-.