The American experience influenced my understanding of individuality, basic human rights, freedom of expression and the rights and responsibilities of citizens.
I see the American experience as being defined by the immigrant paradigm of rupture and renewal: rupture with the old world, the old ways, and renewal of the self in a bright but difficult New World.
The African-American experience is one of the most important threads in the American tapestry.
Undeniably the American art form, too. And yet more and more, we see films made that diminish the American experience and example. And sometimes trash it completely.
The thing is, so much of the African American experience is about the redefinition of roots because of slavery. We were uprooted, and there's so much about our whole legacy that was stolen and that we lost in the Transatlantic slave trade that we'll never find out.
Baseball may be our national pastime, but the age-old tradition of taking a swing at Congress is a sport with even deeper historical roots in the American experience. Since the founding of our country, citizens from Ben Franklin to David Letterman have made fun of their elected officials.
There are aspects of Asian culture in my work, but it's really rooted in an American experience - transcendentalism, '60s counterculture, punk rock.
There is an imagined thing called black culture. But culture is a construction. It is learned behavior, not innate. The black American experience is the American experience.
I grew up playing football since the day I could walk; some of my greatest memories of childhood are playing touch football in all kinds of weather with my best friends. That's a part of the American experience that no corporation can destroy.
So when you do your family tree and Margaret Cho does hers, and... Wanda Sykes and John Legend... we're adding to the database that scholars can then draw from to generalize about the complexity of the American experience. And that's the contribution that family trees make to broader scholarship.
