Americans about Europe's(and World) geography and stereotypes

[Cinoeye]

I live for 10 years in USA and this is my expiriance how Americans see Europe and the Rest of the World.
I have notice several big stereotypes in the USA, about different regions, nations, races, ethnicity...

Most people only consider "Western" Europe to be Europe. UK, Spain, Italy, France, Germany...are Europe. Everything else is mish-mash of those primar countries.

They have Stereotype about East Europe. Any former communist country is Eastern Europe. They belive there is no history and culture "there". Its cold, muddy, they all wright cyrilic alphabet and have same history.
Serbia is Siberia or Syria. Greeece is Souther Europe, but Albania that is next door to it is Somewhere next to RUssia.


In Europe, most countries use the term "NEAR EAST" for the region of SOUTH WEST ASIA, including Israel, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Iran...



Last several years USA media overused the term "THE MIDDLE EAST"(region, look, food..) for the same region.
USA media and public use this, even for the NORTH AFRICAN countries, such as Egypt,Libya or even Morocco(NORTH West Africa), central Asian countries, like Afghanistan...
I believe that most people use the term "The Middle East" want they refer to the Arabic countries, no matter where are they located.


This takes me to the term "Asian Look" winch referrers to the people who have slanted eyes from the FAR east regions of Asia, such as Japan, Korea, Vietnam, China...even tough lot of people from Asia do not have eyes like that. For Example, people from Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Israel...

Same goes for the belief that all people in Africa are black.
Is it possible to call Americans with Egyptian or Libyan origin as African Americans, since they are from Africa? Can people from Pakistan , be called "Asian Americans".

And what about Hispanic people, referred to as a separate race, even dough, they are originally from Spain.
And one of my favorites is "Eastern Europe", used do describe any former communist country, no meter where geographically located in Europe.

What do you think?

[sparkey]

You understand our biases well. Some comments...

Greeece is Souther Europe, but Albania that is next door to it is Somewhere next to RUssia.

I often see Albania and Armenia confused.

In Europe, most countries use the term "NEAR EAST" for the region of SOUTH WEST ASIA, including Israel, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Iran...

I rarely see "Near East" used for Iran, but I think it's actually even academic convention to use the term for the Levant, and sometimes Iraq.

I believe that most people use the term "The Middle East" want they refer to the Arabic countries, no matter where are they located.

Exactly right there, although they also extend it (usually correctly) to clearly non-Arabic countries like Iran, which results in the misconception that countries like Iran are Arabic.

This takes me to the term "Asian Look" winch referrers to the people who have slanted eyes from the FAR east regions of Asia, such as Japan, Korea, Vietnam, China...even tough lot of people from Asia do not have eyes like that. For Example, people from Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Israel...

Same goes for the belief that all people in Africa are black.
Is it possible to call Americans with Egyptian or Libyan origin as African Americans, since they are from Africa? Can people from Pakistan , be called "Asian Americans".

The USA has more people of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc. descent than Arab, Armenian, Indian, etc. descent. So the stereotype of an "Asian American" is definitely about someone from the Far East. When my West Asian mother-in-law who lives in the USA uses the term "Asian" when talking about someone's race, she's always referring to someone of Far Eastern descent, and prefers the term "white" to describe herself racially. I suppose the convention can vary, though.

And what about Hispanic people, referred to as a separate race, even dough, they are originally from Spain.

Most Hispanic people living in the USA are about half Amerind, so they are sometimes thought of as a separate race, although the census lists "Hispanic" as an ethnicity, rather than a race. Racially, they usually identify as white or mixed white/Amerind, with only a few (like the rare Mexican Nahuatl speaker) identifying as Amerind.

[Cinoeye]

I have also realised that being black in America is a separate ethnic group-African American.

