Introduction to American Identity and Historical Concepts

Terminological Evolution and the Definition of "America"

• The conflation of the term "America" with the "United States" is a relatively recent phenomenon that did not become broadly established until around $1911$. This shift occurred when maps began specifically pointing to the continents and identifying the United States as the primary location designated as America.

• Historically, the term "America" described the entire Western Hemisphere, including Central America, Latin America, Canada, and the Caribbean.

• Early European explorers, such as Christopher Columbus, first encountered "America" in the Caribbean and South America. During that era, "America" and the "New World" were often used interchangeably to refer to both North and South America.

• There is a significant population disparity that challenges the identity of the United States as the sole "America." Nations like Brazil and the combined regions of Latin America and Canada contain populations that rival or exceed that of the United States. Therefore, limiting the definition to the United States is considered exclusionary and inaccurate in terms of global population size.

Ideology and Power Dynamics

• Ideology is defined, following the work of John Thompson, as "meaning in the service of power."

• This concept refers to the beliefs, common-sense ideas, understandings of the world, and cultural practices that dictate how power is divided and utilized within society.

• The linguistic practice of referring only to the United States as "America" is an ideological act. It has concrete consequences for international trade, the imagination of group belonging, and the reinforcement of borders.

• The confusion of terminology is also evident in the naming of the United Kingdom. While many refer to it simply as "England," the United Kingdom actually includes distinct countries such as Scotland and Wales. Great Britain is another separate designation. Conflating one part (England) with the whole (The United Kingdom) is a matter of power dynamics, as individuals from Scotland or Mexico may resist being conflated with a dominant neighbor.

American Exceptionalism and Pluralism

• American Exceptionalism is the belief that the United States is unique in world history and stands as the only "true" America.

• There is an ongoing tension between the idea of the United States as a uniquely exclusionary power and the self-concept of the nation as a pluralistic "melting pot."

• Walt Whitman, in the $1855$ edition of Leaves of Grass, argued that America possessed a unique character described as a "race of races." He viewed the country as a New World entity that was uniquely welcoming to immigrants of different faiths and backgrounds, specifically from various parts of Europe.

• In the poem "That Country" by Eileen Myles, being American is traced back to a lineage as an English colony. The identity is described as a "spin without a home" and an "edgy feeling," highlighting the struggle of a young nation trying to assert an identity distinct from the "old world" of Europe.

Processes of Americanization and Exclusion

• By the turn of the twentieth century, the United States began to narrow the definition of what it meant to be a "real American," moving away from the broad idea of a nation of immigrants.

• "Americanization" often involved the pressure to anglicize names to sound more Anglo-Saxon (e.g., German, Irish, or English) rather than Italian or from other late-nineteenth-century immigrant groups.

• Example: Steven Tyler of the band Aerosmith. His original Italian surname was Talerico, but it was changed to Tyler as part of the Americanization process to fit a more limited Anglo-centric identity.

The Intimacy of Four Continents and Empire

• American studies scholar Lisa Low describes the "intimacy of four continents," suggesting that the formation of the United States cannot be understood without acknowledging:

  • The genocide of Native Americans.

  • The Transatlantic slave trade.

  • Forced and unforced migration.

• The United States is characterized by a dual history: it began as a colony (primarily of England) and subsequently evolved into an empire that colonizes, captures, and exploits other places.

The Concept of the "Un-American"

• The identity of being "American" is often defined in opposition to what is deemed "un-American."

• The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) was active from the $1940s$ through the $1960s$. During the "Red Scare," being un-American was synonymous with being a communist or a socialist sympathizer.

• High-profile figures accused by the HUAC included:

  • Orson Welles (Director of Citizen Kane).

  • Paul Robeson (Orator, singer, and activist).

  • Charlie Chaplin.

• In contemporary contexts, the label "un-American" has been used to describe those who are overly critical of the United States. For instance, President Trump attacked institutions like the Smithsonian for presenting United States history in a negative light.

Musical and Visual Representations of American Character

• David Bowie’s song "Young Americans" provides an external perspective on Americanness. Bowie himself underwent a stylistic shift from the "Ziggy Stardust" persona (a gender-bending space alien with red hair and platform boots) to the "Thin White Duke" persona around the time of this song.

• The song features a contrast between a "bluesy" sound with heavy bass and background vocals that overtake the lead, and cynical lyrics that suggest a "fluorescent" reality beneath a flashy exterior.

• The American character is often tied to iconic imagery and cultural products, such as:

  • Baseball and apple pie.

  • Jazz, soul food, and R&B.

  • Burritos and pizza.

  • Gun violence and segregation.

