Away from the buzz that the TV commercials have continually spread over a week, Presidents Day, a national federal holiday across the American states that falls on the third Monday of February, came and went very quietly with less attention from the American citizens.
Walking through Washington, D.C. streets in the morning of Presidents' Day, you might have expected to see traces of celebrations to grab any sense of nationalism on the day, which had been fully dedicated to honoring the presidents of America. However, none of those things were present. The central capital of the world was not in a festival mood as some may have imagined.
"I think Presidents' Day itself probably has very little significance to most Americans today. It's just another holiday for some, and many don't even get it as a holiday, so for them it means nothing at all," said Jonathan Pinckney, a young American writer based in Denver, Colorado, reasoning the disappearance of the celebrative mood.
American Nationalism, How Strong?
Fact Sheet: Originally Presidents' Day was known as Washington's Birthday when the Americans used to honor the father of their country, President Washington, who was born on February 22. In 1968, the term was changed to Presidents Day to celebrate both Abraham Lincoln's and Washington's birthdays; the former birthday was on February 12. And since then the American states marked that day as a national holiday to honor the American presidents across the time. (Based on information provided by Patriotism.org.) |
Presidents' Day, which dates back to 1968, is one of the many historical holidays in the American national calendar. Surveying the views of Americans (who have different backgrounds, religions, and races) on the status of Presidents' Day in their eyes, I realized that most of them agree that Presidents' Day had been more recognized in the past, but with the advance of time, it merely turned into "another Monday holiday designed to give us a three-day weekend for shopping the sales," as Kasko said.
Some refer to other remarkable national holidays that grab their attention more; such are the Thanksgiving Day, Halloween, and Independence Day.
"Yeah! I think these holidays are notable [referring to the above-mentioned holidays]. Maybe this is back to their nature as the biggest shopping seasons, when sales are everywhere. Or maybe this is because most of us have already fed up talking about politics and who is in the office! As for Presidents' Day, I agree with you, it is very nationalistic to pay tribute to our past presidents, but actually many of us do not even figure out which presidents we pay tribute to on that day!" said Najat Salim, a Muslim American mother, with a smile.
Such views open a way to a larger picture: Is nationalism a myth in the American society? Have the American culture and traditions been affected over the years by the change of US presidents?
Those questions were strongly presented on one of America's most significant national days: Presidents' Day.
"I would reject both nationalism and culturalism. I think there are some things that are good about my country and many things that are bad. In the same way, there are many things that are good about my culture and many things that are bad," Pinckney said. |
To the Americans, nationalism has many different terms and definitions; some prefer to call it "patriotism," while others refer to it as a community-based culture. Regardless of the other terms the Americans may pick to define nationalism, the sense of belonging to the place where they settle in or to the community where they live is not missing to some of them, especially to races like Afro-Americans.
In the American societies, you may not observe one clear nationalistic sensation, but many. Moving from one state to another, you will absolutely catch different streams of people, races, and ethnicities. With a wide range of cultures, some manage to link their ethnicities and set of traditions to the American culture to fashion a national equation; others can’t. When asked about what nationalism means to America's ethnicities, David Santiago, a middle-class Hispanic, said,"Nationalism entails unquestioned commitment to the state, so I would not approve of it; the same [goes] with culturalism since culture shifts and we are [in] a melting pot. Patriotism — a commitment to the idea of the country, the people, and defending the homeland — can exist without a superiority complex, so I would emphasize patriotism."
Coded as a part of the American culture, race is another element that has a hand when defining the "one American nationalism." Despite all the expectations that were arisen right after the election of Obama — as the first black American president — that racism would face the end, a slight tour in the sides of the American society is telling something else."I feel belonging to this country. But despite this sense of belonging, I feel more attached to my community — to my roots as an Afro-American …. It is not easy to define a "nation" — it may be a set of values that manage a group of people. This way one person can be a nation! You know what I mean?" said Shahen Muhammad, an Afro-American.
Speaking of the one of "nation," Americans form many. Beside the national days, some American ethnicities mark their own days: those days that relate to their history or their religions. The situation goes as if there are nations inside a nation.
Muhammad went on to say, "I really love to mark in my calendar the Martin Luther King Day; it is a federal holiday too. I have my own program for this day, like reading some of his writings, remembering the Black American history. I do not miss out the Independence Day. I mark this too."
Insaf Ali, a Muslim American student commented, "I stick with the opinion that the Islamic holidays take precedence over the nationalistic holidays."
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Shifting the discussion to the relation between the changes in US presidents' agendas and the Americans' cultures, I had a couple of interesting comments that led to one result: Culture is not made by one man.
"I think that most people get too worried about how a president's political agenda will change the culture. Presidents are politicians who want people to support them, and so their first goal is to fit into the culture that's already there.
Of course, some change does happen from leader to leader, but overall I think the forces that change culture are larger than any one man," explained Pinckney. Referring to culture as a power that can move the political changes for its favor, Lindele Elliott, a 56-year-old Republican American, said, "I think cultural change is not terribly affected by the political agendas of different presidents. I think that political agendas are more influenced by culture than vice versa. The cultural changes that we have seen over my lifetime [since the 1950s] have been the result of many different influences, and presidential political agendas reflect the cultural changes rather than shape them."
However, some voices have another take on whether political changes can affect culture. Muhammad thinks that as much as the community's traditions can be preserved, they may be negatively affected to some extent by the accumulating political and social changes.
"Our presidents, of course, had an impact on the way the world looks at us and the way we look at our society. Cultures and traditions, as part of the human history, are not too far from the surrounding changes. Some communities know how to keep their heritage safe by teaching it to their young generations. Others fail. We may make use of Presidents' Day to ask our presidents, the recent and the coming, to keep our heritage and our history separate from our political changeable agendas," said Muhammad.
As Presidents' Day may be "just another day" to most of the Americans, Presidents' Day it was marked by lots of shopping and received less consideration from the American society.
Time to comment. - How do you view your country's national holidays? - How do you define nationalism? - Share your views, so that we may draw the bigger picture together. |
