Influence Of People From The United States Will Agree That People Should Be More Like Americans Essay

An American can be defined by a variety of things. A natural born citizen is just as American as an immigrant searching for a new life, just like in “America and I” by Aniza Yezierska. An American can be a rich businessman or it could be a dedicated soldier like in “Veteran’s Day: Never Forget Their Duty” by John McCain. An individual’s definition of being an American is shaped by their life experiences. A person’s view on being an American is different because of experiences, such as being a veteran, being an immigrant, or living in poverty, all of which affect one’s perspective.

Michael Walzer’s essay on “What Does It Mean to Be an American?” raises many points about the American citizen. Specifically, he discusses “American” as an adjective (Walzer). “American” is often associated with American citizens; while this is true, the term can also be applied to Canadians and Mexicans (Walzer). American is such an ambiguous adjective that it is applicable to all countries and individuals that are part of the North American continent. Like Mr. Walzer states, American is not a truly defined term and America is not a country (Walzer). Walzer goes on to introduce a Horace Kallen’s opinion on American’s as anonymous and their “unique” pluralism (Walzer). There are exceptions to all things; the positive to being an American is the fact that Americans can be whatever they choose to be. I feel to be an American one must believe in the American ideals, they must believe in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. American 's in general may be anonymous, however, upon further reflection they have left the definition of “American” open for each American to define the adjective for themselves.

“Culture is fluid. Culture is smoke. You breathe it. You eat it. You cant help but hearing it… I am in favor of assimilation. I am not in favor of assimilation. I recognize assimilation” (Rodriguez 143). All in all, I am accepting of the labels society may put on me, for now. I'm growing up in a community that values peoples differences and accepts that we are all American in our own way. Being racially identified is not important to me, I don’t believe it makes me, or anybody else, who there are today.

How should one define the American Identity? The American Identity should be defined as multicultural individuals who commit to similar common values, ideas, beliefs, and personal freedom rather than being defined by race, ethnic identity, and religion. Our common values, ideas, and beliefs depend on the core structure of the American government: the Constitution, which provides freedom, equality, and independence. Since America is very diverse due to the constant flow of immigrants from all over the world, there is no such thing as being a pure American. Everyone’s background lies somewhere else. Therefore, our identity would be defined by our common ideology and common values instead of our ethnicity and religion. Our common values and ideologies are largely influenced by mass communication through the media and popular culture. With the rise of globalization and youth culture, popular culture has been the largest influence on an American identity through sports, television, and social media. Because of the constant need of entertainment in society provided through pop culture, the American people are brainwashed by pop culture. They have forgotten their common values and core ideas that created the American identity.

I feel that I fit the definition of “American Identity” because I take part of the American culture and I live in America. American culture can be driving to school, texting friends, or taking the public bus. I wish that more people would consider “American Identity” and how it is defined in the dictionary. A new definition of “American Identity” has surfaced and it is “‘American Identity’ means born in America and white”.

Defining what really is to be an American does not sound as easy as it seem. It will always be complex process. As immigration continues to fuel the growth of the population of our nation, racial and ethnic gap increase and evolve along with it. Racial and ethnic identities become more and more convoluted and difficult to understand. Race and ethnicity continue to intermingle and push a cultural shift in the US– a shift that plays a significant role in redefining America in a day-to-day basis.

Ethnic distinctiveness is expected to eventually disappear, when it comes to third or fourth generation children. (Golash-Boza, 2006) Ethnic distinctiveness is directly related to ethnic identification and how a person sees themselves. (Golash-Boza, 2006) In society there are African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Latino(a)-Americans and Americans. The question of losing the hyphenation and just calling yourself “American” effect on integrating yourself into the American culture was raised and if so does calling yourself American rather than Latino(a) American mean that you have completely lost your ethnic identity? Ethnic identification plays a big role on cultural assimilation into the American culture. A survey was done to explore the relationship between ethnic identification and cultural assimilation and how it differs between the children of foreign born and U.S. born parents.