  • Eating disorders.

Branding and the "Banality of Evil"

• Dwight McBride, in Why I Hate Abercrombie & Fitch, argues that Americanness is branded and sold through specific associations with race (whiteness) and class status.

• Ad campaigns, such as those for American Eagle featuring Sydney Sweeney, use wordplay like "Sydney Sweeney has great jeans" to subliminally invoke "great genes." These ads often valorize blonde-haired, blue-eyed aesthetics as the definitive American "look."

• McBride links these branding practices to Hannah Arendt’s concept of the "banality of evil." This suggests that people do not need to consciously sign up for extremist ideologies (like Nazism) to be subliminally influenced by exclusionary ideas of who does and does not belong to a society.

• Abercrombie & Fitch historically utilized exclusionary hiring practices to maintain an "American classic" brand that often excluded people of color.

• A specific example of historical brand racism is a $2000$ Abercrombie & Fitch ad featuring the "Wong Brothers" laundry service with the slogan "Two Wongs can make it white," which used humor at the expense of East Asian inclusion in the American project.

AMST 101 — Reading Notes: Week 1, Wed Aug 19

"What is the 'America' in American Studies?"

Reading 1: "America" — Kirsten Silva Gruesz, in Keywords for American Cultural Studies

Summary (Layer 1–2: What it says / central argument)

Gruesz's entry unsettles the assumption that "America" simply means "the United States." Her core argument: the word looks self-evident but is actually one of the most ideologically loaded terms in the field, because it silently erases the rest of the hemisphere (Canada, Latin America, the Caribbean) every time it's used as shorthand for the U.S. She traces this from the term's contested naming (Vespucci/Waldseemüller vs. competing Indigenous-origin theories) through 19th-century nation-building (Whitman) to the late-20th-century push in American Studies itself to "de-nationalize" the term (Radway, hemispheric/"Americas" studies).

Key move: America ≠ nation, at least not originally

Gruesz stresses that colonists themselves mostly avoided calling themselves "American" well into the 18th century, because the word still connoted Indigenous origin — something settlers were eager to distance themselves from. Only later did nationalist writers like Whitman fuse "America" and "the United States" into one term, and that fusion did real ideological work: it let the U.S. absorb the whole hemisphere's name for itself.

Evidence used (Layer 3)

• Etymological debates over the origin of "America" (Vespucci, Waldseemüller, contested Indigenous/African/Norse theories) — she reads the persistence of this debate itself as evidence, since each origin story assigns hemispheric "ancestry" to a different group.

• Whitman's 1855 preface to Leaves of Grass — used to show how "America" and "the United States" get rhetorically merged.

• José Martí's 1891 distinction between "Nuestra América" (mixed-race, hemispheric) and the U.S. as a separate, more exclusionary entity.

• Institutional evidence: the 1990s debate within the American Studies Association over renaming itself to reflect a hemispheric/"Americas" framework.

• Counter-example showing the limits of "inclusive" language: NAFTA and the U.S. Army's "School of the Americas" — both use hemispheric-sounding names while still reinforcing U.S. dominance.

Methodology (Layer 6)

This is a keyword/genealogical method — rather than defining a term, it tracks how a term's meaning has shifted historically and whose interests each shift served. This is characteristic of cultural studies: the assumption that language does ideological work, not just descriptive work.

Key quote for papers

Gruesz argues the field must ask <cite index="3-1">who gets to define what "America" means and what institutions help enforce or undermine a particular definition</cite>.

(Paraphrased close to the original structure — good for citing the essay's central provocation rather than quoting it directly.)

Paper-usable point

Gruesz's essay gives you a ready-made analytical move: when a text, ad, or speech uses "America" or "American," ask whether it's using the word to mean the U.S. specifically, or gesturing at something broader — and who benefits from the ambiguity. This is directly useful for any object (anthem, ad campaign, political speech) that trades on national symbolism.

Reading 2: Dwight McBride, "Why I Hate Abercrombie & Fitch" (2005)

Summary (Layer 1–2)

McBride uses Abercrombie & Fitch as a case study in how "Americanness" gets branded, marketed, and sold — and how that brand encodes race (specifically whiteness) and class as though they were neutral aesthetic categories like "natural" or "classic." His argument has two connected parts:

1. Branding argument: A&F's marketing (the "Look Book," the A&F Quarterly, Bruce Weber's photography) constructs an "A&F Look" defined by words like "natural," "classic," and "American" — words that function as coded racial language. The company doesn't say "we want white employees"; it says it wants people who are "natural" and "classic," which in practice means white.

