It's a sad fact that wizarding USA is almost never done well in HP fanfiction, with perhaps only one story (Alexandra Quick) even attempting to flesh it out as a dynamic, multi-faceted society which feels like it exists in the same world as canon but has its own distinctive "flavour".

Most fics just go the "magical utopia" route, where all races live in harmony, including Muggles, where magic and magical education are orders of magnitude more developed than in Europe, and where the magical government is perfectly efficient and incorruptible, with all things in society progressing according to strict legal procedures. Not only is this boring and unrealistic, it doesn't really feel like it captures those features of US culture which are most distinctive.

So I thought we could think of different ways to make wizarding US interesting (distinctive, canon-compliant and non-utopian).

Some ideas to start us off.

- Given the culturally ingrained right to bear arms, it seems to me that the US would have a quite liberal approach to dark magic. Could the US be something of a haven for dark wizards? The great thing about this is that depending on perspective, this is either a good or bad thing (just as gun ownership is IRL).

- The US's very low population density and frontier culture likely affects the relationship between government and people. I think it likely that the US magical government, contrary to many fics, is actually rather small and relatively inactive in regulation, with wizards spread out around the country and living in a much more self-sufficient, almost anarchic, way.

- On the discrimination front, the US has hardly been a traditional bastion of tolerance. I don't think racism would be the way to go, as the idea of HP is that the magical world has different prejudices to the Muggle world, but I certainly think that there would be some significant measure of discrimination occurring. Given the lifespan of wizards and how recently the nation was created, you can imagine that the vestiges of aristocracy (debutantes, etc) in New England, New York and the South are more pronounced in wizarding US.

- Following the considerations above regarding the strength and size of the US government, it might even be that there is no wizarding USA as such. I've always liked the idea of wizarding North America being a continent of non-united states, each one with its own culture and feel. The eastern seaboard would be the most traditional and European of these magical nations, in contrast to California, which would be rather experimental and anarchic.

- Another theme to consider is the role of wealth, inequality, entrepreneurship and business, for which the US is renowned around the world.

- Finally, you have to consider the style/appearance of the wizarding US. In Britain, the style is a kind of mixture of medieval (castles, robes, though of course there was never any historical period where robes were widely worn) and Victorian (Diagon Alley, Ministry of Magic), though with a wizarding twist (blood prejudice, apparently no gender discrimination, modern values as regards to dating). This style, in a sense, attempts to capture the historical essence of Britain. Presumably the US style would be the same kind of thing. I don't think Muggle clothes would be ubiquitous like they are in so many fics, though of course the young people would wear them a lot (as they do in Britain). Right now I'm picturing US wizards dressing like people in Django Unchained

 

I'd actually love to have some analogue for the evolution and climate change debates going on there. I haven't thought much about it yet, but I'll just put it here. I'll flesh it out once I'm on a desktop.

 

Magical America's government was heavily Loyalist, and to this day holds contempt for the usurpers they consider their Muggle counterparts to be. Their Aurors wear the red coats of the British army, and their wands slot into modified muskets, allowing greater precision with their spellcasting as well as regiment firing.

Naturally, wave after wave of pro-independence muggleborns caused a huge schism down American society, leading to a second government forming, this one centered around the Americana of what they consider to be the 'glory days' of the Republic. Their aurors emulate the sheriffs of the Old West, wielding strange devices that allow six wands to be used in rapid succession. Their war pegasi are specially trained to eat anyone that says 'God save the Queen'.

 

Due to the proliferation of "Greek/Irish/Whatever American" often shown in film and tv, a slightly more daft thought...

There is no Wizarding America.

There's a magical America. But everyone's either a Veela ("No, honestly, my great-great-grandmother lived in the Veela flock in Southern France!"), a Goblin ("Well, okay, maybe it's just my surname's a bit grim sounding"), and so on.



For a more serious idea, maybe the native wizards never died out?

Down towards you have the remnants of the Aztecs, Mayans, and Olmecs. I think.
Up North you get Native Americans, still standing against the slow creep of Europishness.

 

Also if you want to get really daring, wind back the clock in American magical society the way it's wound back in British magical society...

Sorry, Dean Thomas, you have to sit in the back of the magic bus.

 

I like the idea that the magical US is heavily dominated by Native Americans.
That they were unaffected by all the muggle diseases that depopulated North America during the 16th and 17th centuries. They could easily save themselves, but couldn't (or didn't care about) their muggle counterparts.

They are the aristocracy and have most of the power on the American continent. They were successful in fighting off any incursions of European wizards intent on acquiring power and wealth. In recent years (since the mid-1800s) they have allowed outcasts and muggleborn wizards from outside to build up their own societies as long as they don't challenge their supremacy. Those new societies are very libertine and free, but also quite dangerous since they aren't allowed to build any significant power structures or create their own government. The native wizards only intervene when things threaten to get out of hand and then they crack down hard.

