Elizabeth DeLuca, recently of the University of Findlay, was on the program of the Garrettsville-Hiram Rotary at their meeting on May 13, 2013. She is a well-traveled young lady and offered insights on her stays in Japan, Argentina, Peru and Brazil.
Her title for this presentation was ”Through the Looking Glass–seeing American identity through multicultural eyes”.
She found that citizens of these other countries, indeed, had stereotypes of Americans in mind, but the stereotypes were different in each country. Many of these were based on the America seen in the movies or on television, even You Tube. They could be about behavior, social mores, hair color, perceived social interaction and warmth, any number of things. They were often wildly inaccurate.
Returning home was another change of focus and views askew from what she had witnessed in her travels. Americans seldom recognize the fact that they are based in a certain amount of “colonialist” attitude when dealing with the rest of the world and often fail to respect an “internationalist” outlook–not “patriotic” enough. Both within and without America, stereotypes tend to vary by age group ( Depending upon how much television is watched or how many movies are seen perhaps?). English is everywhere.
Garrettsville-Hiram Rotary is meeting at 5:30 in the Hiram College Kennedy Center on Mondays through the summer. There will be no meeting on Memorial Day.
