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The West Coast has not only received the bulk of Asian American migration, but also has established increasingly strong commercial ties in the postwar era with sometimes burgeoning Asian states. The “Pacific Rim” incorporates California, Oregon, Washington (the Pacific Northwest), Alaska and Hawai’i into a broader global vision of business and culture for the twenty-first century. The title is also applied to fusion cuisine and design styles mixing Asian elements with a jazzy California style as well as local ingredients. By contrast, “Atlantic culture and society” is generally confined to academic studies of the interchanges constituted by colonialism and slavery and their aftermath (although NATO—the North Atlantic Treaty Organization—evokes other historic ties).
Meanwhile, Texas may be called the “third coast” while Miami is sometimes recognized as the capital of the Caribbean. All of these terms project ideological expectations that may not affect the consciousness of local, non-immigrant populations.
Industry:Culture
South Manhattan area approximately bounded by Houston, Broadway Hudson and 14th Street, identified with alternative lifestyles and cultures. A pre-war haven for artists and political activists, Greenwich Village became identified in the 1950s with the beat generation and coffee-houses and, in the 1960s, with the Stonewall Riot and gay lifestyles. The Village Voice champions such political and cultural positions, as a neighborhood newspaper with national impact. Yet the village also represents attractive commercial and residential real estate, forces of gentrification that have challenged its alternative qualities in the 1990s even while tourists come to seek them.
Industry:Culture
The concept of individualism is a relatively recent addition to political and social philosophy. Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau in the seventeenth and eighteenth century proposed influential interpretations of the role of the individual in the social context. Out of such appraisals came two major concepts that were to drive the evolution of Western society and help define the nature of individuals over the next 300 years. The Enlightenment focused on reason as the hard-and-fast guiding principal promoting such developing institutions as science and democratic politics as the mechanism of individual nourishment and progress. Romanticism, an almost instinctive refutation of reason as the sole moderator of human conduct, dwelt instead on the passions, emotions and internally derived principals of individuals coming to grips with their temperament and position in nature as the divining force in humanity. These two perspectives established and defined the core of the sometimes complementary sometimes contradictory nature of American culture.
The American Revolution, driven by the enlightened principles of the “founding fathers” such as Jefferson, Franklin and Madison, drew from rationally derived ideals of political and social equality for all citizens with minimal governmental obstruction of individual expression. This grand experiment left plenty of room for the popular, “romantic” notion of cultural individuality (and for social differentiation). Beginning with the founding fathers, and continuing through a litany of sometimes dubious folklore—Johnny Appleseed, Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Wyatt Earp, George Custer, etc.—and outright myths such as Paul Bunyan, the westward expansion of European culture in North America was accompanied and often driven by the poeticization of the individual.
Despite the enlightened social perspectives of twenty-first-century America, the dichotomy of the role of the American individual still commands the cultural stage, often to conflicting messages. Political campaigns are marked by candidates striving to distinguish themselves from their opponents as individuals and reformers, while being financed by the largest, wealthiest and most homogeneous political system in history.
Sports and mass-media celebrities constitute the bulk of modern cultural heroes and role models, whose claim on the American psyche derives from their fame and wealth, and whose conduct often refutes systemic ideals of behavior. American competitiveness now marks the political and sports industries to such a degree that victory at all costs, demonizing the adversary to the point of exclusionary differentiation, and total defeat and humiliation of the opponent are acceptable strategies. Meanwhile, the environmental movement has elevated the argument that the discerning individual, in opposition to lumbering bureaucracies and malignant industry will elaborate the new role of humanity and be the last best defense against self-destruction, while free-market consumerism converges on the conceit of the individual to peddle mass-produced goods, essentially promoting objects as markers of cultural acceptability and superiority.
In the middle of the greatest economic upturn in history such incongruities are prime elements of modern domestic terrorism, fostering reactionary and combustible individualism in the order of the unabomber, the Columbine high-school massacre in Colorado and the Oklahoma City bombing.
