Ethnocentrism

A college girl's view on cultures & the "American Dream"

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I was born and raised in America. So inherently I identify as an American as one of the many cultures and subcultures I can and do identify with. I am an American, a Texan, city dweller, country woman, nondenominational Christian, college student (senior college student), and I’m in the group of single women in their 20’s. My home culture bears where I lay my roots, with my family in Texas. We value “southern hospitality,” family, friends, and God. Ethnocentrism is a term defined as “a tendency to think that our own culture is superior to other cultures.” I find it hard to say I posses this within myself, because I myself identify with so many different cultures and subcultures, I can’t see how one wears more weight than another. However, with the love I hold for my cultures and the way I’ve been raised, I can see how that love for a way of life can be seen as ethnocentrism. Especially when portrayed by extremists that are ever present in most cultures across the globe.

Martin Jischke is a prominent higher-education administrator and advocate. In his commencement speech at Purdue University, he gave families, friends, and graduates a little insight to what he believed to be the “American Dream.” James Truslow Adams first coined the term in 1931, he said this about the American Dream: “dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of birth or position.” My idea of the “American Dream” sits closely to that of Adams. I too believe that America gives opportunities where elsewhere there are no opportunities. In America we are able to meet people from all over the world each time we visit somewhere new, or move to a new neighborhood. Here, there is so much opportunity to learn and experience other cultures without having to travel to the other side of the world. In James Adams idea of the American Dream, he states that all men and women are equal in opportunity, I feel this is something America and Americans have struggled with over the years, but nonetheless has shown some advancement in equal rights and opportunity supporting various positions, genders, and races.

In the speech Will McAvoy gave on the HBO series The Newsroom, he addressed a student body as to why “America is not the greatest country in the world anymore.” He discusses many ways in which America was the perfect country at one point, but since said point has diminished. McAvoy states that America is but one of 108 out of 207 sovergn states with freedom. And the only thing that America is first in is number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of people who believe angels are real, and money spent in defense spending. This is a Topic of the American dream because America, in the eyes of James Adams, was the greatest country in the world. But James Adams also lived in a time where America was building, and people did posses the ability to have the “American dream,” that was in 1931. Today, although we have made progress in some areas, we have fallen in others. I agree with McAvoy when he says, “first step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one.” He realizes that America is not what it once was, but also notes that there is a way back to that once cherished “American Dream,” the idol America was believed to be.

Ethnocentrism is apparent in both resources, however in very different ways. Jischke used his experiences and good fortune with higher education to establish his idea of an American dream. He accomplished for himself what he thought the American Dream entailed. James Adams believed that America was the greatest country in the world, a little ethnocentric, but his ideas were of opportunity and prosperity for all people. In The Newsroom interview, the college student who posed the question of why McAvoy thinks America is the greatest country in the world, in my opinion is what the term ethnocentrism was really meant for. The young girl believes that America is the greatest country in the world without knowing anything about what is happening in America and around the globe today. She believed America was the best because that was her culture she was in at that moment, and failed to provide and trace of knowledge to the various cultures and issues within America itself. Ethnocentrism, as a negative term, is not being educated about worldly events, and not being open and understanding to other cultures. Like McAvoy wanted viewers to know so whole-heartedly, the first step really is recognizing there is a problem, the next is to take action to solve it.