They are confuse if some people come from Africa to live in the US, and they say we are not African American, but have own Ethnisicty abd country of origin. If some Americans insist to call recent commers from Afica-"African American", they get even more confused if I ask-" Can then People from Marroco, Algeria, Libya...be called African American? ;)

[Cinoeye]

Several different ideas on what East Europe is-

[Cimmerianbloke]

To be honest, ignorance is not a US monopoly. For most people in the west of Europe (or Europe of the 15, as it was once called), Slovenia, Slovakia, Lithuania, Lettonia, it's all the same, very few people would be able to fill a blank map of Europa without mistakes. If you include the Balkans on the map, you're probably looking for major geopolitical trouble...
It is IMO rather normal for Americans to be detached from Europe, as we are not aware of the differences between north and south Dakota, Delaware and California... On another hand, clichés and stereotypes, as I have read somewhere on another thread, are psychological patterns that allow the brain to concentrate deeper, and focus on a particular task rather than losing time analysing certain visual data. And let's admit it, stereotypes are fun. What puzzles me is how stereotypes vary from one region to another. In Europe, we have been formatted by politics and history, and we all share the same clichés about all members states and ethnics. In the US, there are the French white flag jokes that we have not here (some made their way through to Britain though). It might be a good idea to have a survey or a thread dedicated to the topic to compare and analyse similarities and differences. Anyway, for most of my generation, Americans are all cow-boys since they killed all the Indians save Daniel Day-Lewis...

[Keegah]

Surprisingly - and sadly - accurate, especially compared to what I've seen most Europeans think American public opinion and culture is.

Couple of things I do want to mention.

Serbia is Siberia or Syria

I have never heard of this. Instead, Serbia is bunched together with the other Eastern European countries which, yes, do tend to be grouped together based on vague and poorly educated ideas about a shared Soviet heritage.

USA media and public use this, even for the NORTH AFRICAN countries, such as Egypt,Libya or even Morocco(NORTH West Africa), central Asian countries, like Afghanistan...

Everyone knows Libya, Egypt and Morocco are all African nations - though they do get grouped together with the other Arab countries, which frankly, seeing as they share several cultural similarities for obvious reasons, is kind of understandable. The biggest problem is that, for a lot of Americans, while they do understand that there exist Arab nations outside the Middle East, they think pretty much everyone inside the Middle East is Arabic, including Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, etc..

This takes me to the term "Asian Look" winch referrers to the people who have slanted eyes from the FAR east regions of Asia, such as Japan, Korea, Vietnam, China...even tough lot of people from Asia do not have eyes like that. For Example, people from Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Israel...

Same goes for the belief that all people in Africa are black.
Is it possible to call Americans with Egyptian or Libyan origin as African Americans, since they are from Africa? Can people from Pakistan , be called "Asian Americans".

Absolutely correct that for a lot of Americans, the primary physical feature they use to identify Asians, correctly or not, is slanted eyes. None of the other countries you mentioned at the bottom are considered Asian, except for maybe Kazakhstan, even though the Middle East is technically in Asia. I've noticed that a lot of Americans have this idea of associating one particular physical feature with 1 origin continent/region. Caucasians = Europe, dark skin = Africa, slanted eyes = Asia, light-brown skin and Spanish language = South America. Anything that doesn't fit neatly into those categories seems to end up being considered its own distinctive region.

And what about Hispanic people, referred to as a separate race, even dough, they are originally from Spain.

I agree that they're erroneously believed to be a separate race, but it's not quite as clean cut as "they are originally from Spain". They're more a mixture of Spanish settler and Native American genes, and can range anywhere from being closer to the Native side, to being virtually indistinguishable from any other Caucasian. Being Hispanic is, in reality, closer to a cultural identification than a "race", so to speak.

It's refreshing to see one of these oftentimes extremely irritating threads turn out to be mostly accurate. Even if I don't like admitting to the truth of it. There's no denying that we Americans have our biases, and we're woefully ignorant of many things outside and even within our own borders; However, I'll always contend that, despite what seems to be a common opinion held by many non-Americans, the average American citizen has a greater than average curiosity of other cultures and peoples. It's just that there isn't really a habit of seeking out knowledge of your own volition among the nation's population. It's never instilled in us as children. Some small educational reforms to encourage the growth of those habits in our youth, and I believe that subsequent generations will have the same thirst for knowledge that the average American once did, and these biases will disappear.

[Brett142]

I live for 10 years in USA and this is my expiriance how Americans see Europe and the Rest of the World.
I have notice several big stereotypes in the USA, about different regions, nations, races, ethnicity...

