I’ve hears stories of some Americans telling other people who are speaking a non-English language “This is America, speak English!” even if the conversation has nothing to do with them. Why do they do this?

    • themurphy@lemmy.ml
      0·
      6 months ago

      They also often brand something as “best in the world” when in reality it’s US only. And they are literally 4.2% the population of the entire world.

    • cobysev@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      6 months ago

      American here, who has spent about a decade living in various countries around the world.

      The biggest problem with my fellow Americans is that we’re raised in an isolated country, which only borders two other countries (Canada and Mexico). And our country is so massive, probably 90% of Americans don’t live anywhere near either country border.

      Crossing borders is a big deal too; it’s not like Europe where you can be driving and suddenly see a sign welcoming you to a new country. There are checkpoints, blockades, passports, regular inspections, etc. Especially since 9/11 happened, our borders have become even more locked down. Plus, going anywhere else requires expensive plane tickets to fly over the oceans.

      This leads to most Americans having no social interactions with foreigners most of the time. We’re fully ingrained in our own culture bubble and we don’t get a lot of interaction with other cultures, outside of stereotypes through pop culture.

      Combine this with the fact that we’re taught from childhood that we’re the “greatest nation on Earth,” and you get an entire culture of entitled, narcissistic jerks who think the American way is the best way.

      Our education has been failing for decades now, thanks to politicians on both sides of the aisle realizing that we’re more easily manipulated if we’re less educated. So there’s this race to the bottom, where we’re being fed lies and embellishments about how great America is and how we’re this amazing country that the rest of the world looks up to and admires.

      With this entitled world view, it makes Americans scared when foreigners come to our country because we only know of their culture through stereotypes and we fear their culture taking over our “amazing and most perfect country.” Just as we’ve stepped into other countries and spread our own democracy, we’re afraid other nations will attempt to do the same to us.

      It doesn’t help that we have an entire political party who maintains their voter base through fear mongering about foreigners taking our jobs, stealing our women, and destroying our “great culture” for their “backwards and corrupt” values. It’s complete lunacy, but to the average American who has no regular contact with the outside world, it seems plausible.

      So yeah, a lot of Americans get uncomfortable when foreigners speak their native language around us instead of English. They tend to find it rude at best, and offensive/dangerous at worst. And some of the worst Americans travel abroad and expect everyone to essentially worship the ground they walk on, so they get offended when other people don’t know or speak English. It’s a really messed up world view, but it’s hard to change when we live such isolated lives.