Issue 21 Hyphenated Americans feb,26,2013

Did you know that President Theodore Roosevelt aka "Teddy" despised the idea of a hyphenated American? So strongly was he disgusted with the idea of Italian-Americans, Irish-Americans, Mexican-Americans and African-Americans, that he felt that they should be deported? Even today, there are some people who despise this notion of being a hyphenated anything. They want Americans to be just that "Americans." They want Italians as Italians, Irish as Irish, because they feel that to be hyphenated in such a way that they are disloyal to the country. Put in a better way, they feel that a hyphenated American has two allegiances, one to America and the other to what ever they hyphenate themselves with and feel that those people are ungrateful to America for all the benefits they have.

This is not to say that those people who feel that way are correct. I believe that a hyphenated American is just embracing a part of their heritage in such a way that it separates them from the main part of American culture. In other words, it is a way to achieve an identity and also embrace the culture of your heritage. In fact I believe that a person embracing their historical traditions will enhance the American culture by giving the populace a glimpse of other ways of living and embracing life. Those ideas that rise to the top will become part of the mainstream culture that makes up America.

Like I said, to be Irish-American, African-American, etc, is to form an identity and is a life style that should be embraced. It is not for others to judge you on how you identify yourself. People who worship different faiths also go through something similar. They embrace a part of the religious culture of society and thus define themselves as Catholic, Mormon, Sunni Muslim, or Jewish. And even then, they may embrace aspects of their faith that agree with them.

The problem I have however is those with dual citizenship. This is where I begin to question loyalty to America, or any country for that matter. It also, to me seems kind of cheap to be a citizen of two or more countries so that you can embrace the benefits of both without having to contribute to both countries benefits, IE social security. You live here in the U.S. while amassing a fortune, and contributing to Social Security and the like, but then say move to Italy and get the free benefits there without putting up a dime. It's not fair. If the two countries you have citizenship with go to war, who do you side with? With hyphenated Americans, we don't have that problem for as soon as a conflict occurs with their home country and their hyphenated counterpart, loyalty almost always switches to the home country so long as the home country is not the aggressor.

So I say let there be hyphenated Americans. They contribute to society in many ways, through cultural crossovers, opens up new sources of commerce and most of all it allows people to feel like they belong somewhere as part of a group in a society that is built on individuality and Independence. I don't think we should be focusing on what they hyphenate themselves with, but remember, they stick American at the end of that hyphen.