The lack of national identity in the united states

Regional Language Centre

Writing IV
Ms. Livingston

“THE LACK OF NATIONAL IDENTITY IN THE UNITED STATES ”

Marco Antonio Hernández
Samuel Higuera Rivera
Margot Schiavon Lima

WEB

THE LACK OF NATIONAL IDENTITY IN THE UNITED STATES
The U.S. National identity has been eroding over time. Two decades ago, it was easy to define a typical American. Just imagine a child of migrantEuropean like fair skin, color eyes, arrogant, proud and racist. However, the typical prototype has faded over the years. Today it would be very unwise to imagine a U.S. prototype when the diversity of races is so extensive. The causes of the lack of identity in America nowadays are mainly due to the cultural retention and life-styles of millions of migrants who flow into the US each year; the absence ofmiscegenation and conflicting social policies.
One cause of the lack of national identity in the US is immigration flows. These immigration flows come to US not exactly to be part of a nation or to mix with other groups, they come to satisfy their economic necessities, normally called temporary immigrants. Upon arrival to the U.S., the first problem they face is the language, that is whyimmigrants seek to live with people from their same country, communities that had already started growing. These communities maintain similar lifestyles from their country of origin, avoiding or engaging mix of traditions and American lifestyle. For example, Mexican Americans who make up 10.3% of the United States' population with over 31,689,000 (US Census Boreau, 2009) Americans listed as of Mexicanancestry. The strong cultural identity that Mexican immigrants bring with them is a constant barrier that prevents them from participating in American lifestyle such as Independence Day (July 4th), Thanksgiving (4th Thursday November), Memorial Day (last Monday of May) or Presidents Day (3rd Monday of February). Another example are the “Chinatowns”, small cultural ‘niches’ within an establishedarea, with a population about 3.6 million (US Census Bureau, 2007) Chinese residents that are set up in states around the US. In the Chinatowns, a variety of products such as food, clothing and accessories can be found. These Chinese in these communities migrate with their ideals, thoughts, beliefs, traditions and lifestyles of their own and maintain them. The cultural influence that they have whenthey move to the US is so strong that they cannot mix or combine them with the American lifestyle because maybe they not feel comfortable or that tradition goes against their creed, so the immigrants do not become true patriots to generate one national identity.
Another cause of the lack of national identity in the US is the absence of Miscegenation1. This year, U.S. Census Bureau estimate that thepopulation in U.S. is more than 310.5 inhabitants to whom 12.5 percent that correspond the Hispanic ratio in 2009, is climbing fast; however, the absence of miscegenation is constant. Also, each group of foreign people still has their customs, so the mix up among different cultures is complicated. Moreover, in U.S. is vital the ethnical & racial sorting because is used for specific proposes2.The case of Michelle López Mullins, who is a university student, is categorizes by the federal Department of Education like “Hispanic” although her relatives were Peruvian, Chinese, Irish, Shawnee and Cherokke people. Meanwhile the National Center for Health Statistics, classify her “Asian” and “Hispanic”. Though, the racial statistics often is without uniformity since doing not exist as manyclassifications as possible, so the precision of the racial diversity is not enough. “The lack of uniformity is making comparison and analysis extremely difficult across fields and across time” (Saulny).
Yet another cause of the lack of the national identity in the U.S. can be the social policies of the United States. Many immigrants and tourists who have some relationship with the United States...