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Cultural Diversity in the United States and Canada. Diverse Cultures in North America.
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Diverse Cultures in North America • North America has always been culturally diverse. When the Europeans arrived, they found many different Native American groups. The cultures of the first Americans reflected their different environment. Native American people living near the ocean ate fish and told stories about the sea. People living in the forest hunted and trapped forest animals. They traded with one another and when groups trade, they also share ideas and ways of doing things. This was called cultural exchange.
Diverse Cultures in North America • When the Europeans arrived they changed the way Native Americans lived. • Spanish explorers brought horses with them and they became an important part of their culture. They then learned how to use rifles. • Native Americans taught the French how to trap and taught the English families how to grow local foods.
Immigration and Cultural Exchange • Over the centuries Europeans and people from other areas flocked to North America. The immigrants made up different ethnic groups. • For the first 200 years mainly European immigrants came to North America. By the mid 1800s Asian immigrants began arriving. Waves of Asian immigrants from China, Japan, and later Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and others have settled in the United States and Canada. • When immigrants move from their country they must learn the language, laws, and manners of the people in the new country.
Religious Diversity in North America • There has always been religious diversity in North America as well. • Native Americans believed in a powerful and mysterious spirit force. This spirit lived in nature. • The earliest European settlers of North America were Christian. • When the United States Constitution was written, it guaranteed that no one would have to pay taxes to support religion. It also guaranteed that people could practice any religion they chose. • This attracted many immigrants to the United States and Canada • Jews fled religious persecution in Europe to settle here in 1800s and 1900s. • Later 1900s many people who practice Islam immigrated here. • Today many people of Christian, Jewish, Islamic, and other religions practice their faith freely in the United States and Canada.
Literature and Music • In the early 1900s authors wrote about lives of the common people. • Langston Hughes was an African American poet who describes life in Harlem, New York City.
Unique Voices in Literature • Canadian literature is often written in both French and English. French Canadian literature is called Quebecois literature, after the province of Quebec whose citizens speak French as their primary language.
Musical Traditions • One of most important American musical styles is jazz. An important element in jazz is improvisation, in which musicians do not follow music written down, but spontaneously create their own. • Jazz began with black American music and African rhythms. • Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong was one of the most important jazz musicians of all time and was known as the worlds greatest jazz trumpet and cornet player.
Art and Architecture • Art and Architecture of the US and Canada have been influenced by history and by the landscape. • Andrew Wyeth is one of Americas most popular artist • Native Americans have long artistic tradition. They create pottery, baskets, woven cloth and rugs, beadwork, and metal jewelry. • In Canada, several painters formed the “Group of Seven” in the 1920s and 1930s. These artists developed bold new techniques for their paintings of Canada's landscapes.
D Andrew Wyeth Group of Seven Andrew Wyeth
Architecture • The very diverse landscapes of the United States and Canada have influenced architecture in both countries. • In the 1900s architects began to design new kinds of commercial buildings. A famous “race for the sky” took place in New York City. • In this new era, skyscrapers reflected the new wealth and power of the United States and Canada.
