The Underwhelming Culture of the United States

"Era una ciudad de plástico,
de esas que no quiero ver.
De edificios cancerosos,
y un corazón de oropel.
Donde en vez de un sol,
amanece un dólar.
Donde nadie ríe,
donde nadie llora."
--Rubén Blades

There I said it. They asked what I don't like about living here. Well, this is one thing out of many I can easily point to: the United States is lacking culture, and it's painfully obvious for most migrants from all walks of life.

Note that I am not longing for my culture, or any other culture in particular. We are the ones who learn their language, their music, their history (unfortunately, given how abysmally wrong it is, especially with respect to our own history). If anything, integration failure would play in reverse (and it does play in reverse, they form silos). What I am missing is more culture of any kind. Even theirs would be appreciated.

I had heard the rumors, but I used to dismiss such comments before living the problem first hand. I heard my dad say it after he lived here for two years, although he never elaborated. I heard white-collar European girls say it for the TV between lines, in the most politically-correct ways imaginable. "Such snobs" -- I thought to myself.

A successful gynecologist, friend to the family, once was put on interview in the back room after arriving to the US for the first time. The reason? He had traveled extensively around the world according to his passport, but never to the US. The immigration official asked if he had anything against "American" culture, to which he wittingly retorted: "Which culture?".

Granted, we all suck at something. Perhaps I am gaining something in exchange. Let's look at the balance sheet: the food is bad and expensive. With a few notable exceptions, the architecture is either manicured plastic or a few artificially monumental, bad kitschy attempts at copying the Neoclassical, Spanish neocolonial, or Egypt (seriously, why Egypt? It would make more sense to have more Georgian and Victorian architecture, for instance). Surely, you have to correct for the fact that all of architecture everywhere hasn't been great for the last 100 years or so, and most US cities are barely 200 years old. You have to also correct for the fact that they bulldozed whatever semblance of old architecture they had, to make room for car lanes. They aren't the most graceful dancers in the world either, but nor is my dad, and nor are those French preppies on the TV. We. All. Suck. At. Something. ..and shine at others.

What could the silver lining be? Let's consider performing arts. Sure you don't want to dismiss Andrew Lloyd Weber, or Philip Glass. I have listened to Conlon Nancarrow's entire piano repertoire several times. The pop music of the United States is all over the place. Where would I be myself without my jazz and rock? (I'm exaggerating, I would still have a lot to listen to, but I still think jazz is the best thing that could have happened to music in the 20th century (and bebop is the best thing that could have happened to jazz)). I'm not a movie person, yet it's obvious that the contributions are enormous there too, even after filtering out the 98% of commercial crap coming out of Hollywood (and the music industry). A similar thing could be said of literature. "The literature is strong in this one" isn't something Yoda would say of my own country, at least in comparison to giants like the UK and even the US (although our America as a whole is doing pretty well these days, just as it did during the Baroque).

However all of this still comes across as unsatisfactory. I was already listening to and reading all of that before coming here. I can similarly read and listen to Russian, Japanese or Iranian literature and music, yet I would still be missing a lot of their culture, by a large margin. OK, I'm lying, I don't read a lot of literature, to be honest, but you get the drill.

Another foreign student tried to cure my illness: "The art museum of Chicago, you should go there". I nodded. I had already been there a couple times, and don't get me wrong, it's an impressive collection. Speaking of impressiveness, the impressionism halls I found especially impressive (they have bought half of Monet's entire output). But here's the thing: that's Europe's culture, and a very specific kind of high culture. Although the actual problem isn't commensurate with unoriginality, it does relate to it. They simultaneously profess being special snowflakes, titans among the rest, but deep down they are obsessed with being accepted as next in line in Western lineage (which in turn explains the bad architectural copycats), and they are failing very badly at it.

Take a look at the number of cultural UNESCO world heritage sites in the United States. Let's grant for a moment that Washington D.C. should probably be added, perhaps downtown Boston too (I don't think Bourbon street makes the cut). Yet the jury is clear: of their 12 entries, 1 is a French gift, 6 are the product of indigenous cultures the United States largely exterminated and replaced (most of which wouldn't even make the list of minor sites if they were located in Mesoamerica) and 2 are stolen Hispanic sites (also an enemy culture, and you can notice it from their very choice of museum curation). One is the minuscule Texan Catholic missions of frontier Mexico. If still part of Mexico, the same chapels wouldn't even deserve a road sign — these are third-class churches — but one nation's trash is another nation's treasure. The other one is the fortress of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Although not unimpressive, it is on the same ballpark as countless such fortresses without recognition throughout Spanish America. This opens another whole can of worms regarding UNESCO's methodology (a similar complaint could be raised for natural sites), but we shall not concern ourselves with that here.

So we are left with a remainder of 3, three fucking culturally noteworthy sites (one isn't even a site) coming from core Anglo/Germanic US culture: downtown Philadelphia, Monticello and the scattered houses of Frank Lloyd Wright. Wikipedia had to plot Lloyd Wright's as separate entries on the map to cope for the void, whereas in Mexico we have to group together dozens of entire cities and towns under the single entry of the Silver Road, each of which probably contains more architectural wealth than the whole of Lloyd Wright (it's one guy against a whole civilization, after all, nothing against Lloyd Wright).