Industry:Culture
The term “retirement” typically refers to the partial or full separation of a person from occupational life. Most often, advancing years are the impetus for retirement, however there is no universal retirement age. Separation from the workforce prior to the age of sixty-two or sixty-five (the ages at which reduced and full Social Security benefits may be collected respectively) is often referred to as early retirement, however this is not an official designation. The timing of retirement may be changed by variations in employersponsored pension-program policies, although mandatory retirement policies are no longer legal for almost all occupations. Some individuals may choose to retire from the workplace whereas others may be compelled to step down. There are numerous factors that may contribute to the decision to retire. Separation from the workplace may be desirable for the well aged who yearn for the freedom to pursue personal interests or merely to enjoy the release from occupational structures and demands. Others may base their decision on factors relating to adequacy of pension, health benefits and overall financial security. Some find that declining physical or mental capacity or the expectation that they fill a larger role within the family necessitates withdrawal from employment.
Regardless of whether retirement is a choice or necessity the event is typically momentous and signifies, for better or worse, disengagement from decades of remunerated productivity. For many identity is closely linked with one’s title, field and employer, and is depreciated by the act of retirement. When retirement results in reduced income, perceived status may be altered simultaneously. Successful retirement, therefore, is in part related to the ability to acquire new and meaningful roles such as volunteer, participant in social and recreational activities, care-giver or activist, particularly in American culture which values remaining productive or at least busy. Personal maladjustment, marital strain and stress related to a new budget do occur, but only in the minority of retirees at any given time.
The concept of retirement in the United States has evolved over the years and its significance has been altered concurrently. In pre-industrial times, it was expected that people would continue to work until no longer able to do so. With the advent of automation, productivity increased reducing the number of workers needed for national economic output. Retirement came to be seen as a way to limit the number of workforce participants and those seeking employment and to provide support for those less able to work, such as the old and disabled. The association between retirement and old age and incapacity further promoted negative attitudes. The establishment of Social Security in 1935 ushered in a new understanding of retirement. Workers were “rewarded” for their years of productivity and additionally given the opportunity to defer income for their later years. Although the evolution of attitudes took many years, retirement ultimately came to be seen as a right reserved for those who have served an adequate amount of time in the workforce. Today the vast majority of workers intend to retire, although the timing varies greatly.
Industry:Culture
What was remarkable about the discoveries made by the U-2 plane flying over Cuba on October 14, 1962, was not the pictures of Soviet missiles being placed there, but rather the fact that Americans had previously been unaware of their existence. The missiles had traveled by sea to Cuba along with 42,000 troops and technicians to service and protect them.
The missiles were sent in part to cement the Soviet Union’s alliance with Castro’s Cuba, and as part of Nikita Khrushchev’s pledge to protect Cuba from US invasion, but, more importantly as a response to the deployment of Jupiter missiles in Turkey Having made an issue of the “missile gap” (the fabricated claim that the Soviet Union was ahead in the arms race) in his election campaign, and having been embarrassed the previous year by the Bay of Pigs fiasco, President Kennedy could not merely recognize the Soviet act for what it was and agree to remove the Jupiters. Instead, Kennedy heightened tensions immediately demanding in a nationwide television address that the Soviets withdraw their missiles. He further warned that if a missile were fired from Cuba, Americans would respond by launching a missile attack on the Soviet Union. Acting in this way placed Khrushchev in a position from which he could not back down without considerable loss of political capital. For six days he refused to remove the missiles.
Kennedy’s advisors were divided about whether to stick with the blockade they had established and wait out Khrushchev, or to bomb the missiles with the likelihood of killing numerous Russians. Letters were sent from Khrushchev to Kennedy the first of which agreed to withdraw Soviet missiles in exchange for a no-invasion pledge from the US Government. This was immediately followed by another letter which demanded that Kennedy also remove the Jupiter missiles; the President would not agree to this demand.
Fortunately Robert Kennedy suggested that Americans should accept the first letter and ignore the second. Agreement was reached on October 27, but not before Americans came to the brink of bombing Cuba, triggering a missile attack on the US. Moreover, the fact that the Soviets were not fully in control of the missiles on the ground in Cuba created an extremely volatile situation. The agreement had both a public and private dimension. The public agreement fitted the terms of the first letter; but privately the Kennedy administration agreed to withdraw the Jupiter missiles, which had triggered the crisis in the first place.
Kennedy salvaged the prestige he had lost since the Bay of Pigs, but at great cost.
