What it means to be an “American” was once a classic civics topic for elementary and high school students and often an essay question for those seeking citizenship awards or college scholarships.

Young Americans would submit responses generally containing platitudes about how we live in the “greatest country in the world” and famous quotations from supposedly heroic Patriots, such as ones from slaveholder Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty or give me death!” speech. The Founding Fathers were acclaimed as demigods who achieved their apotheoses by securing our freedoms. The preeminence of a derivative culture from the British Isles — such as language, law, religion and mores — was a given.  

Such attitudes were driven by unspoken assumptions regarding how an American looked and sounded. However, as America becomes an increasingly culturally diverse country, we must shed this narrow mindset and adopt a more mature and healthy conception of who we are as a people.

When I was growing up, the media, schools and my parents constantly bombarded me with images of the ideal American family. It was white, suburban and — presumptively — Christian.  It was comprised of two heterosexual parents in a stable marriage, with a white-collar working husband and stay-at-home mom. The children were all well-adjusted and only burdened with mundane concerns such as finding a prom date. Crafting our lives in accordance with this model was the goal to which we were all expected to aspire.  

With the implicit presumption that everyone would conform to a single way of life, the so-called American “melting pot” was always fictional, as other cultures were to be subsumed into the dominant one. Immigrants were expected to become Americanized. Certain homogenized observances of other traditions were tolerated, such as St. Patrick’s Day parades, as long as they didn’t threaten the predominant Anglo-American culture.  

Changing demographics means that the “Anglo” paradigm is now under siege. The real clash of cultures that we are facing is a struggle between who we were and who we are becoming — a nation that distills the best from many cultures, not just one. The increased diversity renders the rhetoric of conservative commentators who speak of the “real America” as if only those living in the heartland embody the authentic American nation all the more misleading.  

We need only contemplate that the multiethnic and racially diverse population of the New York City metropolitan area is 2½ times greater than Iowa’s to conclude that “America” resides in many places and has more than one complexion. We are obliged to reexamine just what is meant by the term “American.” The legal definitions are only part of the picture. Being an “American” is also profoundly attitudinal.  

In the 1980s, I was an American Citizen Services officer at a U.S. Embassy in Central America. During an interview with a Central America-born U.S. citizen who was requesting assistance, I was shocked when she casually referred to others as being “real Americans” in contrast to herself. Because she was born abroad and presented as a classic mestizo, a mixed race person, she felt inferior. Despite my attempts to assure her that she was absolutely an American, she remained unconvinced.  

Such perceptions are planted and nurtured by casually negative media depictions of other countries, peoples and races, among other factors. This culture molds the way immigrants are viewed and can poison their sense of self. Those who maintain their ties to their original non-white and non-Christian cultures and languages provoke suspicion regarding the extent of  their loyalty to the U.S. because they have “failed to assimilate.”   

While the U.S. Constitution states that someone becomes a citizen at birth or naturalization, perhaps simply wanting to emigrate to the United States triggers one’s “American-ness.” This choice may make one more of an American than those who gained citizenship by accident of birth. The uncertainties and dangers of emigration require a conscious and strong commitment to this country. I wonder if many “native-borns” have the same mettle as immigrants.

Someone is an American because they choose to be one. It is time we recognized this new definition of American identity and view immigrants’ desires with awe, not fear. That is how we become Americans.

Raymond Dillon graduated from the College of Arts and Sciences in 1977. A Hoya Looks Back runs online every other Thursday.