What Is an American?

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

                                                                                                              The Declaration of Independence

           

What defines an American? To be an American means to be able to speak freely, to worship our own god or gods, to write whatever we chose in the newspaper or in books, to gather and protest for what we believe in, and to live life freely—as long as you follow certain laws. But to be an American can mean so much more than that.

I believe that the definition of an “American” can differ from person to person, depending on how they came to live in the United States and what that person’s personal values are. We often associate ourselves with our ethnicity, rather than our nationality. How we answer the question “What are you?” depends a lot on who asks and your situation. For example, I am an Asian girl adopted from China by American parents whose ancestors were born in Poland on my dad’s side and Mexico on my mom’s side. So I guess that makes me an Asian-European-Hispanic-Chinese-Polish-Mexican-American (that is a lot to say). However, I never say all of that when someone asks. I normally pick and chose one or a few. I generally say that I am a Chinese-American, because I was born in China, but I was adopted and brought here, so I have Americanized views.  However when I go to Mexico, I say I am American because I want them to speak English to me. If I’m in Chinatown and people come up to me speaking Chinese, I say I am American. When people look puzzled when they read my Polish last name and see my face, I justify by saying “I’m adopted!” I believe that under most circumstances, I can truthfully say I am a Chinese-Polish-Mexican-American because although my ancestral roots stem in China, when I came here, I adopted my parents’ cultures as well as American culture. My family eats traditional American Thanksgiving food like turkey, but we eat Asian food on Christmas Eve, Mexican food on Christmas Day, and Polish food on Easter. Yet the thing that makes us all American is that fact that we celebrate holidays like Thanksgiving and are allowed to celebrate religious holidays, such as Easter, freely.

I personally don’t think that “I’m an American” will ever be the accepted answer to “What are you?” because America has prided itself on the values of bringing people from all over that world together under one set of laws, yet giving them the freedom to practice the customs of their ethnic culture. Allowing people this freedom enables them to still associate themselves with their former home or ancestral birthplace openly with dignity.  This quality of being Chinese, Mexican, Polish, Filipino, and so on, gives us something to differentiate ourselves from one another. It is what makes us unique. I believe we all know that we are American, but we answer, “I’m—,” when someone asks because being something other than just American gives us a way to feel distinctive. We know we are Americans, but we want to feel special and intergroup with other people that share our ethnic background. Being American is what gives us the privilege of saying that we are something else and still being accepted as a person with basic human rights.

To be American means to be a person, living to America, who follows the American laws, shares the same common beliefs with other Americans, yet is able to display individual qualities and hold one’s own opinion. It means being different, yet equal to everyone and enjoying the privileges life has to offer. It means living, being treated fairly, being happy, and pursing our dreams in a a country where we can meet other people different from us and share a common respect for each other.