American Gods Examines the Hidden Cost of Immigrating to the United States

And what, praytell, is the “hidden cost of immigrating to the US?”

“We are a country of cultural appropriation,” says executive producer Bryan Fuller.

What Fuller is talking about is a country where the dominant culture is made up of watered-down bits of other cultures that have been deemed “acceptable.”

You say this like it’s a bad thing. When it is, in fact, one of the great things about the US (and, let’s face it, any other nation that accepts immigrants).

So your home country had some bit of fashion or folklore that you take terribly seriously, and when you dragged it to the US, the people already here decided that it was worthy of being turned into a T-shirt. And for some reason you’re upset about that?

Let’s be honest: ain’t nuthin’ special about nobody. Those cultural knickknacks that you think are so important and vital? They mean precisely *squat* to everyone else. So getting turned into kitschy tchochkies is better than pretty much *everything* deserves. When you decide to pull up stakes and move to a whole new country with a different culture, you had *better* be prepared to have your old culture replaced by the new one. What civilization has *ever* survived if it has openly accepted immigrants, but denied them assimilation into the larger, central culture?

I’m sure there are holidays other than Chinese New Year, but that’s the one America’s decided represents all our Chinese immigrants. Same with St. Patrick’s Day for the Irish. And Cinco de Mayo for the Mexicans. Everyone gets a parade, or a day, or a month. But these capsulized celebrations cordon off cultures, flatten what it means to be from somewhere else, and drive home the idea that, every other day, you’re supposed to be American.

Guess what: if you are American… YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE AMERICAN. If you want Cinco de Mayo to be something more than a transitory reason to party, then stay where that’s a thing. Because no culture can possibly exist for long if every holiday celebrated earnestly by every culture is celebrate equally earnestly all at once.

If your culture had something that American culture as a whole thinks worthy of acceptance, even if it’s changed in important ways (Scandinavian elves, for example, are entirely unlike the Keebler or Santas Workshop elves), then congratulations. Your original culture had something of at least some use or value. And now it’s a part of American culture. Upset that it’s been “watered down?” Fine. Don’t come here. Stay where worshiping weeds or whatever dumbass practice you’re so fond of is still terribly, terribly important.