Explaining 'What is America' to Chinese

The “realities about self-definition are never clearer than when we Americans try to explain and demonstrate what America is to non-Americans,” wrote Neal A. Lester, in a Jan. 24 column in the Arizona Republic. Lester, dean of humanities in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University, recently was in Chengdu, China, to help ASU launch the Center for American Culture, a partnership between Sichuan University and ASU.

“Such cultural exchanges bridge gaps, challenge us on both sides of the bridge to imagine creative possibilities and tease at the complexities of ‘what is America,’ of what it means to be American and, ultimately and more profoundly, what it means to be human,” Lester wrote. “Talking about ourselves to others teaches us about ourselves and affords invaluable opportunities for individual and collective self-reflection and self-assessment.