Any powerful and promising muggleborns are picked up by the native wizards and brought up in their own societies and customs, assimilating them. The great majority of less promising potentials are allowed to be picked up by the new societies or by schools of the old world.

I don't like putting the natives somewhere far off in the desert doing their own weird thing. They are the ones in control. They have all the power and wealth. They control the power structures and the economy in magical America. It's the new upstarts who are second class.

 

No way in hell would magical Americans be loyalists.

If I had to write wizarding USA, I wouldn't mention the British at all. It would take place in New Orleans, post Hurricane Katrina. Not only has the Muggle world been torn assunder, the vampire population is struggling as well, forced to feed at night on corpses. The main character is a visitor from a neighboring Caribbean island, who was contacted by someone in New Orleans offering a substantial reward for every head he brings him.

So, we have magic rooted in Voodoo, turmoil in Louisiana, sexy vampires and a Dominican man with a penchant for shrunken heads and whiskey. As the story develops, we find that the insider who contacted him is a vampire herself; she was bitten unwillingly and suffers because she has outlived everyone she's ever met. He asks why she has never committed suicide, and she says she's been too busy driving stakes into hearts to even consider it, but that she may take that route once she's taken out the vampire who turned her.

They search and search and eventually find out that the vampire they are looking for has left town for inner city Chicago, deeming New Orleans a total loss. The magical population in the area has been having a torrid time covering up the vampires wreaking havoc all the way across the midwest, and the wizarding news is having a field day with the situation, blaming the government for their inaction and failure to evacuated the city.

The magical world is fixated on four great communities - New York, Chicago, New Orleans and Las Vegas - with smaller wizarding only villages from coast to coast. The government never followed the Muggle government to Washington, DC. and instead, the governing body is called to order in Philadelphia, where facilities are set up to house a standing army, a wizarding prison and the United States Mens Broomsball League.

Just thoughts.

 

For a long while I liked to imagine that there was no magical United States. My thoughts echoed many of those already stated.

• A 'wild west' culture with little functional government and an extremely dispersed population.

• A hodge-podge of nations that had borders stuck in the colonial era. For example the thirteen colonies still being the major English speaking area on the continent. With New Spain, Quebec and Indian nations all squished up together.

• Almost completely detached from any kind of historical or current muggle America. Due to the high quality of living for European wizards at the time almost no wizards actually moved to America. As a result the native Americans (who obviously would have had no part of the International Statute of Secrecy) simply moved almost their entire population (magical and muggle) into a huge wizarding reserve in the Great Plains. Think the Saharan Reserve (actually a massive wizarding wildlife sanctuary, not a desert) but in America. Muggleborns outside of the reserves are almost completely ignored.

• A nation where racial discrimination and even slavery (or perhaps merely indentured servitude) was the norm. Extensive dissatisfaction among muggleborns and a few terrorist organisations operating in their name.

Unfortunately I think canon leans more towards the Magical United States simply being a mirror of the European nations, with a big of 'American-ness' thrown in for laughs (playing the wrong sports).

 

Magical California would really just be "Incendio, brah. It's the only to light it cuz it's so pure maaaaaannnn."

EDIT: just had a thought, it could also be "Movie Magic, now with real Magic!"

 

That depends on if using dark magic makes you dark.

In my mind it would be morally acceptable to use unforgivables in a fight for your life. that view, however, does not seem to be shared by the average magical in the UK. I could see that the US could be different though where they consider it okay to drop a violent criminal with a Killing Curse or a Cruciatus Curse.

 

For some time now, I've been coming up with my own, relatively elaborate Wizarding America. In some regards, I freely admit it takes liberties with Canon and is a few steps away from being its own thing entirely, but I still take pride in it.

One little part I rather like is my interpretation of the Salem Witch Trials. A few years after the Statute of Secrecy was put in effect, some people were still grumbling about not being allowed to use Magic in front of Muggles. This leads one witch in Salem to deliberately do some relatively harmless Magic where she knew some girls would see it. This backfired horribly, since the entire town was quickly caught in a frenzy. Both muggles and wizards alike were accused in the hysteria. Afterwards, no one seriously attempted to challenge the Statute again.

Later, they would name their main school the Salem Witches Institute, in honour of those who lost their lives.

 

Three greatest schools of magic, competitors in Triwizard Tournaments, are all in Europe. Clearly, Europe is the shit.

While you were still learning how to spell your name, America, I was churning out badasses by the dozen.

