American Identity

The meaning of “America” or “Amerrique” in the Mayan language is “Land of the wind” or “Lands of strong winds”. In other words lands of natural power. Historian Phillip Cleason for more than 20 years was trying to prove that during the 20th century such aspects of political ideology like belief in freedom, self – government under law and equality, and of course ethnic diversity – America is usually called “melting pot”, were the dominant themes in discussion about American identity. He wanted also to underline that during all different historical periods of the American history these both themes were quite salient. Let’s say during the American Revolution, the term “American Identity” had more to deal with political ideology than with ethnic …show more content…
First of all we would be able to reveal whether some uniform American identity is appropriate for the minds of people with different ethnical backgrounds. Usually the very term “American” is used in different contexts, like commercial advertisements for example. And a range of misunderstandings if not conflicts may appear if the meaning differs for all the ethnical groups. So America is to be a kind of “psychic glue” to bind the people all together across both ethnical and even intellectual territories. All of the ethnic groups have private language, cultural, traditional ethnicities, like for example Vietnamese and Mexican, but real American can include all these ethnical differences and gather into some common vision and appreciation. There is no place for any kind of intolerance, let it be either that which applies to Jews, gays, Catholics, Mexicans, Hispanics or the Irish. Strictly speaking an American is the one, who lives either within the borders of or is culturally affiliated with the United States of America, an American is someone who is a citizen of the USA. And what the citizens of the country determine is – democracy. American democracy makes a wager on its citizens – with freedom comes obligation and with liberty comes duty. Democracy is not fixed like monarchy, it is dynamic in its development, it is supposed to reflect the will of each generation …show more content…
Nowadays, the USA are the symbol of democratic government and freedom, which is of course one of the central themes of the American identity. Freedom should mean, that every American has his right to speak freely, to choose his religion, and the right to express himself in any way. If we try to follow the appearance of this country we should go back to the year 1776, when the USA were founded. Settlers got the chance to come to a “New World”, seeking for better lives there. On of the first really important documents was Declaration of Independence. It was the beginning of all the rights of a citizen. Though after the 11th of September these rights were to be considered as privileges, but terrorist attacks are to bring all the people of the whole country together to stand for their rights together. The country is still fighting the Islamic terrorists, whose strategy is to find und use the weapon of mass destruction, to bring greater damage on the population, to destroy the society and its culture and economy. This is actually the second lesson after that of the Vietnam War. American people were not fighting for some empire or individual in that war, but for freedom, this time the Americans are again set at war and have to defend their country from the attacks of