What I used to think:
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Before being exposed to other cultures' take on America, learning to see multiple stories, and learning the importance thereof, my opinion on America as expressed in 20th Century American culture is was relatively one-sided. Indeed, my definition of America was relatively homogeneous; I failed to even once mention what other cultures think of America. This likely happened partially because I at the time found my definition of 20th century America was pretty well-rounded; I gave both positive and negative qualities. However, in retrospect I see that that notion was somewhat ignorant. After all, the majority of the world looked at America in the 20th century from the outside.
What I now think:
However, after watching some videos regarding broad nature of American culture and understanding why multiple perspectives are crucial to the telling of a cultural story, I realized that my definition of 20th Century American culture was missing a key component: a view from the outside. To reiterate, I realized that I needed to develop, or at least, add in, a foreign perspective on the definition of 20th century America. I chose two cultures which had pretty involved relations with the U.S. in the twentieth century: Japan and Mexico. In doing so, I incorporated both negative and positive opinions on America which all are similar in the same way: their definitions of what America is are significantly defferent that ours, but still are valid. That is not to say however, that my piece is totally different: I have kept in nearly everything I said before, in order to ensure that my American definition of 20th Century American culture is complete. Alas, I now bring up references to Japanese internment camps as well as the Depression, and used terms like "discriminatory" as well as "patriotism". As such, my piece now emphasizes what I now believe in: without presenting multiple perspectives and multiple stories, the American narrative cannot be told.