Defining what it is to be American

A woman I know is approaching age 65 and is figuring out her Medicare options. In making her decisions, she said it was important to her to choose a plan in which she can have an American doctor as her primary care physician.

I’m pretty sure that by American she means someone born in the USA, not having a foreign-sounding name and, frankly, someone who is white. I was a little startled and didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing.

True, we tend to be most comfortable with people like ourselves, but if she is looking for a mirror image but with a medical degree, she will be cared for by a narrow-minded Caucasian with a boring last name. How limiting.

With our most patriotic of holidays – red, white and blue July Fourth – just a few days away, that got me thinking. Just what is an American anyhow? Place of birth, military service, spoken aloud pledges of allegiance, emigrating from the correct continents, having the right names, ethnicity and politics? Or what?

Although it will always be about pedigree for some people, it really can’t just be rooted in descending from generations of people born here, can it? Except possibly for American Indians, we’re all immigrants somewhere in our past.

My college roommate Karen and I had many conversations about that. She was born in America as were both of her parents. All four grandparents, however, were born in Japan, and her last name reflects that heritage. I was born in America. My father was born in Europe. My mother was born in America, but her parents were born in Europe. So if being American has to do with tenure, Karen is more American than me. And yet many of the places where we went together, people would ask her if she was a foreign student. It was assumed I was American because – well, as Karen put it, I looked it and she didn’t.

When people would ask her in pigeon English and a little too loudly “What part China you from?” she would sweetly respond in long drawn out syllables “Coll-loh-rah-doe.” It would take a few seconds for

that to sink in.

I know there’s a huge debate about immigration now, about illegal entry into this country and about the absolute need to control our borders. This isn’t about that. What I want to know is what does it take to be considered and accepted as American?

So many of us, including those who have been native born for generations, have names like Polenski, Abramowitz, Garcia, Wong and Fiorini. And we come in a variety of hues, hair textures, heights and body types. We have for the longest time.

We trace our ancestry to the Mayflower, Ellis Island, the Middle Passage and likely a prehistoric land bridge from Asia. Some of us speak with accents, like my father did. Some of us have ancestors who fought for the founding ideals of this nation in the American Revolutionary War. We work, vote, pay taxes, raise our families and die on the battlefield. And some of us, whether long-standing in America or new to its shores, are lousy citizens, a drain on society in so many ways and a discredit to heritage and country – but still, I guess, an ingredient in the tossed salad that is this country.

We’re all American, aren’t we?

For my physician-challenged acquaintance, it’s about looking and sounding a certain way. For others it’s about the trappings – flag lapel pins, adhering to a particular ideology. Sure there are legal definitions – and forgive the heresy in making this comparison, particularly just in front of July Fourth – but really nailing it down is like the difficulty and irony Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart faced in 1964 in struggling to define pornography, when he stated that while he couldn’t quite capture the definition, he recognized pornography when he saw it.

I was really hoping that as I mused over this, I would have an epiphany and come up with an answer that makes me feel good. But, alas, that didn’t happen. I know that not all Americans love baseball and hotdogs. Some would like to limit freedoms. Some read books and others favor banning some of them. Some don’t believe that our creator endowed us with unalienable anything or that there even is a grand creator. And others believe that America is truly a gift from God. We are such a heterogeneous mixture of ideas, beliefs, appearances, hair and skin color and last names.

Maybe I’m on to something here. Maybe that’s an essential element of Americanism – our ability to be all those things and still be one people. I hope so at least.