Hyphenated Americans
Something I happened across a while ago, apparently by Theodore Roosevelt. His feelings about "hyphenated Americans" are compelling and intruiging.
"The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the American Republic. The men who do not become Americans and nothing else are hyphenated Americans; and there ought to be no room for them in this country. The man who calls himself an American citizen and who yet shows by his actions that he is primarily the citizen of a foreign land, plays a thoroughly mischievous part in the life of our body politic. He has no place here; and the sooner he returns to the land to which he feels his real heart-allegiance, the better it will be for every good American. There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else."
21 Comments:
All of the examples of hypenated Americans that Roosevelt offers are European Americans. He does not account for the other continents, which qualify their Americanness precisely because it is either forgotten/ neglected/ denied that they are American because of their ethnicity.
Asians who are American may feel compelled to add "American" to "Asian" because the Asian is all that others may see. One must add "American" to remind others that we are in fact American, and not perpetual immigrants. Let us not forget that the Japanese Americans were put in internment camps precisely because their allegiances were doubted; it was thought that it would in fact "play a thoroughly mischievous part in the life of the body politic." Try as hard as the Japanese Americans did to prove their American allegiances politically and socially--play baseball, join the Boy Scouts, it was never believed.
As far as Latin Americans, well, Americans tend to forget that there is more than one America.
And then African Americans, it's because some would rather not be labeled as black, when the skintones of African descendents can vary so greatly. And what about movements to ship African Americans back to Africa? "He has no place here; and the sooner he returns to the land to which he feels his real heart-allegiance, the better it will be for every good American."
Roosevelt does not consider that perhaps groups of people add the hyphen for the sole purpose of being identified as American. Because often others will not look beyond another as being foreign, as being a mick or a wop or a chink, and will never ever grant them the opportunity to be an American.
Anyway, I think that hyphenated Americans make America far more interesting. Homogeny is boring by any account--except for in milk, maybe.
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That is the most bullshity bullshit I've heard today. None of the ethnic groups who hyphenate their names are looking to integrate - they are looking to label their differences and get special (for better or worse) treatment because of it. The fact is that giving our differences names and making them symbols and groups of exclusive pride and priviledge (try to join a african-american club, or apply for a hispanic scholarship and see what happens) isn't emphasizing the "american" part of "blahblah-american" any more than wonderbras emphasize how wonderful bras are.
oh and btw, I got "the fog of war" on your suggestion. Haven't watched it yet...
Matt, don't take it personally, but fuck you, and fuck your ad hominem responses. Your argument is exceedingly narrow in that it doesn't account for a prolonged and continued history of social and institutional racism in America and the diversity of individual responses to it. I know it's a popular thing amongst conservatives to deny that it still exists, but it must be considered that this denial itself is divisive, not integrative.
I refer to myself as Asian American, not Asian, and it has nothing to do with your own bullshit notions of preferential treatment. You have no idea how many remarks I have received based in the assumption that I am not American, simply because I am Asian--e.g., your English is really good. Hell, I'm not even fully Asian, I'm fucking HALF Asian. Yet why does many a "good" American ask where I am from, and if I say Calfornia, not be satisfied with that answer? Or if I say American, respond with, "No, no, where are you FROM? Are you Chinese? Japanese? Korean? No? Well, what are you?"
I have every right to call myself what I want to call myself. People belonging to a any ethnicity or heritage have the right to call themselves whatever they want to. We have the right to a certain amount of self-determination--I do believe that this is allowable in America. It shouldn't be subject to the semantic constraints stemming from the cultural insensitivities of others. What I call myself is not up to you, Matt, and your presumptive, reductive theorizing, and it doesn't make me less of an American or even, heaven forbid, a "bad" American because others inevitably see me as only Asian. Dare I add the American to that?
By the same token, dare I forego my own background by dropping the "Asian" in order to prove to Matt that I am an American? A "good" American, whatever the hell that means. No, I think not, because Matt knows nothing of what it means to be an Asian American, having not experienced it himself. It is not his legacy to excise.
