Let every man honor and love the land of his birth and the race from which he springs and keep their memory green. It is a pious and honorable duty. But let us have done with British-Americans and Irish-Americans and German-Americans, and so on, and all be Americans...If a man is going to be an American at all let him be so without any qualifying adjectives; and if he is going to be something else, let him drop the word American from his personal description.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- People should love their heritage but drop hyphenated labels to be fully American.
- In plain terms
- Respect your roots but call yourself just American.
- What can you take from it?
- National unity requires dropping sub-identities.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Does hyphenated identity matter?
- Can you be many things at once?
Another view
This ignores the value of multicultural diversity.
More from Henry Cabot Lodge
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Permalink to quote #2 It is the flag just as much of the man who was naturalized yesterday as of the man whose people have been here many generations.
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