It’s sometimes hard to identify your own culture – particularly for Americans, who are comprised of so many different people. People overseas often ask me what my favorite American food is. When I say Mexican, they just give me a strange look. But really, what is American food? Burgers and fries? (no, those are “French” fries).

In East Africa, it seems no dish is more popular than “chicken and chips” (a tasty & inexpensive dish of fried chicken and French fries). So what might be considered an authentic “American” dish is actually much more popular in Africa.

(I know – it begs the politically incorrect question – why do all black people like fried chicken? But it’s like Dave Chappelle once said about food and racial stereotypes – “I love chicken. What’s so bad about that? There’s nothing wrong with liking chicken. If you don’t like chicken, there’s something wrong with you.”)

Food preference was just one aspect of African culture that I couldn’t pinpoint – did it come from America, or did America pick it up from Africa? Tie-dyed clothing, hip-hop music – even the “fist-bump” – where did these originate? Among Americans? Africans? Or African-Americans? (Repeatedly, I went to shake someone’s hand in Africa and ended up with their fist in my hand…leaving me feeling very awkward.) In the end, I realized that some culture is picked up and adopted by people across the world – and then it becomes their own.

The more cultures I see, the more I realize that American culture boils down to a few common themes – most of them picked up from the many immigrants that make up our country:

• Ambition – After all, you can do whatever you want and be whomever you want in America (or at least you’re supposed to be able to…).

• Variety – Almost every decent-sized American city has a choice of different foods: Mexican, Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Mongolian, Indian, Korean, Greek, etc. Want to live rural or urban? On a ranch with horses or in a studio apartment? Want to surf, ski, swim, ride bikes, hike, camp, shop, watch movies? Play baseball, football, soccer, tennis, basketball, ping-pong? You name it – America offers it.

• Freedom – We like to throw this word around, but when it comes down to it, I’ve not seen a society yet that has more freedom than America. Can it be improved, particularly for specific segments of society or to establish a truly representative government? Of course – and we shouldn’t be content with the status quo. But in the U.S., we have the freedom to be able to change it.

• Education – Yes, there are major problems with primary and secondary education, particularly in neighborhoods where there isn’t much of a property tax base. But when it comes higher education, no one even comes close. There’s a reason everyone in the world wants to come to U.S. universities – because they are the best in the world.

But there is one aspect of American culture that is not so rosy:

• Violence – No country places such value on violence like America. It saturates our society so much that we don’t realize it. It’s on TV, movies, the news, in books. It’s in our malls, sporting events, schools, workplaces, military bases. Ever notice every movie or TV show has to show the “close up” of the person cocking or loading the gun? They zoom the camera in so you can feel intimate with that symbol of American power – the almighty firearm.

Yet when people shoot co-workers or their wives and children, we look for so many other reasons. They were mentally disturbed. They were angry over losing their job. They were Muslim (but never “They were Christian”).

Why does no one ever suggest the reason “they were bombarded with images and a culture of violence and guns from birth and can buy automatic machine guns as easy as it is to check out a book from the library?”

If we ignore the role violence in our society plays, than we are basically accepting parts of American culture as “inherent” and assuming that we are helpless to change things. But culture is never static – and if we convince ourselves that some aspects of culture are entrenched, then we have lost all sight of what it means to be American.

Because being “American” has – and always will – be an evolving mix. Through our history, we have grown culturally as new Americans arrived. Influxes of populations – some by force, some by choice – have created the variety and diversity that we enjoy. If we decide to stop the flow of other cultures into our society and declare our identity “complete,” we will lose the essence of American culture itself.

Perhaps one day the violence in American culture will change – I certainly didn’t sense any underlying aggression in the bars of Kampala, the streets of Nairobi, or the refugee camps in Rwanda. If violence isn’t universal, why must it exist in America?

If our culture does change for the better, it will be because we decided – as a society – to adopt a new value, custom, fashion, style or food from different parts of the world. The newest Americans and the traditions they bring with them to our country will inevitably become so much a part of us that we will forget it was not always “our” culture.

Being open and ready to adapt. To change. To improve. To diversify. To recognize value in things that are not always our own. That’s American.

Because if you don’t like Mexican food and the fist-bump – then there’s something wrong with you.