Hypho-Americans

Hyphenated Americans, or Hypho-Americans as I sometimes derisively call them, stick in my craw worse than just about anything else. I know that much has been written about them already but I feel compelled to add my rant to the debate. The phenomenon has been going on long enough now that I find many younger people can’t remember anything else and that troubles me.

It troubles me precisely because it flies in the face of everything I was taught to believe as a child. Things that I came to doubt in my rebellious years but passionately re-embraced as a young adult after much thought and introspection. One of those tenets was the Melting Pot concept. The idea that many different varieties of people could live together and become one people. That the new immigrant would change us a little and the previous immigrants would change him a lot. That out of Old World disharmony we could forge unity.

Naturally, this idea is scoffed at now, if it is spoken of at all. Latter-day “enlightened ones” have led us out of the melting pot desert and into the lush garden of multiculturalism. On the rare occasions when this antiquated notion comes up it’s equated with such things as ethnic oppression and, my personal favorite, cultural genocide. Apparently expecting a newcomer not to eat his neighbor’s dog is analogous to the wholesale slaughter of human beings on an industrial scale.

In my relatively short time on Earth I have seen the goal of national unity gradually pushed out of the American consciousness and slowly replaced by the standard of gratuitous diversity. Many of us grew up listening to teachers and other authority figures telling us that, “The true strength of American lies in its diversity.” It’s a very seductive saying. It tends to make one feel good just saying it. It is also a lie.

The true strength of America lies in its unity. There, I’ve said it. The unspeakable, unthinkable, politically incorrect truth. Yes, steel with its diverse components is far stronger than iron alone, but those components are smelted together and work as one. What is true for steel is metaphorically true for this nation as well.

The idea of a multitude of different, possibly mutually antagonistic, cultures occupying the same country is a very, very, very bad idea. You need only look to the Balkans or the Middle East to see the consequences. In the long run, unity is a life or death issue for the United States.

Which brings us to those Hypho-Americans? I must not have been paying attention because I don’t know exactly when we stopped being Americans and started being Insert-Subgroup-Here-Americans. All I know is that one morning I woke up and I was still an American while seemingly everyone else had turned into Hypho-Americans. I was surrounded by Hispanic-Americans, Afro-Americans, Asian-Americans, Indian-Americans (latter known as Native Americans, no hyphen, so go figure), Hindu-Americans, Muslim-Americans, et cetera, ad infinitum, ad nauseum, blah, blah, and blah.

Yet in the middle of all that diversity you rarely, if ever, hear about Euro-Americans, British-Americans, or even Anglo-Americans, all of which I am—at least technically. Ask me what I am and I’ll tell you that I’m an American every time. Press me for my ancestry and I’ll tell you that ethnically I’m of English extraction but you won’t find me showing much enthusiasm about it. Why? Because I don’t identify with England or the English at all. Why not? Because I’m not English, I’m an American. The English are foreigners and I’m much more concerned with the welfare of my fellow Americans, regardless of where their ancestors came from. No offense to the English intended of course.

If I could be assured of living in an America which embraced capitalism, individual rights, personal responsibility, and self-determination, I would be happy for my “group” to make up only 1% of the population. Conversely, an America composed entirely of my “group” who were wall-to-wall socialists would be a living hell to me.

I hope that one day America can kick its hyphenation habit and we can all draw closer together as a people. To do this we will have to embrace the common heritage that we do have, the history of immigration and assimilation, and of Enlightenment Era ideals that survive few places other than here.