Key aspects of American culture left out

I enjoyed reading Stephen Miller's Nov. 20 column on the unity of American culture ("America: the forgotten campus culture"), but I feel that he overlooked some important points, which, going unrepresented, would be a travesty.

I myself did not see the unity of American culture until I studied abroad in Paris during the summer. In such a foreign atmosphere where racial identities melt away in a country with a completely different history and insight, I felt a unity with my fellow Americans I had never felt before. Asking for ketchup with French fries and smiling stupidly at passersby on Parisian streets singled out my fellow Americans with our sunny dispositions and open, welcoming faces.

Meeting another American from a completely different part of the country became equivalent to meeting distant relative with whom one was delighted to recap pop or political issues.

Yet one must ask why this unity melts away when we return to our native soil. It is ambitious to think that 500 years of history does not have an impact on the every day life of Americans. Whether it is the history of Japanese-American internment camps, slavery, racial discrimination in who could apply for American citizenship or racial profiling in airports, unfortunately the American experience has not been the same for everyone, and this history extends into our times. I for one remember the stories of my grandparents in a Jim Crow south, and I think history is important to learn from to never repeat past mistakes.

When one looks at the list of American people Miller quoted as great-"Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash"-I see but one thing and am left wondering where Mahalia Jackson, Zora Neale Hurston, Martin Luther King Jr., Amy Tan, Jim Thorpe and many others are in his mind of the "unique and cohesive American culture."

Here is acknowledging the fact that our own minds and culture still have a long way to go.

Valarie Davis

Trinity '08