Can americans be Shinto too?

Well, I know Shinto is the native Japanese religion, but I'm curious...can Americans (and people from other cultures) be Shinto too? This may seem like a silly question to some but the question boggles my mind as I cannot find any websites on line that agree with each other on this question, so any help is great!

Sure...

Some already are.

Yes, you can. There is even a Shinto shrine here in America.

Well, I'm a Gaijin, and yet I'm modern-day Samurai. Go Figure.

Ones "religion" is not strictly limited by "region".

No one can tell you that you can't believe something. If it makes sense to you then go for it.

I don't see why not. It has been a while since I studied Shinto, but I seem to recall it was a mix of nature and ancestor "worship."

The nature part is pretty easy. Most Wiccans seem to have this area down pretty well. Nature is everywhere, but Americans are really trying to forget what grass and trees look like, thinking concrete is better. This decline started with the Industrial Revolution, and has pretty much taken over. Still, it could be possible to reverse this on an individual level.

However, the family life of Americans is pretty poor. On the basic level, Americans move more than ever before. I live in a very small town, and most people move every year, if not more than across town to a new home. Worse, most never even know their mothers, fathers, or living grandparents, and could care even less about those who have died before that. The Japanese, however, have a strong social bond inside of the family, or at least did. This made it very easy to remember those you knew in life, and remember those you never met, but knew of through oral or written family history. Perhaps Shinto may be the key to saving the American family, but most care only about money and nothing more.

Ritual Purity may be another issue for Americans. Japan has always been a nation where rituals have held a strong position. Even bathing was strongly adhered to, and may still be. However, from the smell of most Americans, they don't even know what water is. They pour gallons of after-shave and perfume over themselves to cover up the natural smell of the body, and seem to avoid water, in the form of showers or rain, like it will make them sick. This has always been a problem with Europeans, who used to believe that bathing was unhealthy. If you have ever worked with the public, you will understand what I mean.

However, for some, Shinto can be very helpful. I guess you could say that I was slightly corrupted by what time I spent around a Shinto family, though that was a long time ago. I never really learned that much about it, but like most honest religions, it has some very strong points. It isn't the religion that is bad, but the people who give it a bad name and the fools who judge a group by a few.