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"I'm just a plain old American."..."There are no such things as African-Americans or Asian-Americans or European-Americans - only Americans"..."I don't believe in hyphenated Americans"... You’ve heard those sentiments, or their equivalents, from your friends and family. Even John Wayne recording a speech, back in the 1960’s, dismissing the idea of the "hyphenated American" - and who, at least in that day and age, could argue with The Duke? My thoughts on all that have changed a lot in the last few decades, and America has changed, too. Maybe it's time to revisit the question of ethnic Americanism, particularly as it applies to those of us who trace our roots from distant Europe. While some European-Americans were actually born in the old country, the majority of us have been Americans for some generations. It's all we know. America has been our home for as long as our hearts have been beating in our bodies. Two and a quarter centuries? Man, that's a long, long time! Darned right we're Americans! How could be anything else? In the summer of our youth, America did seem forever, just like the endless warm days between one school year and the next. The Fourth of July, chasing fireflies under the shadowed trees, turning the crank for homemade ice cream - America, and summer, and our lives were seamless, timeless, and complete. How could we, and why should we, ever be a part of anything other than America? All those feelings still reflect a truth. But it's not the only truth. As we grow and learn, we realize that we - as individuals and as a country - have roots in the past. America prides itself on representative government, trial by jury, Anglo-Saxon Common Law, limits on the powers of those who govern, and particular sets of rights, like the right to bear arms and the rights of women. None of those things started in America. Each and every one of them began among our ancestors, in Europe. It's true that we cherished these concepts, revived them when they were trampled by tyrants and developed them to heights our ancestors never knew, but the fact remains, we inherited the essence of America from those who went before us. We cannot, ultimately, separate the "European" from the "American" in our social makeup. America is a continuation of the exploring, freedom-loving tradition that has been ours from time immemorial. There was a phase in our history when patriots declared that America was a special creation, something entirely novel, a child without parents. We know now that this is not true. America has parents - thousands of years worth of them, in fact. The past is father and mother to the present. Consider: The people we think of as Europeans have existed in their present form, according to some scientists, for around forty thousand years. We have been in America for perhaps two centuries, or approximately one-half of one percent of that time! Did our crossing the ocean erase the other 99.5 percent of our heritage? Of course not. You and I are the latest products of a long line of ancestors stretching back into far prehistory. We didn't stop being connected to all those people, all that past, when we got on a boat and sailed west. We are forever tied to Europe in a way that transcends time and space, for we are a continuation of all those who have gone before us, just as our children are a continuation of us. The golden chain links us through the millennia - and across the ocean. Blood is thicker than the cold waters of the Atlantic. Ultimately, there is no conflict between "European" and "American." America is sprung from the loins of Europe. The culture in which Americans have lived for more than two hundred years has been overwhelmingly wrought from the material of Europe. European...and American. We are both. And we wear our identification proudly!
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