If ancestry makes people American, how do cities like New York work?
About 40% of New Yorkers were born outside of the US. This number has not moved much in recent decades, and was in fact about the same 100 years ago.
NY did not drift into the abyss or demand to secede. Kids in New York grow up speaking English and absorb broader American culture just as kids in Kansas do.
Sam Huntington simply did not understand the malleability of human culture and identification.
One of the many problems of the "Heritage Americans" concept is that just about every possible heritage/cultural/racial/ethnic/religious group that is here now was here then, whether then is 1700, 1776, 1860, or 1880.
Israel is legitimately the nation state of the Jewish people, so are others like France for the French or Ireland for the Irish. Nothing wrong with that. The U.S. is not that kind of state. It has a different origin story. It is based on the idea of liberty backed up by the Constitution.
So are we going to be required to take some kind of blood test now to vote (one ancestor was William Bradford, so I guess I “count” to these fools but…). How exactly are they going to untangle the skein of ancestries?
I don’t want to be pedantic about this but I feel you are a kindred spirit and would also like the essay, “What is a nation?”
1882, written in early years of Third Republic by great scholar Ernest Renan-in deliberate opposition to notion of Volk on the other side of the Rhine. Common religion is NOT essential. Pace Vance. Jews and Protestants explicitly welcomed as fellow citizens. Trump and Vance are not steeped in international Republican classics
I am betting “common religion” IS on the agenda for many of these folks. Not for Trump, whose only religion is “gimme gimme gimme”, but certainly for people in the CN fold.
Many thanks for this timely and essential rebuttal of “heritage” (aka Blut und Boden) notions of American nationality. Our greatest moral leaders, Lincoln among them, always insisted that our citizens were united by shared principles, not ancestry. In his great “Electric Cord” speech, July 10, 1858, during Know-Nothing frenzy, he agreed that Americans take pride around the Fourth of July in being descended from the men who wrote and signed the Declaration of Independence. But, there are many among us now who are not descended by blood. BUT if they believe these truths are self-evident, if they share the same “moral sentiments”—then they may claim to be “blood of the blood and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration of Independence.” Contemporary account of speech notes “loud and long continued applause.”
If ancestry makes people American, how do cities like New York work?
About 40% of New Yorkers were born outside of the US. This number has not moved much in recent decades, and was in fact about the same 100 years ago.
NY did not drift into the abyss or demand to secede. Kids in New York grow up speaking English and absorb broader American culture just as kids in Kansas do.
Sam Huntington simply did not understand the malleability of human culture and identification.
New York u.s. HELL ON EARTH to the gated community tools and rural yokels who are the far right base.
Thanks for the interesting essay, Mr. Kahn.
Maybe I missed it, but how do Vance and his ilk boosting the concept of Heritage Americans characterize the Native Americans?
One of the many problems of the "Heritage Americans" concept is that just about every possible heritage/cultural/racial/ethnic/religious group that is here now was here then, whether then is 1700, 1776, 1860, or 1880.
Israel is legitimately the nation state of the Jewish people, so are others like France for the French or Ireland for the Irish. Nothing wrong with that. The U.S. is not that kind of state. It has a different origin story. It is based on the idea of liberty backed up by the Constitution.
Just go "ultra-Heritage" - spouses of non-Heritage Americans instantly lose citizenship.
So are we going to be required to take some kind of blood test now to vote (one ancestor was William Bradford, so I guess I “count” to these fools but…). How exactly are they going to untangle the skein of ancestries?
Brian
I don’t want to be pedantic about this but I feel you are a kindred spirit and would also like the essay, “What is a nation?”
1882, written in early years of Third Republic by great scholar Ernest Renan-in deliberate opposition to notion of Volk on the other side of the Rhine. Common religion is NOT essential. Pace Vance. Jews and Protestants explicitly welcomed as fellow citizens. Trump and Vance are not steeped in international Republican classics
I am betting “common religion” IS on the agenda for many of these folks. Not for Trump, whose only religion is “gimme gimme gimme”, but certainly for people in the CN fold.
Mr. Kahn,
Many thanks for this timely and essential rebuttal of “heritage” (aka Blut und Boden) notions of American nationality. Our greatest moral leaders, Lincoln among them, always insisted that our citizens were united by shared principles, not ancestry. In his great “Electric Cord” speech, July 10, 1858, during Know-Nothing frenzy, he agreed that Americans take pride around the Fourth of July in being descended from the men who wrote and signed the Declaration of Independence. But, there are many among us now who are not descended by blood. BUT if they believe these truths are self-evident, if they share the same “moral sentiments”—then they may claim to be “blood of the blood and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration of Independence.” Contemporary account of speech notes “loud and long continued applause.”