What’s with the whole “white people don’t have a culture” thing?

I don't disagree with what you've said, expect that in my experience in the AAPI community the historical racism of the past, and the inability of non Asians to make distinctions between groups, has created a broader shared community. Here in Seattle we have a very large Asian American community, and there are a variety of events celebrated in that community, tet, mid autumn festival, chinese new year (or more inclusively Lunar New Year - as it's not just Chinese people who celebrate it), etc. In my experience here in the Seattle area, regardless of ethnicity people are pretty tuned into to the various events, grocery stores, foods, new restaurants, local events, community issues, etc. Even overseas there is actually a fair amount of overlap and familiarity because in a lot of regions of Asia there is a historical mix of culture. China is obviously a massive influence in the region having existed for thousands of years. But for example my FIL's Vietnamese wife, lived near Thailand and is quite familiar with Thai culture and food. Likewise, we have family in France that is Chinese-Laos-French. And my husband's family also lived in SEA Asia before immigrating. Certainly there is bigotry and prejudice among various ethnicities, but that's all ignorance because frankly when you get down to it they've all been influencing each other for ages.

I can't speak to Latino culture in the US because I've never lived in that community or that culture. And these are of course my own observations from personal experiences and discussions with family over years.

As I said culture is very complicated and obviously there is a lot of nuance to it. But no one is here to write a thesis on reddit. The point remains, there is no shared "white american" experience based on being white alone. There are ethnicities that tend to be white that have culture. There are cultures that white people are part of as well as other races. But there is no defined "white american" shared experience like that of the AAPI community, or the Black Community, and I'll leave it up to you on the Latino community, but personally, I don't think even then either but maybe I'm wrong.

/r/AskAnAmerican Thread Parent