What does it mean to be "American"?

"I've come around to the view that the culture war can best be understood as a conflict between two different kinds of patriotism. On the one hand, there are people who believe being an American is all about dissent and change, that the American idea is inseparable from "progress." America is certainly an idea, but it is not merely an idea. It is also a nation with a culture as real as France's or Mexico's. That's where the other patriots come in; they think patriotism is about preserving Americanness" (Jonah Goldberg) Well, what is Americanness? Samuel Huntington believes in the Anglo-Protestant culture as a very important basis of Americanness. (Who Are We?) What do you think? Before you decide on your answer, look at the table below: (Melanie E. L. Bush)

Interesting, isn't it? As you see many Latinos, Asians, foreign-born blacks and foreign-born whites living in the United States do not consider themselves American while they are holding American passports and pay tax to the American government. And their number is increasing in comparison with the "Anglo-Protestant" people Huntington believed to be "American". So, what is the future of Americanness?

Huntington sees the idea of an American identity and culture under attack. But these enemies are not terrorists. "They are America’s own political and cultural elites with their doctrines of cultural pluralism. Armed with a misinformed virtue, these elites have systematically undermined the very idea of a national identity and sought to erase its cultural component" (Who Are We?) So, the danger comes from within the United States. But to know where matters will lead we need to study the weight of these different ethnic groups to find out their share in the power structure of America which will determine their influence on the social, political, economic and cultural identity of America. The trend so far has been pointing to a constant increase in the influence of these minorities over the social, political, economic and cultural apparatus of the U.S.A.

There is another angle through which we can approach the question of "What does it mean to be American?". If we believe, as some do, that America is an idea and an idealogy of liberty, equality and the rule of law, is it possible for someone to be the legal citizen of another country but believe in the American idealogy and be culturally and intellectually "American"? In his book "Beyond Citizenship,
American Identity After Globalization" Peter J. Spiro contends that it is. He says: "globalization is detaching identity from location. What used to define American was rooted in American space. Now one can be anywhere and be an American, politically or culturally ". Well, does this sound like an answer to the question "What does it mean to be American?" Maybe it does.