The United States, once know as the melting pot, is fast becoming gravy with lumps. If you were asked, “Why are you an American,” how would you answer? Are you an American because you were born in America? Are you an American because you are a Christian? Some say that we are Americans because of our form of government or the political party we belong too. But by these things Americans are not made.

News reports from international broadcasters always refer to our country as the “United States.” When we teach about America in schools we talk about the “United States.”

America is the “United States.” The preamble to our Constitution calls us as much, but the popular term for our nation was altogether different until the 20th century. When early Americans referred to America they most often used the term, “Union.”

What is the difference between “United States,” and “Union?” Nothing, in terms of our form of government or general description, but everything in terms of the psychology of the nation.

When early Americans used the term “Union,” there was an attitude that some unseen force of will or agreement had formed an indissoluble bond between more than states and territories, but the actual people themselves. Though the heritage of each citizen differed, each person was an American, part of a union of various peoples under some commonality.

What was that commonality?

In 1991 commonality is hard to find. With a few exceptions every community is divided into camps. IN larger cities prejudices form invisible fortress walls that define cultural territories. Every city has its Hispanic quarter, it’s upper-class white boundaries, congregated blacks, even Indians. Larger cities like New York and San Francisco have Asian, Japanese, Russian, and Arab sub-communities.

In each division of each community subcultures are maintained. In the name of “heritage” cultural differences are actually accentuated. When carried to their exclusionary extreme they become brown lumps in the gravy. There are few “Americans” anymore. There are Mexican-Americans, African-Americans, Arab-Americans, and every other “American” that can be made except for the lone “American.” They are divided into more than racial communities like the black community or the Hispanic community. Now we have the gay community, Christian community, etc. We create communities based upon lifestyle choices.

So what makes you an American?

When Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay made their case for the formation of one federal political entity; they did so based upon several well-known ideas. Not the least of which was the pre-existing cultural union of the American people. It was a culture that existed prior to the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Revolution.

When making the case for a union of one American people, John Jay had this to say in the Federalist Papers:

”With equal pleasure I have often taken notice that Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people…speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side-by-side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established their general liberty and independence.”

What the Founding Fathers called “inequality,” what Abraham Lincoln called, “sectionalism,” what some have referred to as “nationalism,” is now known as “multiculturalism.” It is esteemed as positive in education, necessary for global citizens, and encompassing all the good of the world’s cultures, religions, and histories. Yet its extremes could have made the American Revolution of no effect, separated the nation over slavery (permanently), made fascism viable in the thirties and forties, and offers civil rights a chance to turn upon itself.

We have digressed from a melting pot to gravy with lumps. Multiculturalism is really cultural separatism, a form of reverse racism. It is foreign to the American ideal.

Preserving individual heritage isn’t such a bad idea. But America is not about holding onto our ancestry at the expense of the present, or the future. America is supposed to embody something greater than bloodlines, skin color, ancestries, and even cultural differences. America is supposed to be a single nation of varied peoples united by a common idea and set of values best espoused in the famous line: “One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”