Cultural Stereotypes: How can we stray away?

     

This is the logo of the honey store where Michael works!

     

             As Americans, what are the first things that come to mind when we think of Australian people? They all go to the Opera House, they have kangaroos living in their backyards, they’re all good surfers, and they all have cool accents. We commonly make these assumptions about certain cultures for a multitude of reasons: television, movies, what we see on the news, our own personal histories. According to an article called The Spontaneous Formation of Stereotypes

via Cumulative Cultural Evolution, “The functional value of stereotypes lies in their capacity to act as mental shortcuts, providing rapid and efficient access to knowledge stored in memory whenever a social category is detected.” We like to stereotype cultures because stereotypes help keep our knowledge organized and categorized. Whenever I travel to a foreign country, I am always fascinated by these cultural stereotypes and where the accuracies and inaccuracies exist within them. I constantly have the desire to ask people how they view Americans and how these views reflect on me as an American. I ask these questions not only because I am curious but also because I think it’s important for everyone to see beyond the labels that we’ve created.

            Throughout our time here in Sydney, I have had some extremely interesting conversations with various native Australians. Of course, I always like to ask about the “typical” American image and what these Australians visualize as the general American stereotype. While exploring some of the shops by The Rocks, I decided to go into a honey store called Superbee. When people think of Australia, honey isn’t typically the first thing that comes to mind, so going into this store enabled me to see a small piece of the abundant diversity here. The man that worked there was named Michael, and he was definitely one of the friendliest people that I have spoken to since coming to Sydney. I was looking around the shop, and I asked him if he got a lot of American customers. He said that the area in general attracts a lot of tourists, so he meets all kinds of people from all over the world. I decided to ask the inevitable question, “How would you describe the stereotypical American?” He said that typically when he thought of Americans, he thought of Los Angeles, California and Katy Perry. I couldn’t help but laugh at this just because Katy Perry seems to randomly come up a lot in conversation here. He also said that he typically assumed that Americans were “very blunt and sometimes arrogant.”

            When he was younger, Michael had travelled to the west coast, so that’s why California encompasses America for him, just like I will probably always picture Sydney and Cairns when I think of Australia. I think the important thing to note here is size. It’s hard for anyone to sum up what an American is when they have only seen a small part of it. Though Sydney is a major city and a huge part of Australia, by no means does it define the country as a whole. Michael went on to say that “everything in America is really big. Los Angeles is huge and extraordinary, New York is huge and extraordinary.” Then he proceeded to tell me about his experience at McDonald’s and how it was so interesting because the food was oversized. “When I think of America, I think of big.” When I asked Michael if it was obvious that I was an American, he said the real identifier is the “thick accent.”

            This conversation is similar to several that I have had here in Sydney. Many Australians seem to associate America with New York City and Los Angeles, some major celebrity (like Katy Perry, Kim Kardashian, and Taylor Swift), oversized things, and McDonald’s. Like Michael had also said, there is a general consensus that Americans are very blunt people. However, I am happy to say that typically after speaking to these Australians, I feel like I am involved in helping people see beyond the stereotypical American image.

            When we went to visit the U.S. Consulate a few days ago, Dave told us how Australians always have these perceptions about Americans, and after they travel to America to explore, visit, and learn about the culture, these perceptions change entirely (in a positive way). I’ve come to the conclusion that the key to breaking cultural stereotypes is travel. Through travel, we have the opportunity to immerse ourselves in the culture and see things firsthand. I constantly have these expectations of what a country is going to be like, what the people are going to be like, and what my experience is going to be like. I am happy to say that these expectations have always been wrong, and I am therefore able to create my own thoughts and feelings about new cultures. Travelling and taking the time to interact with the local people can really put things into a new, enlightening perspective.