OUR SUBCULTURES

     It has been said that America is a melting pot. That is to suggest our country is made up of people who have migrated here from all over the world and, so to speak, become Americanized or melted into a single identity.  I prefer to say that America is more like a casserole.  In other words, a dish garnished with a flavoring sauce of respect, honesty, fairness, freedom, justice, loyalty, kindness, and openness to each other.  Each American has the right to pursue one’s own destiny and yet retain some the characteristics of a subculture from which one emigrated or emerged.  Having said that, it seems we are a unique society that embodies the morals and values of the U.S. Constitution our founding fathers developed to cherish democracy.   

    With the above ideas in mind, I decided to look at the subcultural panorama of our country from the 20^th to the 21^st century.  In the early part of the 20^th century subcultures were mostly informal groupings of like-minded people.  In the 1920s and 1930s America faced the Great Depression that caused widespread unemployment and poverty which found its expression in urban youth gangs. The Dust bowl disaster forced large numbers of rural Americans from Oklahoma (the “Oakies”) to move their families west. The 1940s brought our country into World War II. The subculture was still jazz and swing and the zoot suit craze diminished. The process of rationing and black marketing was taking place.  Post-war America saw the popularity of the radio bringing a wider subculture of rural jazz and blues as well as big bands.  Now, that was the first burst of mass media creating the spread of large subcultures.

    The 1950s brought on the American Beat scene that eventually emerged in the 1960s to the subcultures including radicals, rockers, bikers and hippies.  By the1970s the subcultural interest in computers brought on the derogatory word “geek” which grew as a term with pride.  Some followers of the punk- rock movement in the 1980s eventually took on the genre in American urban environments referred to as a street subculture combining athletic break dancing, developing as Hip hop and rap.

     I look at the primary generations of today, namely: Gen Z, I Gen, or Centennials:  born 1966 and later: Millennials or Gen Y:   Born 1977 to 1995: Generation X:  1965 to 1976; Baby Boomers: Born 1946 to 1964; Traditionalists or Silent Generation: 1945 and before.

    Then, I look at what I have written in this article and I wonder what will the youth of today consider important to the well being of our American culture. I ask myself, in what direction are they going? I have confidence in them knowing that even with adolescent vicissitudes they have the intelligence and integrity to make great contributions to our country.  I would like to believe that those of our Silent Generation will leave them a positive legacy.