Most people only consider "Western" Europe to be Europe. UK, Spain, Italy, France, Germany...are Europe. Everything else is mish-mash of those primar countries.

They have Stereotype about East Europe. Any former communist country is Eastern Europe. They belive there is no history and culture "there". Its cold, muddy, they all wright cyrilic alphabet and have same history.
Serbia is Siberia or Syria. Greeece is Souther Europe, but Albania that is next door to it is Somewhere next to RUssia.


In Europe, most countries use the term "NEAR EAST" for the region of SOUTH WEST ASIA, including Israel, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Iran...



Last several years USA media overused the term "THE MIDDLE EAST"(region, look, food..) for the same region.
USA media and public use this, even for the NORTH AFRICAN countries, such as Egypt,Libya or even Morocco(NORTH West Africa), central Asian countries, like Afghanistan...
I believe that most people use the term "The Middle East" want they refer to the Arabic countries, no matter where are they located.


This takes me to the term "Asian Look" winch referrers to the people who have slanted eyes from the FAR east regions of Asia, such as Japan, Korea, Vietnam, China...even tough lot of people from Asia do not have eyes like that. For Example, people from Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Israel...

Same goes for the belief that all people in Africa are black.
Is it possible to call Americans with Egyptian or Libyan origin as African Americans, since they are from Africa? Can people from Pakistan , be called "Asian Americans".

And what about Hispanic people, referred to as a separate race, even dough, they are originally from Spain.
And one of my favorites is "Eastern Europe", used do describe any former communist country, no meter where geographically located in Europe.

What do you think?

Hispanic people was a term coined by the US government - I'm not sure when - to identify the growing immigration from Central, Southern America and the Caribbean, essentially if you came from any Spanish speaking country, regardless of your race you were/are classed as Hispanic. Nowadays they have white Hispanic and non-white Hispanic. Indeed the vast majority of people immigrating from Mexico are of mixed European and Amerindian descent. Whereas the Cubans, for the most part, are indeed white European. I think maybe because of the dark skin of Amerindian people and the generally darker complexion of white people from Spain, that's why it was so easy for the US to consider them all as Hispanic, in a country where Nordic/Germanic whiteness was and still is prized.

Americans from Northern Africa and the Middle East were (I believe) at one point (or still are) classed as Caucasian. They have never been classed as African American, this only applies to Sub-Saharan Africa, indeed they do look a great deal different from the people of Northern Africa.

At the end of the day Americans like to generalise and I think that's the problem here.

[Keegah]

At the end of the day Americans like to generalise and I think that's the problem here.

The irony is palpable.

[Alan]

In Europe, most countries use the term "NEAR EAST" for the region of SOUTH WEST ASIA, including Israel, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Iran...



Last several years USA media overused the term "THE MIDDLE EAST"(region, look, food..) for the same region.
USA media and public use this, even for the NORTH AFRICAN countries, such as Egypt,Libya or even Morocco(NORTH West Africa), central Asian countries, like Afghanistan...
I believe that most people use the term "The Middle East" want they refer to the Arabic countries, no matter where are they located.

Well thia isnt so wrong at all. Middle East is a relatively new term and used to describe the Near East, North Africa, Central Asia and even some parts of Southeast Europe as one huge part ("Muslim World"). The Term Near East however changed its meaning over time. Ones it was used to describe all the area of West Asia+Egypt and Southeast European countries like Greece, Albania and Bosnia. Today Near East is used as synonym for West Asia+ Egypt.

[Alan]

I rarely see "Near East" used for Iran, but I think it's actually even academic convention to use the term for the Levant, and sometimes Iraq.

Near East in wider sense is historical used as term to describe Iran, the Caucasus as well Egypt.

[Cimmerianbloke]

Is Near East used in the US, as it would normally refer to Iceland and Ireland? Proche-Orient and Moyen-Orient are used in French and refer to Eastern Mediterranean countries (Lebanon, Syria) and beyond. I think, Alan, that Albania and Bosnia are more likely to be referred to as "Balkans", as is Macedonia. Greece has no particular geographical parallel as far as I know.