I am dead serious. There are single towns in Mexico with no recognition whatsoever brimming with more architectural heritage, crafts, food and traditions than entire regions of the United States. A single country like Guatemala is smaller than Wisconsin yet has almost the same number of entries than all of the United States, and it didn't have to take credit for someone else's work to achieve it. Interestingly, neighboring Belize which was colonized by the English, in spite of sharing the same Mayan background and geographical conditions, didn't go to develop as many sites. Also note that the problem doesn't seem to extend as acutely to Canada, a country an order of magnitude less populous, or at least to the core of old Canada from Hudson Bay to the St. Lawrence.

On the same vein, I think Mexico has a stronger pictorial and sculptural traditions than the States. We might not be on par with Mediterranean Europe, but for every Nighthawks I can point to 10 Cabreras, Velascos, Herráns, González Camarenas, Varos and Siqueiros that would take the rigid US plastic arts for a ride to the physiotherapist. This is aggravated if focusing on plastic arts proper. That is, no pinup girl posters, no Alex Ross comic book covers (which ironically might be the most original and advanced painting tradition the US has produced). One day the empire will be gone, and although there might be much to remember it for scientific- and technology-wise, the obituary will have very few cultural remarks. In short, most of their museums are imported culture, which only goes to confirm my diagnosis: there's a void which has to be filled with purchases.

Another classmate (a local) thinks she has caught me in utter contradiction or denial. Whenever I play in public a jazz standard, this girl approaches me and lets me know she likes it. It's a very selective comment, because it's not like I'm only playing those. Therefore, the comment is codeword for: "You see, that's our culture right there, you retard".

Indeed. Thanks for giving us jazz. Especial kudos to African Americans. Endurance prevailed, after the other guys derided it as garbage for decades.

Here's the thing, though...

Why am I the only person around making a name for your culture? (by "your" I simply mean "originating in your country". We play good jazz in Mexico too, and jazz is, like everything else, an admixture from its very origin).

You see, culture is more than the high culture of museums. In fact, the whole point of Impressionism and Realism was to go out of academia and depict real life. Culture is much more than the next multi-million dollar movie being filmed at some studio. It's more than attending the Berklee academy to become a professional bassist. It's much more than making record sales by adding more bouncing tits around the same 4 chords (although the Grammy$ would have you believe otherwi$e). Culture is the whole iceberg below the iceberg tip. An activity by humans, for humans. You kept some of the byproducts, while depriving society at large of its very process.

And we need to make it clear, I am not a traditionalist either. Culture is also more than the annals of a bygone era. Rather, culture is the living act of the phantom of the past, speaking through the tongue of mortals in the present, reinventing itself for the future generation.

Where did the big bands go? Where are the banjos and washboards? I swear I was listening to more street musicians playing music in English on the streets of Mexico. Here I have seen exactly two in three fucking years: a single guy in downtown Chicago, the other one was me: a fucking immigrant who can barely fiddle for his own amusement.

Where is the impromptu hip-hopper or rapper adding something unexpected to your daily commute? Where are the food stands? Where's the street magician? Even a sketchy trickster, Montmartre-style, would do.

Where is the tap dancing, or any kind of dancing at casual social gatherings for that matter? OK, skip this one. They don't have casual social gatherings to begin with, and we had already established that Latin America is overpowered in this regard.

Where are the street murals? Indeed, most of them will be uncanny, kitsch; but we are not asking for a country of Dalís and Vermeers, we simply want a culture.

Where are the parades? Where are the seasonal festivals? There's Halloween, but seriously, we "season-less" countries are in fact having much more of that.

Where are the night tours through the city? Where are the guided legends? The witty minstrels?

Where are the sculptures, those dirty and drenched monuments telling you: "this shit is for real, son, actual things happened here". A war, a tyrant, an artist comissioned by the tyrant to commemorate the war, another war which carved the bullet hole you see in the monument.

Where are the crafts? Seriously. Now I understand why those are so popular among tourists who visit our countries. Artisans and craftsmanship simply don't exist here. The totalizing efficiency of rampant capitalism has erased them (as if there was something wrong or impossible with a cohabitation). The whole country is a giant factory, a giant business with a giant military, and an exclusive club for those allowed to partake in the pillaging.

By the way, this also explains why the food is bad and why the architecture is serially boring. Some things simply should not be industrialized. They weren't meant to be. Good food isn't ammenable to scale economies, a good dish isn't cost-effective. Good food requires fresh ingredients and a personal attestation of their irregularities and imperfections, a feedback process that is never completely predefined. Similarly, some things do not have to be regulated in order to exist. If all outdoors concerts need a permit and an announcement, you are doing it wrong. If unregulated architecture kills its inhabitants, overregulated architecture kills the creativity. Do you seriously think there are regulations for tapestries or valid stained glass compositions? Mass-produced cathedrals? Canned film festivals sold on Amazon?

The sad verdict for the United States is that the economy can't buy you a culture. Greed doesn't amount to development. No matter how rich you are, selling more concert tickets and opening more art galleries is not getting you any closer to having a culture.

Rather, take your time to stroll around your cities. Let go of some of the money and hang out more... you'll be totally fine, and you'll gain a culture in the process. Let the jokes and legends flood the streets. Drop out of that pottery class you are paying for on weekends, for you forgot to offer the products to society in the garage sales and flea markets, you forgot to prepare dinner on those dishes. Drop out of those expensive dance lessons; for the business culture is sterilizing the cultural culture. This sort of culture is bred in families, parties and bars. The time has come to invent pottery dancing, and I assure you no business is going to come up with such an idea. Pottery dancing is gonna take off the moment you start performing for free in the park.

Be people first, enjoy life, suffer life. Stop caring about whether you are first in life. Allow it to give you a reason to share the stories of the cotton fields, and only then might you have all that jazz.