Reimagined Communities

Borderlessness When Convenient

I too often grapple with the concept of multiculturalism in “post-nationalist” America. Often we create definitions and communities embedding ourselves in them. While language creates reality, it questionable whether it has the power to control whole societies, unless we allow it to. My focus is not so much on the term’s (globalization, multiculturalism, post-modernism, and post-nationalism) content, but when each term becomes fundamental in ascertaining a particular goal. In other words, people do not strive for these terms, but instead have these terms work for them. A prime example is the word “multicultural.” It never ceases to amaze how American culture employs such words. When it comes to free trade as opposed to fair trade, “multiculturalism” and “globalization” are also almost socio-economic necessities. All of the sudden there are no borders and the world becomes a stage for equal opportunity and/or exploitation. However, when it comes to issues of U.S. immigration, we want to build a huge wall, which if anything, is an overstatement of the word “border.” If the same persons who are subjected to “equal exploitation” were given some sort of superior military through the free trade of arms globalization would become quite problematic for many U.S. citizens. This is what I would like to refer to as Borderlessness when Convenient. We as an industrialized nation will only pursue diversity and multiculturalism when it is convenient or in our best interests. On the other hand, multiculturalism in the U.S. is a factor that cannot be ignored. While some accept multiculturalism with open arms aspiring one day to have a harmonious subsistence under diversity, others simply “tolerate” diversity only because it exist in their environment. David Rieff could not have been more precise about such terms when he mentions, “multiculturalism is cosily the handmaiden of globalizing capitalism: it provides a new market for both consumer and academic diversification, as ethnicity, non-Western culture, and the study of it are all commodified” (Buell 39). Even if diversity is not popular, we will find away to increase capital from it, be it so in the form of eroticized “Eastern foods” down to the Brazilian Bikini Wax and the list continues. Buell continuously grapples with defining contemporary nationalism. I would like to suggest that Borderlessness when Convenient is the new nationalism that has been formed through the ashes of old nationalism and in light of altering U.S. demographics. Maybe we are endorsing “American ideal of internationalism” by choosing when globalization and anti-immigration are applicable or perhaps it is better to wait and see (Curiel 4).

This week, we were presented with a set of reading that were intended to
challenge the way in which we think about American Studies. As there are only four American Studies majors in our class, I will save most of the jingoistic comments about how our major is superior and should thus be very reluctant to change. However, I will admit that we do have to modify our approach to reflect new realities.
When the major began in the 1950’s, America was in the midst of an ideological war. As such, much of the material intended for the American Studies cultural warehouse was inherently chauvinistic in nature. Clearly, we no longer have a need for that. At the same time, we should be reluctant to give up some of the features that distinguish American Studies from other disciplines.
We also need to remember that while the concept of a nation might be changing, and globalization is increasingly a factor as mentioned by two of the articles, there are certain enduring aspects of the nation that we cannot move beyond. Though America might have a different place in the world than it did fifty years ago (indeed, the world itself looks very different), it does not mean that there is no longer a particular American character. While the people that make up America might be more racially and culturally diverse than in the past, there are certain values that most of us subscribe to, which American Studies should seek to examine (and in doing so, can also look at what many Americans do not believe and why). It is beneficial to do this through the prism of race and culture, but American Studies should not devolve to regional or comparative studies. In “Patriotism and its Futures,” the author makes the point that we need to put one country or culture next to the other, examining the differences. While I think that American Studies can certainly benefit from considering the various cultures that make up America, the field does not exist to compare the United States to other nations.
That being said, it must be acknowledged that we do not have all the answers, and that we can benefit from an outside perspective. It was a Frenchman that wrote Democracy in America, a text that we still look to in order to shed light on American life today. Still, if we become too focused on an international approach, American Studies would lose its unique perspective. We already have to learn about everything in America. Learning about everything in the world is too much to ask. Kyle Poelker complains enough about his thesis as it is.