[bod28]

Saying that only Americans generalize is not only ignorant but hypocritical, Europeans generalize all the time about the US, I can tell from only 2 threads I've read in this forum already that Europeans like to group a country which has a population of over 312 million altogether as if we're all the same, or that it's even "average", when most of the stereotypes you grab at are from poorer/less informed areas of the country.

The reason "Americans" say African American isn't because of "geopolitical ignorance" or some other European nonsense, it's from simple tradition. Even a large proportion of black people say that is how they wish to be recognized.

The definition of Asian also has different meanings in many different countries, so quit trying to say like it's so correct and proper in Europe when it's not, "In the United Kingdom, the term "Asian" is more commonly associated with people of South Asian origin, particularly Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Sri Lankans." - They even consider Asian and Chinese to be separate.

Maybe think about what you're saying in the future.

[albanopolis]

I live for 10 years in USA and this is my expiriance how Americans see Europe and the Rest of the World.
I have notice several big stereotypes in the USA, about different regions, nations, races, ethnicity...

Most people only consider "Western" Europe to be Europe. UK, Spain, Italy, France, Germany...are Europe. Everything else is mish-mash of those primar countries.

They have Stereotype about East Europe. Any former communist country is Eastern Europe. They belive there is no history and culture "there". Its cold, muddy, they all wright cyrilic alphabet and have same history.
Serbia is Siberia or Syria. Greeece is Souther Europe, but Albania that is next door to it is Somewhere next to RUssia.


In Europe, most countries use the term "NEAR EAST" for the region of SOUTH WEST ASIA, including Israel, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Iran...



Last several years USA media overused the term "THE MIDDLE EAST"(region, look, food..) for the same region.
USA media and public use this, even for the NORTH AFRICAN countries, such as Egypt,Libya or even Morocco(NORTH West Africa), central Asian countries, like Afghanistan...
I believe that most people use the term "The Middle East" want they refer to the Arabic countries, no matter where are they located.


This takes me to the term "Asian Look" winch referrers to the people who have slanted eyes from the FAR east regions of Asia, such as Japan, Korea, Vietnam, China...even tough lot of people from Asia do not have eyes like that. For Example, people from Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Israel...

Same goes for the belief that all people in Africa are black.
Is it possible to call Americans with Egyptian or Libyan origin as African Americans, since they are from Africa? Can people from Pakistan , be called "Asian Americans".

And what about Hispanic people, referred to as a separate race, even dough, they are originally from Spain.
And one of my favorites is "Eastern Europe", used do describe any former communist country, no meter where geographically located in Europe.

What do you think?

I have lived in USA for a while too. Average american might not know where the European countries are located for the reason that they don't think that is important. They see Europe as a whole not with seperate entities that we are used to see it. For us there is a big difference between a Serb and an Albanian, for the americans its the same, for them we are europeans. So they are not courious what spot of Europe one came from. They don't look down on Europeans regardless one came from east or west. I think they show bias towards Russia, legacy of cold war.

[kamani]

they might be ignorant about world history and geography because they don't care, but they're not negative or resentful about any country. Some have a superiority complex, but in a positive way, feeling that they are in charge to help people in the world with their problems. Canadians are more selfish, from what I have seen.

[Anthro-inclined]

they might be ignorant about world history and geography because they don't care, but they're not negative or resentful about any country. Some have a superiority complex, but in a positive way, feeling that they are in charge to help people in the world with their problems. Canadians are more selfish, from what I have seen.

Americans helping other countries? this is new to me. Everywhere they intervene its either to gain some new wealth or protect their interests, and this mentality is reflected in most of its people. We are the best nation on the planet so why care about any others, or take the time to learn about them. As for Canadians, honestly most of us are pretty much the same, i.e we share an American mentality, so I agree with you there.

[kamani]

Americans helping other countries?

it's all taught by television and religious education. The hero of hollywood movies is usually something between superman and jesus christ. But yes, there is also the inner-city pimps and douches.

[Anthro-inclined]

it's all taught by television and religious education. The hero of hollywood movies is usually something between superman and jesus christ. But yes, there is also the inner-city pimps and douches.

I dont really get your point, but I think I agree, at least with the second sentence.