The Dangers of Living in a Hyphenated America

America is a land of natural divisions. We have two large oceans, one of the world's largest rivers running right down the middle, mountains in the east and mountains in the west. We have grass covered plains and blistering desserts. We have rain soaked forests to the northwest and water filled swamps to the southeast. We have millions of square acres of frozen tundra and hundreds of miles of sunny beaches. We are a nation of geographical diversity.

The enormous options presented by our land are surpassed only by the variants presented by our people. We truly are a diverse nation, with every language and race represented within our borders. No other nation in human history has had so many peoples living in such close quarters with such little unrest. Certainly there have been numerous dark issues regarding race and religion in our history, but the great experiment envisioned by our Founding Fathers has been wildly successful.

Immigrants, regardless of national origin, came to this country for a better life. In Europe, land ownership was an unrealistic dream. In Asia, feudal economic systems offered little hope and presented much military instability. But in America! Oh, the dreams were made real and hope was as limitless as the sky.

Thus they came with the burning desire to become American and to shed their old life in the Old Country, whatever that country was. They settled in and learned the language. They fit in. They went to work. They still maintained much pride about being German or Irish or Chinese or Mexican or whatever, but first and foremost they were Americans.

The mutt had become its own breed.

Yet the very thing that helped make us great now threatens to tear us apart. Now we are hyphenated Americans. Now we are Mexican-Americans or African-Americans or Chinese-Americans or fill-in-the-blank-Americans. Now portions of our population want their language to be spoken and their customs to be the norm. There is no more fitting in but standing out. While civil rights leaders spoke of color blindness in the 60's, today it is the polar opposite. Look at my color! Listen to my accent! Notice how different I am!

The melting pot is cooling down and the metals which once formed an unbreakable alloy are beginning to separate. States are colored by red or blue on political maps. Regions are becoming more and more defined instead of blurred. People are openly talking of secession. Borders are unsecured. Cultures are no longer expected to mingle in and add spice to the American dish but are instead overpowering the main course.

In America, we have long celebrated religious and cultural holidays and events that normally belong to other nations. I have seen Indians wearing green clothes in mid March and I have witnessed Greeks devour salsa in early May. Of the major celebrations in America, only two (Independence Day and Thanksgiving) are truly American; all the rest belong to other nations. Yet we participate and have fun and eat different food and listen to different music and then we go home and resume our American lives.

Canada suffers from one of their providences wanting to break away from the rest of their nation. Members of Quebec have long ignored the many decades of British rule and subsequent independence and have instead stubbornly clung to their French colonial past, which ended in 1757. Many of the Canadian citizens living in Quebec speak only French and their reputation for rudeness to those who don't is known internationally. They never blended in.

Is that what we want for America? Do we want to officially become quasi-nations according to cultural preference? Do we want to become not a melting pot but a scrambled mess that looks colorful but can't function as a society? I am pretty certain that my great-grandfather wanted to leave Germany behind when he moved here, for I feel as German about as much as I feel Martian. I speak no German, nor did my father and my grandfather very little. I know bits and pieces of my family history, but that is it. I am an American.

And I am damn proud of it.