And Matt, do you just pretend that you're not half-Nicaraguan, if I recall correctly? half Latin American? Nicaraguan American? Do you just say, screw that Nica half, that third world sorry-excuse-for-a-democracy half ain't worth shit, it's the AMERICAN that matters?
Now, I'm not denying that there can be a pride involved. But there are clubs for just about anything. Have you tried joining a club for Harley Davidson owners? Did you try joining an exclusive golf club? No? Are you pissed off about it? I think you should do something about it. I think you'd stop with this "one big happy American family--OR ELSE" nonsense you've got.
p.s., diatribe aside, I'm interested in knowing what you think of fog of war. also, do you have any way of copying deadwood onto media that i could borrow?
Um. Translated from Latin to English, "Ad Hominem" means "against the man" or "against the person." But I can forgive your misuse because I know you're as big a fan of writing as I am, and we all make mistakes.
That said, You follow with a "Straw Man" response regarding my failing to account for "a prolonged and continued history of social and institutional racism in America and the diversity of individual responses to it." Regardless of the truth of that, the original article was focused on the dividing nature of hyphenated Americans and your focus on racism is a different (even if related) problem.
Ironically, you then follow with a "Circumstantial Ad Hominem" attack on me. For the record, I am fairly conservative and I recognize and respect racisms effects in America.
I strongly recommend browsing that site and going through the fallacies listed, because the rest of your post is chock-a-block with them. Here's some quicky responses:
From what you wrote, it seems like when someone's perception of you is wrong, at least racially, you feel the need to emphasize those elements to everyone else. If calling yourself "asian-american" saves you time in explaining to people that you're an American, good for you. My point was that it eliminates the option of you just being an American. When you choose to make the distinction of asian-american, you're making it clear that you're not just an American, you're an asian american. The chance, and comfort, of being seen an american like anyone else is surrendered for the certainty of membership of the neccessarily vague racial classification you pick.
At any rate, there was no need to attack me personally, or simultaneously alienate me from your hyphenated american perspective while appealing to my own mixed blood for sympathetic feelings towards it. I think if you think my response, or anything I communicate for that matter, is stupid, ignorant bullshit, I wouldn't be surprised to hear you say it. I am surprised that you would choose to respond in the way you did.
PS We'll talk. I ain't mad atcha.
Oh, and one other thing, I was astonishingly lazy about capitalizing asian and american. There was no intent behind it and it signifies nothing.
Matt, I deliberately employed various fallacies in my response because your own responses are often quite personal and incendiary and it gets my goat. (I took philosophy courses, I can identify fallacious thinking at least basically.) I'm not certain how aware you are of how inflammatory your responses can be. As juvenile as it is, the attempt was in fact to make my second comment as personal as possible. Why? Because in my original comment, all I felt I was doing was provide a critique of Roosevelt's comment and place it within an historical context. Then you come back with saying that what I have said is "the most bullshitty bullshit I've heard today." Bullshit? Seriously, how is one to respond to that? Hence the "don't take it personally, but..." Especially when it pertains to something as sensitive as ethnic identity, which is a personal issue. Additionally, the accusatory nature of this anti-hyphenation idea is very much "to the man."
I disagree, though, that I set up a straw man. Roosevelt's idea of the "elimination of race and religious prejudice" is wonderful in spirit, although in 1915, the same year as Roosevelt's address, the Supreme Court declared that first-generation Japanese were ineligible for citizenship. Native Americans were not eligible for citizenship until 1924, the Chinese in 1943. The catch-all Immigration and Nationality Act was not passed until 1952. It can be seen that Roosevelt, in discussing hyphenated Americans, was not referring to a large group of people who currently are American, due precisely to institutionalized racism. Therefore, his account of the nature of hyphenated Americans was not encompassing of the various contemporary uses; it is incomplete. It may have been accurate for his time insofar as focusing on divisiveness, given Irish-American political machines, Italian-American anarchists, etc. However, one of the great things about a lexicon is its mutable connotative nature, and I call to question using as the basis an argument that by paradigm is exclusionary.