2. Structural/legal argument: This branding wasn't just aesthetic — it produced documented discriminatory hiring practices (the 2003 class-action lawsuit), including grading employees by appearance, "zeroing out" hours for employees who didn't fit the "Look," and excluding hairstyles associated with Black employees (fades, dreadlocks, shaved heads).

The "banality of evil" argument (his most provocative move)

McBride explicitly invokes Hannah Arendt to argue that consumers don't need to consciously buy into white supremacist ideology to participate in and reproduce it — buying into an "aesthetic" or "lifestyle" is enough. This is his justification for using strong language (comparing A&F's marketing rhetoric to Nazi-era ideology) — he's careful to say he's not equating A&F with the Holocaust, but arguing that ordinary, unremarkable participation in a system is how racist structures perpetuate themselves.

Evidence used (Layer 3)

• Textual analysis of the A&F "Look Book" (word counts — "natural" appears 14 times; specific dress-code rules banning dreadlocks, fades, gold chains, large hoop earrings).

• The 2003 T-shirt controversy ("Two Wongs Can Make It White").

• The 2003 class-action lawsuit complaint (direct excerpts describing "blitzes," employee grading A–F, "zeroing out" hours).

• Interviews McBride conducted himself with former A&F managers and brand reps (Chance, David, Randy — pseudonyms), giving first-person testimony about the internal culture.

• Comparison to Ralph Lauren and Banana Republic to isolate what's specific to A&F rather than generic to preppy branding.

Methodology (Layer 6)

This is cultural studies + critical race studies, combining close reading of marketing material with legal/documentary evidence and ethnographic interviews. McBride models something useful for your papers: he doesn't just interpret the ads, he triangulates interpretation with material evidence (lawsuit, employee testimony) so the reading isn't just a matter of opinion.

Key quotes for papers (use sparingly, one per source is the norm)

McBride's central claim is that A&F successfully <cite index="4-53">crystallizes a racism that is only rumbling beneath the surface of other stores' advertising</cite>.

This is a strong, specific line for a paper because it does real comparative work — it's not just "A&F is racist," it's a claim about how A&F differs from its competitors.

Paper-usable points

• Coded language: "natural," "classic," "American" as euphemisms — this is a transferable analytical tool for any ad campaign (his essay literally anticipates something like the Sydney Sweeney "great jeans" controversy referenced in your lecture notes).

• Brand vs. product: McBride opens with Naomi Klein's point that corporations increasingly sell brand/identity rather than product — useful if you want to connect this reading to your economics/business interests (consumer identity, branding strategy).

• Structural vs. individual racism: useful for essays that need to move beyond "this ad is offensive" into "this ad reflects and reproduces a structural practice with legal and economic consequences."

Connecting the two readings

Both pieces are doing the same underlying move that Gruesz's keyword method models: asking who gets to define "American" and whose interests that definition serves.

• Gruesz: "America" as a word that erases the hemisphere and consolidates U.S. national identity.

• McBride: "American" as a look/brand that erases people of color and consolidates a specific racial and class identity as the default meaning of "classic" or "natural."

Possible thesis angle: Both texts argue that seemingly neutral, common-sense language ("America," "natural," "classic") does ideological work — it doesn't just describe an existing reality, it constructs who counts as American/desirable while making that construction look self-evident. This is a strong candidate for a paper that pairs a primary source (an ad, anthem, or brand) with these two frameworks.

Discussion questions to bring to recitation

1. Gruesz shows how "America" narrowed from hemispheric to national. McBride shows how "American" narrowed from national to a specific racialized aesthetic. Is this the same process happening at a different scale, or a different mechanism entirely?

2. McBride wrote in 2005. Where do you see the same "coded" branding language (natural, classic, all-American) operating in advertising today?

3. Gruesz notes that "inclusive"-sounding terms (Americas, NAFTA) can still reinforce U.S. dominance. Does McBride's essay have a version of this problem — i.e., does exposing the code risk leaving the underlying structure intact?

Questions & Discussion

• Question: "I saw two Americans talking on the street." Where do you think I was talking about?

• Response: Most people assume the United States. However, can technically mean anywhere that is not America, such as Sydney, or specifically any place in the Americas like Costa Rica or Canada.

• Question: What are the consequences if we limit "America" to mean just the United States?

• Response: It leads to exclusion. It ignores the majority of people living in the Americas (such as those in Brazil or Mexico) and serves an ideological purpose that affects trade, borders, and national identity.

• Question: Are you un-American?

• Response: This is a verse from David Bowie's song "Young Americans," used to prompt a reflection on how the term has been used to police political and social behavior in the U.S.