America as we know it today has been shaped by immigrants. It can be argued that America shapes immigrants as well. It is a nation that people, nationalist or foreign-born, desire to assimilate partially or fully into. According to a New York University professor, “Immigration, however, played a key role not only in making America’s development possible but also in shaping the basic nature of the society” (Diner, p. 2). It is a nation built on this idea of the “American dream” which varies depending on the person. However, it is something that holds steadily in an immigrant’s mind that is possible to achieve. America’s past, present and certainly future will be formed by immigrants, and once they get here America will coincidentally form their being as well.

In American society, there are multiple cultures and races exist. Since immigrants bring the various cultures to America, Americans face a highly controversial problem. Some of the Americans believe all of the ethnic groups assimilate into a common culture can help Americans distinctly identify themselves. Others argue that ethnic groups should not abandon their cultural heritages background. As a result, merging different cultures into one new culture will cause America lose its cultural diversity which is one significant charm of this country. On the contrary, if every ethnic group only focuses on building their own community and resists communicate with others, it will aggravate the separation of a nation. Although people often argue about these two ways which one is more appropriate to Americans, I think Richard Rodriguez's idea is more realistic in nowadays American society. Rodriguez resists the idea of the melting pot, and believes that assimilation is inevitable and reciprocal. In the essay Does America Still Exist?, Rodriguez explains his thought to us through his experiences.

Midterm Question #1 part 1: Race and ethnicity have played major roles in American social history. How do these constructs relate to an explanation of what it means to be an American?

Americans have not only defined themselves by their religious, ethnic and racial identity, but also by their individual freedom and common values. America has become a nation where its people can fight for what they believe in. Our founding fathers have formed America to be “the land of the free and the home of the brave”. Being apart of the American culture and living on the land founded by our leaders specifies the meaning of the American Identity.

The American citizens who suffers from poverty did not have the choice to be or not to be in their situation so they suffered greatly since they were not given equal opportunity's as the rest of America. People might have thought that these people on the streets are just lazy people who never gave a damn in their lives and did not want to work for their necessities. But Michal Harrington knew the real reason why this so called "Other America" was the way they were, " But the real explanation of why the poor are where they are is that they made the mistake of being born to the wrong parents, in the wrong section of the country, in the wrong industry, or in the wrong racial or ethnic group ... [so] most of them would never even had had a chance to get out of the other America" (The Other

What does it mean to be an “American”? To each individual person it means something very different. For the writer Bharati Mukherjee, who wrote the essay, “American Dreamer”, to be a true American someone has to want to be an American, not just prove that they merited citizenship. Her essay “American Dreamer” goes in depth into this idea and her opinion that as an American one should believe in bringing together the cultures in America. “We must think of American culture and nationhood as a constantly reforming, transmogrifying “we” (Mukherjee 438). For the author James Baldwin, who wrote the essay “Stranger in the Village”, an American is a person who is integrated with other cultures, and

During the early 1900’s, The United States government was ruled by white men that have captivated the American patriotism. The patriotism of the American society was greatly enchanted by the white superiors wanting to establish a strong American values and culture. The era of the time gave little hopes and dreams of living in a land that its purpose was to give the opportunities to all newcomers. However it was a different scenario among the Mexican American community. The Mexican communities within the United States are force to adapt to a new tradition due to the defeat of Mexican-American War. The Mexican government efforts to persuade its people to leave the United States were no effect because of their disloyalties to its government. From here on the Mexican-American community in the United States will decide its own self recognition of identity.

Everyday I am on a constant race to discover who I am as an individual. I am fighting this battle whether I choose to acknowledge it or not. Donald Hernandez has written in his book Children of Immigrants: Health, Adjustment, and Public Assistance; he talks about major key points, but the most important one state “Third, because life chances differ greatly according to race and ethnicity in the United States, and because of the race and ethnic composition of immigrants to this country has shifted markedly during recent decades,” (3). That is true trying to be one thing is very hard in USA society has an effect of how you may become as the individual. If I were in another country they would just see as an American and nothing else, but the place that I was born and raised they see me as what my parents are Nigerians. I am not American because my parents are from Nigeria; this has been a very constant thing, because of several definitions of what it