Story for you: while I was in Quito a couple of weeks ago, no one yelled out "CHINITA!" at me. I was like, wow, this is a really pleasant change from what I grew up with in Central America. But it ended up that there was one remark made after all. I was in a club, and I walked by an American man who was saying something to a friend about how something or rather sucked, and I interjected jokingly, "Yeah I know it gets me every time!" He says to his friend, "Wow! There are even Chinese here!" To which I say, "I'm not Chinese, I'm American." He gives me a look of absolute astonishment. "No, really? No, where are you from?" "I'm from California," I say, as I keep on walking. "No, really?"
So I'm standing a little ways away, and he yells out at me, "Ni hao ma!"
I say, "I don't speak Chinese!"
He looks at his friend and says, "Darn!" meaning that he had finally figured out how to say hello in Chinese and I don't even speak Chinese.
At the end of it all, in Quito, the only remarks I experienced were from an American who did not want to accept the fact that I could possibly be American. And this sort of thing happens to me all of the time, be it overseas, the Midwest, or in San Francisco on the block I live on. And let me tell you, it is tiresome. The "chance and comfort of being seen an American" is not being surrendered, because to many--many more than you would ever think--it has never been there in the first place. As far as "certainty of membership of the necessarily vague racial classification," I refer to myself as Asian American, as opposed to Vietnamese American, because I don't identify with the Vietnamese American culture. I don't carry on Vietnamese cultural traditions, simply because I wasn't taught them. I grew up with Latin American cultural traditions due to my Salvadorean family.
Behind this idea of dropping the hyphenation, I see there lying a notion that groups should drop their cultural traditions. Their flavor and love for what they have grown up with--the foods, the way of personal interactions, their languages, the maintenance of which stems in great part through a sense of pride--and pick up behaviors constructed as being American. And this is, in an ironic fashion, the death of what it means to be American, and the death of its richness.
(I'm not mad at you either)
Now that is what I expected from the Fishfry.
Listen, this is a longer dialog than this comments system warrants. You're covering a number of topics that I'd love to discuss, but too many to write about here.
The synopsis would be: I know there is racism, and I know there are racists, but reacting to them by "possessing" their racist notions (ala "niggaz" from "nigger") isn't fixing the problem, it's merely making it more comfortable for those afflicted. To be clear, I don't think the solution to divisiveness is neither to emphasize the sides involved, nor to pretend there aren't any, but rather to seek out what is mutual between them and try to make those things the majority focus. Thus, calling Americans simply Americans.
To put Roosevelt's quote in historical context, he was deathly afraid of American entanglements with Europe and worried that "hyphenated" Americans would sympathize too greatly with their respective European ancient homelands. He shared the American view of the world first put in motion by the Monroe Doctrine - that America must not get entangled in European affairs. He worried that someday the U.S. would be sucked into the powder keg that was Old Europe. He was prescient in that the Great War would follow - but wrong to think that America should not get involved.
I see nothing wrong with "hyphenation." One of this country's many great strengths is that you need not deny where you came from to take your rightful place as an American. African-American, Italian-American, Latin-American, Asian-American - think of the culinary benefits alone that we’ve reaped as a nation with such diversity.
"None of the ethnic groups who hyphenate their names are looking to integrate - they are looking to label their differences and get special (for better or worse) treatment because of it."
That's a bit harsh. Are certain factions within minorities looking for special entitlements? Sure, but so is everyone else. If I find fault with America today, it's that WE ALL think that we're entitled to something for nothing. We have professional armies doing the fighting and dying for us, we complain about long security lines at the airport, and all the while we demand that the government continually make our lives easier. We've come a long way from "ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country."
Theo
"One of this country's many great strengths is that you need not deny where you came from to take your rightful place as an American."Again, I am not saying that denial of ones roots is neccessary to maintain a strong national American identity, but rather that the adoption of qualifiers to that identity splinters and dilutes it.
"That's a bit harsh. Are certain factions within minorities looking for special entitlements? Sure, but so is everyone else. If I find fault with America today, it's that WE ALL think that we're entitled to something for nothing."Yes, I was harsh and I shouldn't have been. That said, you have described exactly the result of a breakdown in national identity. Naturally I have no issue with selfish individual and group ambitions - that's what this country has been built on - but when those selfish ambitions weaken or damage the very system that enables everyone else's ambitions, I bristle and condemn them.
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