Americans

Americans… A word that brings to mind several images and emotions.

As a United States American citizen, I found myself years ago asking basic questions about the value we place on our differences, instead of our similarities.   Today, this seems to be the trend more so, than 20 years ago.    In fact, the more I questioned the need to separate us based on differences, the more interesting the responses.    Some were apathetic while others defensive, cynical and even more were surprised.

We seem to be constantly dividing ourselves into smaller definitions of who and what we are.    This helps politicians and big business, because the more you know your customer, the better THEY can serve.   And of course, with better service, WE are happier.

But, dividing us up into smaller elements has a downside.   When we hyphenate ourselves, we become a fraction of something.   Does this help us in our lives, beyond politics and business?

Socially, we all want to belong, in some fashion.  If you are an engineer, philosopher, or writer, then these definitions qualify us and say we belong, to a profession, but we should still talk about the similarities.

This applies to other areas that “define us”, such as religion and race.

For America, we should certainly celebrate our heritage, our religion, race, and more.    And as much as we like to say, we are not Hispanic-American, African-American or Chinese-American – we are Americans.      The more we divide ourselves, the less we align as one nation.

Imagine if you are traveling to another country and someone asks you, “Where are you from?”, do you give a hyphenated answer, such as  “I am from German-America”?   Not likely.

The more we learn about OUR similarities, the less we will disagree over the differences.   Try to think of at least 3 things that are SIMILAR next time your are confronted by a hyphenated definition of someone, then share.