Culture Crossing - The U.S.A. & Argentina

Happy Monday morning everyone, and Salud to the start of a fresh new week!

It's been a very busy time preparing for quizes in spanish and human rights as we are getting ready to head soon into our 3rd and final stretch of school.

Today throughout The United States, parts of Europe, and Australia, many people are observing and celebrating a holiday known as "Halloween." Well, it is mostly celebrated in these countries, because it is a holiday of English origin. But like many English and United States traditions, the culture that we claim a part of is finding it's late influence spread across the globe in a process known as "globalization" or basically the shrinking of distances and extending of one dominant culture. Things common to one society become a part of others.

Not only can we travel half way around the world in 15 hours (as I did to get here) but internet, cellphones, radio ect. allow instantaneous communication as if we are in a global village. Many people consider our world to be a "global village" today, described in spanish as a "cultura mesclado" - mixed culture. Even big businesses are starting to take advantage of this oppurtunity.

On Facebook I have 2 friends from The U.S. who are friends with
"McDonalds", and 8 from Rosario - I only have a hand-full of friends on FB from Argentina!

In Argentina, many many people are beginning to celebrate holidays like Halloween, and I witnessed it over the past few days in costume shops, advertisments, and from the number one source: television. I was disapointed to discover that there will be no Trick-or-Treating taking place ( I couldn't even find Halloween chocolates in the supermarket!), it hasn't caught on quite the same yet. But for older generations it is an excuse to have fun and to party in unison with the culture that they have seen.

Where did they learn that European and U.S. culture was like this?

T.V. and mass media together are the number 1 socializing mechanism on the planet, taking the culture that is portrayed in the United States and reproducing it thousands of miles away in the middle of other histories, planting a cultural seed that grows and influences and eventually can create a world of similarly interested people. It's quite a site to see this process taking place live and in progress in Argentina.

There is this idea one of my Professors back in Portland talked about called a symolicron that is the process in which reality is reproduced in some form or another into something that is a look-alike, or a copy. It might feel real, look or sound real, but maybe only when you compare it to the original you can tell it isn't real. Disney Land is an example of this (it's not actually a magical kingdom???) and so is a 1980's neon light party in which people come in way to bright and tight spandex. For the people who want to recreate these experiences it is this closest thing to reality that they know! And then it gets retold or reinforced by media.

When a movie maker or t.v producer recreates the image of society, they produce a symolicron, touching-up and tweaking the less-desirable charecteristics to something that is more artificial, and closer to an image of a dreamy perfection - for many people living in other places around the world this dreamy, perfected, spray-on-tanned U.S.A. is the only refrence they have of the culture.

Even for us, living in the U.S. it can be hard to distinctify reality from make-believe in Hollywood, but imagine then what it could be like living in a country where the only story you get about a country is from these films that you see.

My friend asked me if all high-schoolers in the Unites States looked like they were 26 to 30 years old, mature, thin, and beautiful like they are on the television. Are they all wealthy, well-dressed, and witty? He refrenced "Glee," and I had to let him know that this is not the case but only a fiction, but at the same time reflecting back to when I was going through highschool at a small town of 1000 students, watching "Smallville," and wondering why the students at my school were so inmature!

Can you figure out which picture below is of real high-schoolers?

Actually, I'm pretty sure those girls are freshman in college.

Some other steriotypes that have been created from this false image about U.S. citizens is that we all seperate ourselves in to clicks, love to party, are individualists and have tons of money: you wouldn't believe how many times someone has told me after I ask how much something costs "yes, but that isn't too exspensive for you!".

Another person informed me that Portland was a very dangerous city. He had seen the documentary series "Ganglands" and had learned that Portland was filled with gangs.

Whats even more is that the few U.S. immigrants that live in Argentina are mostly confined in within the walls of Buenas Aires: there is no one to tell a different story then what is shown!

Well, what made for a kick Saturday night as I attended about 1 of the 3 Halloween costume parties in Rosario, Argentina was to see the extravagance of the costumes. I wondered for awhile about why now were people suddenly going so crazy and all out on these costumes, but when I noticed that most of them were refrencable to Halloween dress from a 1990's movie I realized that they were dressing up in costumes that we are taught are typical! Lots of cats, vampires, things that go bump in the dark, legos, togas... The Simpsons?? Is U.S. culture really that globalized?

When you think about Argentine culture, what kinds of steriotypes or images do you come up with?

I get this question a lot, but for me before coming here, I honestly had no steriotypes about Argentina other then what people started to tell me. I just grouped it in with the rest of South American culture. The most accurate assumption I had was that they were beautiful people who love soccer.

But the people here have so much more to there personhood, they offer so much to someone willing to seek and to learn. Reality turned out to be so much better then the stories that I had become satisfied with!

Come up with some, and I will let you know what I have seen!