The inescapability of Americanisation

And whenever I become conscious
That America is barbarous
I ask myself
Why am I an American?
After awhile I realise and then smile.
Do I have any other option?
– Vishnu Nagar in Amrikikaran

Unlike the heavenly kingdoms of antiquity or the imagined communities of the post-colonial world, the United States of America is a manufactured nation. Neither the fatherland of some self-proclaimed superior race nor a motherland that had been freed from the yoke of foreign masters, it was initially just a geographical entity, which then became a political unit through brutal processes of both assimilation and extermination.

For immigrants from the Old World, the continent-sized country across the Atlantic was the Promised Land, where resources were plentiful, competition with the indigenous people had been eliminated, restrictions on economic advancement were almost non-existent, and the ambitious and the adventurous could not only realise their dreams but also extend the frontiers of their imaginations within a few years. The rewards of integration were so high and the costs of forgetting one's roots so little that the mystical 'melting pot' was potent enough to transform all cultural metals into a single shiny alloy.