 

Darth Marrs Firebird Triliogy had an interesting take on the US, but it only really works in-universe (split East and West with an on-going/neverending civil war).

 

I really don't see the Wizarding World of the US being that much different from Europe due to a similar history.

Many fanfic writers try to say that wizards knew of America before muggles. I don't buy that as you need to know a location in order to apparate, and I don't see them going off to discover new lands-- they just didn't have a reason to.

If the wizarding world discovered America around the same time as the Muggles, the chances are it would be muggleborns and half bloods going to the New World, as Purebloods don't want to interact with Muggles.

It's the same as in RL... Why would the rich travel to unknown and harsh lands when they have everything they want at home? It would be those who want a new adventure as well as scientists and those who feel prosecuted.

I see the Americas as a way for Muggleborns to make a name for themselves and get away, as I believe Muggleborns were even more harassed in the past than today (as many muggleborns would not know how to read when attending Hogwarts and could be very religious). If it is muggleborn going to America, they would not want to be apart of the British Ministry of Magic, but would model the American one as a mixture of the British Ministry of Magic and the US muggle model.

And with Europe having wands, I can't see the native wizards being any match. They would be secondary to wand waving wizards. However, they may be immune to muggle diseases and get to watch as their whole families are being killed off.

-------------
If you want to make the two countries different, they only way I could see it happening is if you have a massive civil war between the natives and the wand-wavers.

The Wand-wavers would want to convert the natives, and turn them into "acceptable folk." They would ship them off to schools, be servants to the rich, etc, etc.

Eventually, the natives are fed up and rebel, perhaps overthrowing the Ministry of Magic.

You could have two nations with hidden Indian lands or one nation with a native president and a "european" president that have tentative peace.

 

I remember the story Brave New World, where Magical USA has much more problems with Vampires and Werewolves (they were called Lycans in the story). In fact, the magical school where Harry transferred has powerful anti-Lycan wards so Remus can't even visit him.
During the story the tentative alliance with Vampires against Lycans resulted in several terroristic attacks from Lycans (who used the stolen Muggle weapons to destroyl several important locations, including the failed attack on the magical schools).
I think it makes more sense than the idyllic picture of Wizardling USA made with the sole purpose to bash Wizardling Britain.

 

Odd notion:

At the time of European expansion into North America, many of the native cultures had developed traditions for putting their ghosts to proper rest. As a consequence, the lack of lost dead wandering around made enchanting things much more difficult. It was only after generations of untended dead had accumulated along the East Coast that wand magic even came close to working at a useful burn. As such, the dead-rich European purebloods would exile trouble-making mudbloods to the Americas, expecting that their magic-weak troubles would be amusing to hear about.

Overall, the Americas are quite resistant to magical influence due to this lack of corpse density. It's only in places where the dead are concentrated and collected that local witchdoctors hold sway.

The more subtle sympathetic magics are still workable, as the Masonic temples' muggleborn/halfblood elite had discovered back in the day. They cooperated in secret to build up the collectors of magic as they had imprinted them on the money at the direction of their nominal representative with the muggle government, Benjamin Franklin.

In the 21st century, magical visitors to the States are required to check their wands at the border or be harassed by House-elves who work for the Statute Enforcement Authority, the US version of the Ministry structure that is interwoven with the Treasury Department and headquartered at the Smithsonian Institute. Visitors may rent specially-homogenized safety wands, guaranteed to work the same for everyone... really, really poorly. They also log every spell attempt made.

About the only 'wild west' tradition still active in America is the annual tornado-riding competition that crosses the heartland in shots and spurts throughout the warmer months.

 

With that we have magical USA that isn't some kind of utopia and is in a similar postion like IRL Russia after annexation of Crimea.

 

Instead you have a Muggle wank -_-

 

I could see a steady migration of wizards to America after the Statute of Secrecy was signed. A vast, unregulated area where they can get one of the things magic can't readily give them: land. It would also attract degenerates who dabble in taboo fields of magic.

The magical settlers wouldn't really take an interest in the American Revolution. Their conflict would arise from the Native American magical community and the different ways they use and treat magic.

Modern wizarding communities would be fairly isolated suburb-type groups with self-regulation. Settler mentality still prevalent in less populated groups: grow your own food, take care of you and yours. There would probably be schools of a similar scope to Hogwarts in populated areas like Salem, Colorado Springs, and New Orleans while smaller communities would be more like public school (students don't live there, all students live nearby) or some type of apprenticeship program.

Outside of major coastal cities, the wizarding community isn't as much a melting pot of cultures as muggles. People groups tended to stay together when setting down stakes.

Muggleborns are taken in by the three major boarding schools.

Sometime in the mid-20th century a transcontinental subway system was built.