(Inter?)cultural Interaction

What defines culture? That question kept coming up in my observations. I went to Starbucks on Saturday mid-morning to observe people. First I’ll list the variety of clientele I saw:

§ Families with small children: either a cheerful, leisurely “breakfast”; a stressed couple needing coffee while out with their young kids, or two moms getting together and bringing their kids (out for coffee before brunch)

§ Singles out for a quick to-go coffee, generally rushed

§ Groups of 2-3 teens/young adults, especially female, meeting for coffee, maybe studying or just catching up; they generally stayed a while

§ Father and son, dad treating his son to a doughnut and himself to a latte

§ Couples

§ Parents with their adult son

§ Single with her dog (here’s something interesting: I didn’t know it was culturally/socially “acceptable” to bring pets into public buildings like Starbucks…but I have never owned a dog, and no one else seemed to share my raised eyebrows, so perhaps I am ignorant)

§ Two friends in their pajamas and Uggs

§ Single who brought work to do over coffee

In terms of ethnicity, probably 99 percent of them were Caucasian. There was one employee who looked possibly middle-eastern, though I never heard him speak or see him interact with any customers. Then over the course of the hour and a half I saw maybe four African-American (I assume) customers, of which I think one was speaking a different language, although I was too far away and the surrounding noise was too loud to be sure. Besides that no one stood out to me.

So. Are we all part of the same culture—the “American” culture? People of all different religions, different backgrounds, different values, social customs and expectations were surely all grouped in the same Starbucks this Saturday morning—at this very “American” Starbucks scene. So is this an instance of many different cultures coming together and interacting, or are we all part of the same culture? Certainly we all speak the same language (even the one I heard speaking something other than English was drinking her Starbucks so I assume she conversed with the employee in English), live in the same city, and go to the same Starbucks; we are all familiar with society’s expectations of us as citizens and as Americans. For example, customers know how to interact with the Starbucks employee, with the strangers around them, etc.; they know what is acceptable dress (it’s okay here to walk around in pajamas, unlike some other cultures), and they follow acceptable behavioral conduct. In other words, they all engage in the American way.

So really I’m not sure I saw any intercultural interaction after all. Though there were all different kinds of people, bringing into their daily lives distinct backgrounds and beliefs, I would say everyone I saw was very “American”, in the holistic sense of the word. Isn’t America the melting pot of a world of cultures?