People around the world were fully aware of their proximity to nuclear annihilation, and, while many Americans were happy that Kennedy had not blinked, others believed that he had overreacted. More significantly Khrushchev, who had been pushing for reforms in the aftermath of Stalin’s regime, lost much of his credibility as a result of the crisis and was later removed from power by Soviet hardliners led by Leonid Brezhnev. The Cold War would get colder still. The fears of annihilation that the crisis produced filtered into American culture in the ubiquitous private and public nuclear shelters, the bikini swimsuits (named after the atoll in which nuclear testing occurred), the movie Dr.
Strangelove (1964) and in a growing fascination with horror movies.
Industry:Culture
Sport with regional popularity (the coasts and the Great Lakes, especially) among white middle-class Americans. Recreational sailing took off in the middle of the nineteenth century as commercial sailing lost ground to steam in shipping. Competition has focused on the America’s Cup, first raced in 1851, the main purpose of which was showcasing the New York Yacht Club’s (NYYC) ability to build vessels technologically superior to those of all other contenders. This stress on technology has increased in recent years, with the adoption of supercomputers to help determine aerodynamic designs and predict better wave-resistant materials.
The NYYC successfully defended the Cup twenty-four times over a 134-year period, the longest winning streak in sports history. However, the streak ended in 1983, when the Australians introduced a “winged keel” on their boat and defeated Dennis Conner and the NYYC’s Liberty. Conner returned four years later at the helm of the Stars and Stripes to win the Cup for the San Diego Yacht Club, but has since lost the Cup to New Zealand.
In 1995 the first all-women team competed in the America Cup. A key aspect in competitive sailing is “grinding” the huge winches that control the sail. Male grinders normally stand six feet tall, weigh around 200 pounds and can bench press between 250 and 300 pounds. Women grinders, able to bench press between 150 and 180 pounds, are at a disadvantage. The success of The Mighty Mary caused both surprise and consternation among the men, Conner dismissing the women crew as “a bunch of lesbians.” The sponsor, Bil Koch, eventually put a man at the helm. For the 2000 America Cup the San Francisco Yacht Club sponsored America True, featuring a coed crew managed and captained by Dawn Riley, the first woman CEO in the Cup.
Industry:Culture
Unlike other regions of the United States, the unity of this highly industrial and urban area is defined as much by its power as viewed from other vantages as by a cohesive regional experience. Encompassing the Anglo-colonial foundations of American society the “East” or “East Coast” has been a variable referent, generally encompassing Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Yet it may be used to refer to domination (North versus South in the nineteenth century), modernity (industrial and post-industrial development) and decay (in opposition to the rising West). This cultural geography also coincides with the Sunbelt/rustbelt division of the US in the late twentieth/early twenty-first century although the rustbelt also includes older, upper Midwest states like Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Illinois. “East Coast,” a broader term, encompasses Southern shores as well, but omits the Great Lakes. To make it more confusing, locals tend to orient themselves in terms of culture formations like New England (encompassing the first six states above) or the Mid-Atlantic area (parts of the last three, plus Maryland, Delaware and the District of Columbia).
From a functional standpoint, the Northeast can be defined by the Boston-Washington megalopolis that includes the economic (New York City) and political (Washington, DC) capitals of the nation, with important subsidiary centers in Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore—all connected by active train and highway routes. Moreover, this area has been a cultural stronghold for centuries due to the historical primacy of Anglo-European settlement and culture, as well as the institutions of higher education, medicine, history and culture established there. The intensely urban character of the Northeast, which nonetheless encompasses extensive rural and small-town life, has also been renewed over the centuries by waves of immigration. Initially these were dominated by Catholics and Jews from Europe, but, subsequently the region has seen both increasing globalization and a strong presence of African American internal migration as well as Hispanics from Puerto Rico and Latin America. Immigration and industrialization have contributed to political social orientations towards a Democratic/labor coalition in national regimes that have dominated politics there since Franklin Roosevelt. Both deindustrialization and the development of sprawling suburbs around the major metropoles have complicated this orientation, especially since the Reagan revolution.
While one might still note strong divisions of accent, cuisine and heritage among eastern centers, modern transportation and continual exchanges among cities and institutions continually recreate an eastern/northeastern society. This may be described in prejudicial terms (eastern intellectual snobbery, eastern (mass) media establishment) or as divisions within a continental nation—e.g. “Right Coast” versus the hip and conservative “Left Coast” of the West/Pacific Rim.
