Mixed Equality

There is a great deal of evidence that indicates mixed racial and cultural groups are increasing throughout the United States. This is one of the most diversified countries in the world, and there seems to be no shortage of varying immigrants or intermingling and intermarrying with others once they are in this nation. The U.S. was initially based upon the ‘melting pot motif’, in which a blend of varying cultures and ethnicities comprised the citizens within the country (Branigin, 1998). Therefore, people of mixed heritage should certainly be treated as Americans—and not as some hyphenated subset of Americans.

One of the primary reasons why citizens within this country should simply be considered and treated as Americans and not as distinct categories of Americans pertains to the nature of naturalized citizenship. The Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states that anyone born on American soil is an American citizen (Rodriguez, 2009, p. 1363). Although this is certainly one of the foremost laws championing the viewpoint that there should be American citizens without any sort of hyphenated subsets, this concept makes sense on a practical level too. In the event that someone’s parents were citizens of Romania before immigrating to the U.S. and they birthed their son or daughter in, say, Texas, there is no other place that child can claim for citizenship, for the simple fact that he or she has never even been to another country. Thus, people should consider all American citizens equal, and treat them as such, regardless of the ancestry of their parents.

Another reason why people should treat all citizens as Americans is that there are far too many sub-categories of heritages, cultures, and ethnicities within this country. Consider all of the various races that currently reside in some part of the U.S. Then also think about the varying nationalities (which is not always the same thing as a race) and cultural differences including religions. There would simply be too many different nominations if citizens in the U.S. were to be stratified by some sort hyphenated system instead of simply as Americans. This fact is especially true when one considers the degree to which intermarrying and producing offspring from all of these different categories exacerbates, or rather complicates and multiplies (quite literally) all of these different categories (Saulny, 2011). There would be too many hyphens to describe a person if people were not simply referred to as Americans, which is the best way of labeling citizens in this country.

Lastly, the most important reason that all Americans should simply be considered American citizens and not get categorized into some obscure stratification is due to the issue regarding the difference in treatment each of those categories would receive. One of the principal reasons people desire to immigrate to this country is because there is supposed to be equity in how all people are treated—regardless of money, social status, and ancestry. From a systematic, governmental perspective, how would one treat the different sort of groups of citizens if the hyphenated approach were adopted? Such a system would eventually create favoritism and discrimination. This issue was largely cleared up with the Supreme Court Decision in Brown v. Board of Education in which separate and equal facilities and treatment of people was fundamentally ruled unequal (Williams, 2007). This ruling overturned the previous precedent Plessy v. Ferguson in which distinct treatment of people was lawful (Wolff, 1997). Thus, there should only be American citizens treated as such with equality.

Another historical example that demonstrates the inherent inequalities that hyphenated citizenship has and would continue to produce in the United States is found in the pernicious days and nights of World War II. It is quite significant to realize that during the waging of this war, there were numerous citizens in the U.S. with ancestry from both Germany and Japan, respectively. Yet after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese-American citizens were shepherded into internment camps as Truman began his bombing campaign. Conspicuously enough, the German-American citizens were not forced to go into any such camps, despite the fact that Germany and Adolph Hitler were the very ones that started the war and prolonged its waging for several years. Japanese Americans had to forfeit their property and their personal liberty because of their alleged ties to their homeland, while another—European—set of foreigners, German American citizens, were able to walk around and enjoy their full rights. It may be argued that this difference in treatment had to do with the fact that the German American citizens shared the sort of Westernized background as the quintessential, Caucasian American. Regardless of the particular reason why for this inequitable treatment, it is quite clear that it was wrong to virtually imprison Japanese-American citizens during this time period, simply because they were viewed as Japanese first and American second. If the U.S. government had merely considered all people in the country as Americans regardless of their ancestry, this travesty would have never taken place. 

In addition to historical examples, there are also examples in literature that indicate that immigrants who attain U.S. citizenship should be treated as Americans and not as some sort of subset of Americans. Sinclair Lewis’ novel The Jungle is an important work of literature that alludes to the veracity of this thesis. This novel not only elucidated the ills of the meat-packing industry, but it also denoted several aspects of the immigrant experience that were cruel and fairly inhumane. The point of this story is after enduring such horrific treatment, it would be extremely unjust for immigrants to not be afforded full U.S. citizenship status after they successfully attained this right. Lewis’ novel depicts the fate of a protagonist from Lithuania, Jurgis, who immigrates to the U.S. in pursuit of the great American dream. The vicissitudes he and his family had to endure were certainly savage. The clan was wantonly despoiled of its money by greedy customs officials upon reaching the U.S. and was routinely treated as second or perhaps even third-class citizens as they struggled to simply find work and food to eat. They were housed in inadequate quarters, forced to take demeaning low-wage work in which they routinely had to forfeit part of their salary to compensate their employers, and Jurgis’ wife was even raped by her employer who threatened to fire and blacklist her entire family if she did not submit to his whims. It is crucial to realize that Jurgis and his clan endured all of these iniquities because they were not considered true American citizens, and were only regarded as Lithuanian refugees. Thus, Lewis’ novel demonstrates how hazardous it would be to have hyphenated American subsets of citizens, instead of just Americans treated with equality.  

It is very important in these days and times to treat all American citizens as though they are the same. Other than a language spoken at home or a religious preference behind closed doors, most Americans are the same, anyways. Therefore, they deserve to be treated as such. There are numerous examples discussed within this document that emphasize the veracity of this statement. Considering U.S. citizens in light of their ancestry and treating them accordingly inevitably leads to unequal treatment. The internment of Japanese American citizens during World War II, while German American citizens remained free, demonstrates this point, as does the court rulings in Plessy v. Fergusson and Brown v. the Board of Education in which it was determined that separate but equal is inherently unequal. The literary example of the unfair treatment endured by the Lithuanian family in Lewis’s novel The Jungle proves this point as well. Additionally, there is legislation (such as the 14th Amendment) which holds that anyone born in this country is a U.S. citizen, regardless of his or her ancestry.  From a practical perspective, there are far too many different nominations and subcategories of groups of people, which is only exacerbated by marriage and intermingling, which would result in too many different stratifications for people. It is simplest, and most just, to treat all people as Americans.

References

Branigan, W. (1998). “Immigrants shunning idea of assimilation”. The Washington Post. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/meltingpot/meltingpot.htm

Rodriguez, C. (2009). “The citizenship clause, original meaning, and the egalitarian unity of the Fourteenth Amendment”. Journal of Constitutional Law. 11 (5): 1363-1371.

Saulny, S. (2011). “Black? White? Asian? More young Americans choose all of the above”. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/30/us/30mixed.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Williams, J.  (2007). “Don’t mourn Brown v. Board of Education”. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/29/opinion/29williams.html

Wolff, K. (1997). “From Plessy v. Ferguson to Brown v. Board of Education: The Supreme Court rules on school desegregation”. Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute. Retrieved from http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/pubs/A5/wolff.html#f