ABSTRACT
There are some ambiguities about mainstream culture that we are not going to be able to resolve effectively, but we can take some steps towards a better understanding of that culture and the difficulties in defining its loci. We still have not precisely defined who is included in mainstream. If we take a conventional view of the matter, we can define mainstream as simply European (including Anglo-Saxon) Protestant. This would include a little over half of the total American population. However, many persons of European Catholic ancestry would have every reason to resent being left out. If we include them we have a total of around 75 per cent of the population of the United States. But cenainly persons who identify themsc;lves as Jews could object to being left out of the mainstream since their habits and values seem to be those that we think of as characteristically American. If we add them we get a slight increase in the three-quaners majority. However other significant segments of the other so-called minorities, the Blacks, Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans must be included using these criteria. To the extent that individuals in these categories display behaviors and hold values or beliefs or maintain attitudes that we think of as being characteristically American they are cenainly no less American than anyone from any of the other categories.