Industry:Culture
The movement to save historic structures is commonly dated as beginning in 1966, with the passing of the National Historic Preservation Act, which gave new powers to the National Park Service to administer and encourage preservation programs in every state.
The political impetus for this act was the 1963 demolition of one of New York City’s finest works of architecture, Pennsylvania Station, as well as more generally from a rejection of urban-renewal policies of the post-Second World War era.
In fact, the practice of preserving historic buildings and landscapes, as well as art and artifacts, dates back to the mid-nineteenth century at least, with the fight to save Mount Vernon, and encompasses activities far beyond the purview of the federal government.
While the National Trust for Historic Preservation, chartered in 1949, remains the primary national advocacy organization (though as of 1998, without federal financial support), preservation is a predominantly local movement. It is based around private local efforts to save and rehabilitate historic structures, encourage private rehabilitation and promote public interpretation of historic resources.
Preservation, due largely to its traditional constituency of local, mainly female, welloff reformers, remains an elite undertaking (as in Rockefeller’s stewardship of colonial Williams-burg). As such, the scope of preservationists’ efforts remains narrow: architectural distinction as opposed to social or cultural significance continues to be the prime criteria for “listing” structures on local historic resources lists and the National Register of Historic Places. Nonetheless, as new groups have gained political and social influence, what is considered worth saving has broadened tremendously. State preservation offices, smalltown historical societies and historical museums now routinely seek—at least in limited ways—to preserve and interpret the physical places of African Americans, women and other minority groups.
Industry:Culture
The literature of change. After its European origins with the Industrial Revolution, American science fiction has flourished since Edgar Rice Burroughs’ A Princess of Mars (1912). An American imagination was fired by the ideas of new frontiers and new possibilities, as well as social, economic and religious freedoms unimaginable in worlds left behind. Science fiction, in many ways, is a literature of hope and the human potential to rise above circumstances and adapt to change.
American science fiction began to grow in depth and breadth with the first sciencefiction magazine, Amazing Stories, edited by Hugo Gernsback (1926), followed in 1938 by Astounding Science Fiction, edited by John W. Campbell, Jr., who fostered science fiction’s golden age. Writers explored themes still pondered today including robots, computers, cheap energy overpopulation, world government, alternative social structures, particle transference, genetic engineering, alien encounters, faster-than-light travel, interplanetary travel, communication and settlement, galactic empires, telepathy immortality time travel, alternative histories and utopias/dystopias. In the 1940s and 1950s, Robert A. Heinlein, (Methuselah’s Children, 1941), Isaac Asimov (Foundation, 1942), Arthur C. Clarke (Childhood’s End, 1953) and others published stories of “hard” science fiction, using scientific or military knowledge to detail backgrounds for hightechnology futures. Science fiction was seen largely as escapist literature, until Hiroshima taught the world that the unimaginable was here already. After the war, science fiction competed with science fact in space and technology. Other important writers include Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451, 1951), Frank Herbert (Dune, 1966) and Theodore Sturgeon (More Than Human, 1953).
In the 1960s and 1970s, interest turned towards cognitive speculations. The New Wave brought in some darker stories (Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, 1968), more humanoriented stories (Ursula LeGuin, Left Hand of Darkness, 1970) and experimental writing styles (Harlan Ellison, Repent Harlequin, Said the Ticktockman, 1965). A broader science fiction included more non-Americans, writers of color (Octavia Butler, Mind of My Mind, 1977) and authors of alternative sexualities (Samuel Delany, Dhalgren, 1975). Women (Kate Wilhelm, Margaret and I, 1971; Anne McCaffrey, Dragonflight, 1967; feminist Joanna Russ, The Female Man, 1975) found themselves slightly more welcome in science fiction, although Alice Sheldon wrote for decades as James Tiptree, Jr. Science fiction also expanded full-scale into television and film, as well as cartoons and comic books. Radio, film and other genres were established earlier, but blossomed with new technologies and audiences.
