Melting pot or Cobb salad?
Academics are busy deconstructing what it means to be American, and Samuel Huntington thinks that's a very bad thing."The deconstructionist coalition," he writes in One America at The American Enterprise Online, ". . . does not include most Americans. In poll after poll, majorities of Americans reject ideas and measures that would lessen national identity and promote subnational identities. Everyday Americans remain deeply patriotic, nationalistic in their outlook, and committed to their national culture, creed, and identity. A major gap has thus developed between portions of our elite and the bulk of our populace over what America is and should be."
Focused on the future impact of Mexican American identity on life in these United States [which will have "deep consequences for Hispanics--who will be in America but not of the America that has existed for centuries"], Huntington's patronizing article deserves a response from Latino/a theologians and others who know "American values" have never been as monolithic as he suggests.
.: Posted by Duane Bidwell on Tuesday, August 10, 2004
Comments:
Post a Comment