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On immigration and hyphenated Americans

June 9th, 2007 by Double Tap

I’ve never been happy with the current crop of oh-so-politically-correct hyphenated names we give to various members of our society. Mostly, it’s because I don’t think of myself as being “hyphenated”. I think of myself as an “American”.

For example, the term “African-American” is very popular now, but it’s extremely inaccurate. It’s commonly used for an American black, whose ancestors, many generations ago, came from Africa. However, those same individuals will often take great umbrage when they see a White person, who was actually born in Africa, come to the United States and declare themselves an “African-American”. Then, they have an even bigger problem when a Black person, actually born in Africa, becomes of citizen of the U.S. Is that person more of an “African” American than those whose families have been here for generations - and may have had some inter-racial breeding thrown in the mix?

Obviously, the people who coined the term where not describing where a person comes from or their ancestry - they were describing a race. That’s why, I believe, the use of the term is inaccurate and misleading.

I, myself, am a White man. My ancestors, as best I can tell, generally all came from what is now the United Kingdom - or England and Scotland, in my case. Does that make me a European-American? Or, perhaps, a Anglo-American? How about a English/Scot-American?

Really, who gives a damn? I’m an American. The Black family who lives across the street from me are Americans. The Hispanic family two doors down are Americans. My Black step-daughter is an American. My son, whose mother is Thai, is an American. Really, what are all these hyphenations doing for us, except putting up barriers and pointing out racial differences?

Liberals like to complain that conservatives regularly divide the races and that we aren’t inclusive. But, what can be more inclusive than the statement I just made? We, who are citizens of this country, are all AMERICANS. We’re all in this together and we need to start focusing on making this nation great instead of finding ways to break us apart.

Taking this argument into the realm of immigration, Pres. Theodore Roosevelt said it best:

“In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man’s becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American…There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile…We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language…and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

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One Response to “On immigration and hyphenated Americans”

  1. David, on June 10th, 2007 at 10:41 am Said:

    Applause! Rowzing, Standing Ovation!

    I myself live in an OLD neighborhood who’s origins to back to the 1930s and migrant workers living in hovels/shacks for the citrus packing industry. My WASPish family lives in the midst of Mexico flag-waving, lowrider/ricerocket-driving people, and NOT ONE race related issue on our property in my 39 years! Why?

    Prosperity! Peace and prosperity are POSITIVELY related! PLEASE Pres. Bush, continue to bring prosperity and peace to the US and to the world!

    PLEASE Dubbleman, continue reminding us of why we are such a great nation!

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