In the 1980s and 1990s, science fiction has matured. The quality of the writing increased and the genre speaks to a much wider audience. William Gibson (Neuromancer, 1984) ushered in the age of cyberpunk, while other notable writers include Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid’s Tale, 1985), David Brin (The Postman, 1985), Orson Scott Card (Enders Game, 1986), Pat Murphy (The Falling Woman, 1988), C.J. Cherryh (Cyteen, 1989), Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park, 1991), Vernor Vinge (A Fire Upon the Deep, 1994), Kim Stanley Robinson (Blue Mars, 1997) and Connie Willis (To Say Nothing of the Dog, 1999). Often impressionistic, these novels have texture and grace, and they create credible cultural paradigms—these worlds were built to last! Shorter-length stories common in science fiction reflect the tradition of magazine publication (hence many anthologies by author or theme as well). In the 1980s, the glossy science-fiction magazine Omni had a good run. Currently, the field is dominated by Asimov’s Science Fiction, Analog Science Fiction and Fact (a descendant of Astounding), The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Science Fiction Age. Fantasy is a closely related genre, yet, while fantasy is characterized by mythic tradition and the supernatural, science fiction writes about the theoretically possible. In fact, science fiction has not only pre-dated scientific and social developments but has also influenced them.
Science fiction also inspires many related associations. The writings of science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard form the foundation of the high-profile Church of Scientology.
Science fiction also creates long-term relationships between the fan and finely nuanced worlds that grow with each installment. Hundreds of science-fiction conventions featuring various authors or themes are held all over the world. The yearly Hugo and Nebula Awards are also key events.
Science fiction provides an arena in which to imagine some of the possibilities, good and bad, that technological change might bring America and the world. Perhaps through this it is possible to make more intelligent decisions about the small planet on which we live…for now.
Industry:Culture
The first US-based international film festival was launched in San Francisco, CA in 1956, twenty-four years after Mussolini endorsed the first of its kind in Venice. Today more than 100 film festivals run from January to December every year, from Park City, Utah, to Houston, to New York City, to Sarasota. Some festivals, like Sundance and WorldFest Houston, attract a great deal of attention. Others specialize in formats such as animation and documentary or films about Native Americans, gays and lesbians, Asian Americans, Latinos, African Americans, Underground issues, children, ethnography women’s issues and many other issues.
America lagged behind Europe in launching film festivals in the 1950s because of Hollywood. The all-powerful studios did not want to supply many films to European festivals, diminishing American exposure. Furthermore, film festivals have been showplaces for art films. Early Hollywood had no interest in mixing commerce with art, while many Europeans did not find Hollywood films worthy of their attention. Not until the breakdown of the studio system and the development of independent films would world film festivals start to value American products. At the same time, more and more festivals sprang up in the US to showcase the variety of American productions (including studios).
The second major US festival was launched in New York in 1963, when foreign filmgoing was in vogue as a highbrow cultural activity; it landed the unknown Roman Polanski on the cover of Time. By the early twenty-first century, the festival in New York, with its limited number (twenty-five) of films shown, is no longer as important; many of its films already have distributors lined up. Film festivals, in the latter part of the twentieth century have been important outlets for independent films, making these films as well as their film-makers known to the critic and the public, and thus creating a marketplace.
In many ways, successful independent films and the film festivals that promote them benefit each other. Sex, Lies, and Videotape, with a $1 million budget, won the Audience Prize at Sundance in 1989. It was then picked up by Miramax and grossed $7 million.
Since then, Sundance (founded in 1981 by Robert Redford) has become the premier film festival in the US for both “Hollywood types” and aspiring independent producers/directors who brave the cold in Park City, Utah. Sundance has promoted Native American film and has also established an Independent Film Archive at the University of Southern California. An alternative to Sundance, Slamdance, established in 1995, shows films rejected by Sundance.
Some cities use film festivals to attract visitors and to promote the image of the city like the Nortel Palm Spring International Film Festival (started by the late Sonny Bono, a former entertainer and mayor of Palm Springs) or the French Film Festival in Sarasota, Florida. Other film festivals focus on distribution, like the American Film Market in Santa Monica, California, which screens over 600 films in nine days. This is a prime distribution event for English-language films, including such hits as Silence of the Lambs.
Yet film festivals can be small and less mainstream. Nextframe, for example, is a student film and video festival organized by Temple University in Philadelphia. The San Francisco International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival has just finished its twenty-threeyear run, obviously focusing on queer cinema. Resfest Digital Film Festival is devoted to the exploration of digital form in film. The Chicago Underground Film Festival only accepts films with a budget below $1,000 per minute.
Industry:Culture
