Shlesinger Jr On American Identity Summary

As America becomes more different, the question of what it means to be an American becomes a more complicated answer. Being a piece of the American culture is living in the land established by both political and religious creators. Most people come to the United States because of its freedom and democracy. But as people from different backgrounds, we don’t see each other as a culture of our own. Throughout the years we have been able to achieve some kind of harmony between different races and cultures for a steady and working society. Now a days America’s capacity to suit differences is one of the nations incredible qualities. But there are people who have different perspectives on American Identity. We will see the difference between “integration”

Schlesinger Jr, he starts off by arguing how “Ethnic and racial diversity is more than ever a salient fact of the age” and how they haven't generally been working in different nations. Furthermore, he discusses how nations battle and separate from each other due to religion, race, and ethnicity more than idea conflicts such as abortion, death penalty, etc. He then states how America is the exception to the rule and how America has to be one of the rare nations to really allow these differences and not require any conflicts to arise like different nations have. Only in America it’s working, he expresses that because of how the U.S became known as the “melting pot”. The Cult of Ethnicity shows examples of disagreements. For instance Schlesinger states "The U.S. escaped the divisiveness of a multiethnic society by a brilliant solution: the creation of a brand-new national identity", indicating that a country is believe to create their own choices, however, one is expected to get a new identity. Schlesinger believes that American’s need to know their history and focus more on what brings them together for the American culture to

Where integration is normally defined as creating groups from individuals. Serrano states in her essay “ Don’t call me Hispanic. Don’t call me Latina . . . Don’t call me Mexican American. I want to be called Chicana.” Just by Serrano saying that she doesn’t want to be called those names she is going against assimilation. Schlesinger believes that “if pressed too far, the cult of ethnicity has unhealthy consequences.” When immigrants come from another country they reject assimilation and integration because they get discouraged. Serrano refuses to be part of “American mainstream society”. She strongly considers that her heritage is more than being an American. Furthermore, she states that her Chicano community will become stronger once her people become educated. Serrano does seem to take this a little bit to far with the whole her heritage is better than being an American. Individuals like her change the meaning of creating “one people” into everyone sticking with their own background and