Hello, I’m a Hyphenated-American

Wait… their god is a buffalo?

Maybe because half of my lineage is what used to be called “Irish-American,” “hyphenated Americans” didn’t resonate as necessarily non-white with me. But there is a definite connotation of “people who aren’t as American as us, partly because we don’t want to let them assimilate.”

From Reddit, under the title “The Founding Fathers are Tired of Your Bullshit”

http://i.imgur.com/rN2F0.jpg

Um…”In God We Trust” is our national motto?

Someone needs to take a civics class. “E pluribus unum,” anyone?

Some of the worst reporting I have ever seen. Gag me.

I object to hyphenated-American designations, but not because I’m against any particular group or dislike immigrants-far from it.

Being an American of Indian descent, or African descent, et cetera, is perfectly fine. I am an American of European descent. But I don’t call myself European-American, because my nationality is American and only American. I’m not loyal to wherever I came from, I’m loyal to the country of which I am a citizen.

Many people who call themselves the hyphenated designations mean to convey that they are American, but have a particular descent, and I understand that. Some other times, though, they mean to separate themselves from America to some degree, or show a hyphenated allegiance. That’s why I make sure to call myself American, and nothing else.

In short, there’s a difference between being, say, an Indian American, and an Indian-American. I think the former talks about heritage, and the latter talks about national allegiance.

I’m American, He’s American,She’s American, Wouldn’t you like to be American too?

One thing that our Government teacher in high school made sure to emphasize is that native-born Americans generally know a lot less about our history and our government than immigrants. That is because immigrants are forced to take a lengthy and thorough immigration test on those subjects, a test that native-born Americans don’t need to take.

He made us take one as part of the class (we didn’t get a grade on it, but we would automatically fail the class if we didn’t pass it eventually). I think out of a class of maybe 50 3 people passed the first time (including me), and not a single student one got all the questions right.

This wasn’t your standard high-school class, either, it was a magnet program with pretty stringent test, prerequisite, and grade requirements.

Are they using public funds for these religious signs?

Someone should inform this guy of just how challenging it is to become an American citizen. I’m sure plenty of people who have to pass those tests know more about American history than many American born people.

“Well, there’s a new euphemism for non-white people…”

I didn’t know that anyone didn’t know the term “hyphenated-American” or that it can refer to whites as well.

“because they actually understand and respect the First Amendment.”

The only part of the U.S. that anyone ever seems to care about, apart from jobs and welfare I mean, are the rights. No one seems to give a damn about the reigning culture for the past 200+ years. It’s always just “I know my rights, man!”

It’s bad enough that we have too many homegrown grievance-class-Americans with that attitude, but we’ve opened the floodgates to self-entitled masses of ingrates who wish to impose their often retrograde cultures on us.

“If he knew about our country’s history, he’d understand the necessity for church/state separation.”

Well put, Mr. Mehta

I’m with Shells on this – someone whose grandparents emigrated to America should NOT refer to themselves as muslim-American or atheist-American, or African-America. How often do you hear Inuit-American after all?

Since America (still) has free speech, it is of course their right, but it does show how deep their loyalty goes.

I’m sorry if my ‘retrograde culture’ is spoiling your pristine White experience.

Racist much?

Maybe we should all start calling ourselves Atheist-Americans.