Is our race “American”?

Mar 10, 2010 Print This Post

Heikkinenfamily-1

My “nationality” is (in order) Finnish, English, Irish, French, German, and Scottish (I have been told I can date relatives on one side back to the Mayflower).

My wife’s “nationality” is Korean (her parents are from South Korea).

What does that make our kids? It seems like this comes up from time to time as we fill out various sets of paperwork. For years, we were forced to pick just one race which kinda ticked me off. Now with the new census form, you can pick one or more boxes.

Hopefully this isn’t an offensive question, but does this really matter a whole lot?

A few weeks ago, I heard Dave Gibbons speak on the idea of Third Culture (you can find the message here). He made an interesting observation that older generations tend to care a lot about multi-culturalism. The younger generations don’t, at least not in the same way. They celebrate different cultures quite a bit (which may be a result of multi-culturalism) but someone’s ethnic makeup is not a big deal anymore.

I wonder why it is that we, as a country, think it’s important to track this particular thing. Hopefully this doesn’t sound trite, but I wonder when (if ever) the day will come that we can get past it.

Here’s an interesting quote from Teddy Roosevelt (via Michelle Malkin):

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.

Not trying to make some big point here, it’s just something I’ve been chewing on and I felt like writing it out.

Tags: race

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Growing up in the Lansing area, I wanted nothing more than to get out. My exit strategy included a complex mixture of schemes for an urban church plant, iProducts, and an elaborate Bollywood car chase scene with zombies and catchy techno music.

As a 40 year old man, I find myself entrenched in the Lansing area at a church I love (Riverview), with 4 kids I love more (a high schooler, a junior higher, a middle schooler, and an elementary schooler), and a wife I love the most (Grace).

Instead of planting one church, I dream of helping hundreds get started without ever leaving my home base. I still love my iProducts and use them as tools to help lead and teach the thousands who attend Riverview. And when no one is looking, I blare the techno music and send my unimpressive resume to casting agents for Bollywood zombie films.

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