USA

The 33rd CID took place on Thursday, March 5th, 2009.  The American community wanted to do two things with the CID: show a side of the United States most people didn’t know and correct a few stereotypes.

Themed like a reality television show (“Because reality television hasn’t gone far enough…”) the four main regions of the US competed to win the much-coveted title of “America’s Next Best Region.”  And each region set out with something to prove.

The Northeast started by giving a brief and completely accurate (eh-hem) background into American history, showing some of America’s best cities and sports teams.  The South followed, and despite having had a bad reputation historically, showed their long-standing musical tradition, being home to such genres as Country, Rockabilly, and Cajun music.  The Midwest, third in line, showed some of their odder traditions, like gigging (stabbing fish in the middle of the night with a pitchfork), noodling (catching catfish by sticking your arm in their open mouth) and monster truck rallies.  There was a brief moment for Southern Bpatist religion too, before the West came on.  They showed that there was a long history of westward expansion and pushing conventional norms, with the beatnik and hippie movements.   They also own all our computers (Windows, Mac and Linux!).

But in then the end, there could only be one winner…  Ok, so, there was no winner, because the whole country won.  It was a little corny to be sure, but anyone who watches American television will know, Americans are very corny.

The CID showed American culture as highly individualized.  Every person has many different identities in American culture since almost everyone is an immigrant on the continent.  There are many, many different heritages and religions to choose from, and many people do not just consider themselves citizens of their country, but also their state and city too!

Overall the presentation ended on a pleasant note.  That is until everyone realized we weren’t joking about showing IDs to try American alcohol…

More pictures of this event can be found here.

(Text by Eva Capuccilli)