Keywords
ethnicity, Americans, regional cultures, custom, immigrant communities
Abstract
Americans have often defined themselves through an unwillingness to define themselves. In the work of our greatest writers, notably Melville and Whitman, the refusal to succumb to fixity of definition comes to seem a cultural signature.
In opposition there has arisen a native industry of America-definers who offer a maddening plenitude of answers. But people in a hurry with answers have usually not even heard the questions. And finally it all comes to the same thing: many answers equal no answer.
Recommended Citation
Howe, Irving
(1978)
"The Limits Of Ethnicity,"
The Bridge: Vol. 1:
No.
1, Article 7.
Available at:
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/thebridge/vol1/iss1/7
Included in
European History Commons, European Languages and Societies Commons, Regional Sociology Commons
