I posted this before, but then I pulled it down and now I’m putting it back up. Obviously I can’t make up my mind. I want to be clear about this: I am not racist. I do not have a problem with people that have a different skin color or race than I do. I do have a problem with people hating, or shutting out, someone else just because they have a different skin color. I guess my question is, if this is the melting pot, when are we actually going to melt into one? We, as Americans, include a large number of different races now, with something-American becoming like a badge of honor to those that can fill in the “something” in front of the hyphen. I am American, no hyphen. Never had one, and I never will. I think that it is time for some people to stop putting the hyphen on their race, and just BE American.
African-American. Latino-American. Japanese-American. Italian-American. Irish-American. What’s up with all the hyphens? And did you ever notice that there isn’t a hyphen for Native American. They just are. And as an added bonus, it’s more PC to say Native American than it is to say American Indian, not to be confused with Indian-American. Again with the hyphens.
Here’s what I think the hyphen means. I think people that use these terms to describe themselves fall into one of two categories: they are proud of their heritage AND the fact that they’re growing up in America or they don’t really want to be American, but they don’t want to be considered an immigrant either. Individuals that might fall into the second category might say such profound things as “I’m not proud to be an American, but I was born here and it is part of who I am.” Yeah, they say they don’t want to be American, but they don’t want to be from the pre-hyphen country either. Talk about an identity crisis.
I can completely understand someone whose family recently immigrated to the United States, still has family in ______(insert pre-hyphen country), and is still very much in tune with their family’s roots. Someone who is commonly referred to as first or second generation. That makes sense to me. They’re proud of their heritage and are still very much a part of it. They have brought their heritage with them to the United States and have added more to the mixing pot.
During my first year of college on the Right (read East) Coast, I was having dinner with a classmate from upstate New York and his girlfriend. Somehow in making small talk, they began discussing the fact that they were both Italian and that they’re families wanted them to marry Italian. They asked me where my family was from. Being from the middle of the country, I don’t even know the complete answer to that question. My name is Swedish and I know that a great grandfather moved to Michigan from Sweden, but the rest of my blood is a complete aggregate of a number of different ethnicities. Everything from Creek and Cherokee Native American to English, Irish, and Black Dutch. When I told my classmate this, he and his girlfriend both kind of laughed. My heritage didn’t mean as much to me as it meant to them. I AM AMERICAN or I have got so many freaking hyphens that I would need a card to keep with me to remember to include all of the hyphens when I was filling out paperwork.
Why does it matter? In the long run, I think we’re Americans. Yes, some of us can more easily trace our heritage and know where our family tree takes us, but there are plenty of people like me that just don’t think that it should matter and I’m perfectly happy simply being called American. Why should it be something to get worked up about?
When I am completing surveys now, I check the “other” box for my ethnicity or race. If the survey allows write-ins, I put down American. Yes, my skin is white, but I tan really well and it doesn’t really matter what color my skin is or where my family originated from. Start a new race called American and if you really want to give it a color, good freaking luck. We’ve got all the colors and we’re only going to get more.
There are some people that refuse to drop the hyphen, even if they do NOT necessarily know their heritage. Their whole family, at least as far out as third or fourth cousins, live in the United States, and have as long as they’ve really bothered to check. But these people know that, because their skin is a different color, they must be Hyphenated-American. Seems pretty silly to me.
I believe that the good Reverend Jeremiah Wright would argue with me. He’d probably say that, because I’m white and grew up in the middle of the United States, that I have no culture. I would argue that basketball, baseball, apple pie, horseshoes, and hamburgers would all tend to support me. That my great aunt makes homemade spaghetti and meat balls every Sunday and on the holidays too, but he says there isn’t an American culture or heritage. If the good Reverend wants to continue to spout off “Damn America,” then we should offer him a trip, airfare paid for by the US Air Force, to go live in whatever country he would like. Maybe they would like to hear more from him on “black liberation theology.” Personally, I don’t want to hear any more from the Reverend and I think he might be skirting the line that separates treason from freedom of speech.
After reading all of this, you might think that I am opposed to immigration. You would be mistaken. I am not opposed to immigration. I would prefer if immigrants completed the proper paperwork and entered “the system” the correct way, but I can accept the fact that their home government might be corrupt therefore making it very difficult to get a proper visa. People have to do what they have to do and some governments have to do what they have to do to help control people. That’s the way this world keeps spinning on its axis.
