Anti-immigration fascists love to quote 26th president Theodore Roosevelt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyphenated_American
The term "hyphenated American" was popularized in the 1910s by President Theodore Roosevelt, responding to the increasing fractionalization within the nation along ethnic lines. In an October 12, 1915 speech to the Knights of Columbus,
Roosevelt said,"There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all. ... 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. ... 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."
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What Roosevelt said was VERY STUPID!
Let's say someone calls themselves "Irish-American", "Mexican-American", "African-American" or "Korean-American", etc.
That person is
1) acknowledging the heritage of their ancestors
AND
2) also acknowledging their participating in American culture.
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The idea that" someone who is paying respect to their ancestor's culture isn't a real American" is a stupid idea!
The idea of being an American is celebrating freedom and individuality. So that means someone can embrace parts of their ancestor's culture AND parts of mainstream American culture!
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There's this worry about immigrants settling in communities where everyone is from the same country, and therefore not a real American. LIGHTEN UP!
I spend a lot of time in Kalihi, which is a mostly Filipino community in Honolulu. One can live a whole life there, and only have Filipino friends. But I can tell you with great honesty that a Filipino person who was born in Kalihi is VERY DIFFERENT from a Filipino who just arrived from the Phillipines. You can walk by Farrington High School and be able to tell which of the students is a "local Filipino" and an "immigrant Filipino" Even in Kalihi, you're not isolated from the culture of the rest of Hawaii or the US.
It's just like the time I was visiting my uncle in LA. He lived in a mostly Mexican neighborhood. Still, his kids are able to understand English VERY WELL. I didn't even talk to them in Spanish (which I can't speak fluently). However, the anti-immigration fanatics don't want to think about that!
