Author's Note: This was an assignment for my American Lit class a few weeks ago. Our teacher is a pretty cool guy. He had us write a parody of J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur's "Letters from an American Farmer: What Is an American?"
It's a pretty famous piece of early American Lit. Anyways, since it was parody I borrowed extensively from the text but just added in my own twists here and there. I had so much fun writing it I thought I might just save it here for posterity. I assume if you have an OpenSalon blog you know what a parody is, and that it's all in fun.

You can find a link to the original de Crevecoeur's text here .

Letters from a Detroit Native: What is a Suburbanite?
I wish I could be acquainted with the feelings and thoughts which must agitate the heart and present themselves to the mind of an enlightened Detroiter when he first sets foot on this great open space of possibility we settlers have come to call The Suburbs. He must greatly rejoice that he lived at a time to see this sprawling expanse of interconnected, immaculately landscaped cross streets and homogenous subdivisions discovered and settled; he must necessarily feel a share of community pride when he views the chain of strip malls and Starbucks coffee shops which embellish these extended vistas of I-696, I-275, and I-94.

 When he says to himself, “This is the work of my Wayne, Macomb, and Oakland Countymen, who, when convulsed by factions (Coleman Young and the Detroit City Council), afflicted by a variety of miseries (integrated school bussing) and wants (“Starbucks!” “A grocery store one can drive to without fear of being shot!”), restless and impatient, took refuge here. They brought along with them their Aryan genius, and their giant sport utility vehicles, to which they principally owe what liberty they enjoy and what substance they possess.” Here he sees the industry of his native county displayed in a new manner and traces in their works the embryos of all the arts, sciences, and ingenuity which flourish in nearby Ann Arbor. Here he beholds fair curb appeal, substantial housing purchased with no money down on an adjustable rate mortgage, extensive golf courses, and an immense shopping mall filled with Macy’s, Neiman Marcus, Nordstroms and Saks where a hundred years ago all was wild, woody, and uncultivated!

 What a streaming expressway of pleasing ideas this fair spectacle must suggest (Author’s note: I would here apply the more visceral metaphor of “train” in place of “streaming expressway” but such allusions to public transportation are highly unfashionable amongst the suburban elite in these parts. I digress.); it is a prospect which must which must inspire a good citizen with the most heartfelt pleasure. The difficulty consists in the manner of viewing so extensive a scene. He is arrived on a new planet of sorts in comparison to his native city; a modern society offers itself to his contemplation (inside Starbucks, of course), different to what he had hitherto seen, made conspicuously evident by the noticeable absence of anything remotely “urban,” if you understand my hidden meaning. It is not composed, as in Detroit, of great mayors who possess everything -- expensive black cars, expensive black suits, expensive black thugs to protect them -- and a herd of white skinned people who have nothing. Here are no welfare queens, killers, drug dealers, pimps, junkies, prostitutes, gangsters or corrupt city councilmen who fail to pay their taxes, commit perjury, take bribes and kickbacks, or mayors who put a hit out on a stripper who danced at the mayors house during a party then was caught by the mayor‘s wife. The rich and poor are thankfully far removed from each other at a much greater distance as they are in Detroit. Some seedier downriver locales excepted, we are cultivators of capitalism, from Bloomfield Hills to St. Claire Shores, from East Pointe, to Grosse Pointe, to Flat Rock. We are a people of white collar middle management scattered over an immense territory, communicating with each other by means of crater pocked expressways and expensive iPhones, united by the silken bands wound tightly and steadfast around our necks by the legacy and principles of L. Brooks Patterson, all respecting the laws without dreading their power because… well, what could possibly go wrong? We are animated with the spirit of an industry which is unfettered and unrestrained because each person works for The Big Three or labors for a company which depends on the success of The Big Three, and, therefore, again I ask, “What could possibly go wrong…?”

 If he travels through our suburban districts, he views not the Manoogian Mansion contrasted with the hostile housing project and burned vacant slum with a homeless drug addict living inside urinating five inches from the hole where he sleeps. A pleasing uniformity of decent construction appears throughout our habitations, the meanest of which are complete with central heating and air, a dishwasher, a two car garage, three bathrooms, and cable television access. There, on a Sunday, he sees a congregation of respectable Presbyterians, Wesleyans, and Baptists with their wives, all clad in the latest mall fashions, designer handbag in tote, well mounted in their Cadillac Escalades. There is not among them a person on public welfare, at least until 11pm when she arrives to clean the sanctuary and church administrative offices. By then, all is quiet in God’s House.

 What attachment can a white Detroit emigrant have for a city where he had nothing? The knowledge of Standard American English (which the city residents have clearly abandoned), the love a few kindred as white as himself, were the only cords that tied him; his county is now that which gives him his 2,349 sq. ft McMansion on less than a half acre of land, his police protection, and, of course, his Starbucks. Ubi Starbuckicus ibi patria, or “Where there is Starbucks, there is one’s fatherland” is the motto of all suburban emigrants. What, then, is the Suburbanite, this new man? He is most often Caucasian, although sometimes Asian or Indian. If he lives in Dearborn, he is most likely Middle-Eastern, but we don’t like to advertise that if at all avoidable. I could point out to you a family whose grandfather was white, whose wife was white, whose son married a white woman and whose present four sons have now four wives who are also all white. But this would probably not surprise you in the least hence I perhaps should refrain.

 He is a Suburbanite, who, leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives a whole new set of prejudices and manners that are mostly similar than before, but the point is that he has them while sitting in a bigger house, with his children in nicer schools, and his wife happier now that she can safely drive her SUV to Whole Foods to buy groceries -- a new mode of life he has embraced, the new homeowners association he obeys, and the new rank he holds. He becomes a Suburbanite by being received into the broad, pale obese lap of our Alma Mater.

 The Suburbanite is a new man, who acts upon new principles; he must therefore entertain new ideas and form new opinions -- at Starbucks, of course. From paranoia, apathy, and outright frustration, he has passed to toils of a very different nature, that he confronts heartily with his riding mower and hedge trimmers, rewarded with ample subsistence from his secure lifeline of corporate employment. This is a Suburbanite…