The American National Identity and Ethnocentric Attitudes In America, there is the widely celebrated notion that anyone can achieve success and experience freedom and justice with hard work. However, there is also the contentious view that America was built upon structures of racial and social hierarchies. According to Samuel P. Huntington in his book Who Are We?: The Challenges to America’s National Identity, he argues that even though the salience of American national identity is always changing, Anglo-Protestant culture, Christianity, and the American Creed are central themes that have contributed to ethnocentric attitudes in this country. Immigration, multiculturalism, and globalization are a few of the elements that threaten the “cultural and political integrity of the American national identity” (Huntington 2004). Ever since the Civil War, Americans have been a “flag-oriented people.” Especially after September 11, the Stars and Stripes of our nation’s flag hold the status of a religious icon. It has become a “more central symbol of national identity for Americans than their flags
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Problems that America have with countries such as the Soviet Union, Japan, and various countries in the Middle East generate national coherence and create hostile attitude towards “others.” Ideologies of diversity and multiculturalism erode the dominant European culture in which this country was founded upon. The third wave of immigration brought immigrants over mostly from Latin America and from Asia and less from Europe as the previous waves did. Because of this, many of these immigrants tend to speak other languages other than English. Since many people tend to identify with others who are most like themselves, they identify with those who share a “perceived common ethnicity, religion, traditions, and myth of common descent and common history” (Huntington
Problems that America have with countries such as the Soviet Union, Japan, and various countries in the Middle East generate national coherence and create hostile attitude towards “others.” Ideologies of diversity and multiculturalism erode the dominant European culture in which this country was founded upon. The third wave of immigration brought immigrants over mostly from Latin America and from Asia and less from Europe as the previous waves did. Because of this, many of these immigrants tend to speak other languages other than English. Since many people tend to identify with others who are most like themselves, they identify with those who share a “perceived common ethnicity, religion, traditions, and myth of common descent and common history” (Huntington