To begin, it is clear that America has, in a sense, tilted Europe 90 degress, laying out side by side races, nationalities, ethnicities, artistic traditions that most societies arrange in a hierarchical fashion, atop one another. Over the past couple of decades, folklorists and anthropologists such as Richard Bauman, Roger Abrahams, James Clifford, Amerigo Paredes, and others, have mapped the landscape of border life, focusing on geopolitical boundaries, like the border between the U. S. and Mexico and on great migrations, such as the spread of African peoples throughout the Americas. Border is the overarching metaphor for a society committed in principle to continual motion toward an egalitarian democratic ideal. Other societies may relax into stratification, or never seriously engage the continual confrontation and negotiation that define border life. Americans do not have that choice.
Art is the true currency of border life.
And, significantly, the language of border conflict is everywhere applied in discussions of American art. So, this border life, imposed by our democracy and sometimes seen as our principal burden and sometimes our great opportunity, is applied reflexively and appropriately when we talk of America's art, artists, and art making. Art is the currency of the border. Artists give us this currency of presentation, confrontation, negotiation, borrowing. Cultural historians must join with artists and policy makers to flesh out this metaphor, and connect creativity, cultural heritage, art, artists, and art making with public policy.