I am back with a new thought.

One of the big learning’s from life not only from being an immigrant but from others like when it comes to religion is that when you migrate from a country to another or from being Christian to become Jewish there’s this anxiety or willingness to learn everything so you feel part of it like you belong to that place or religion since that first day the Dr slapped you to make you cry. If you think about it, you become like a sponge, one of those that absorbs everything and suddenly you could even know more than the one that was born in the US or maybe Jew. As a note I say USA and not American, because I guess I am American since I was born in South America, right?

Here’s what Sachi Brown thinks:

So, I’ve conceded my status as an immigrant, a status upon which society has deemed somewhat negatively.  I’ve also acknowledged that I was adopted and that all Asians seem to “look alike.” I have to be honest, sometimes, even I can’t tell. What I propose to you, now, is the idea that foreigners, to a degree, possess a quality more American than native Americans. To clarify, this is not a discussion about Hiawatha or Sitting Bull. By “native American,” I mean to say, those who were born in the States.

What does it mean to be “more” American anyway? Does it mean you eat more hot dogs and watch more baseball than the next guy? Or maybe it’s that you get the most excited when you see the red, white and blue fireworks on the Fourth of July.  However you define it, you exude those qualities to a greater degree than the average American.

Is that all it is? Part of displaying these “American” characteristics is the ever present need to fit in, not in the cookie-cutter mold kind of way, but in the I-don’t-want-to-be-ostracized-from-society kind of way. Immigrants are already qualified as “other,” so in order to rid themselves of that title means a greater need for compensation. It means more tightly embracing the American way of life and every aspect of its culture.

There’s obviously no definitive way to classify what is American, and it makes this question a rather difficult one to answer. Is it being more patriotic than your neighbor? Is it about being the most generic, all-American individual? There are so many angles to tackle this, but none of which will result in anything conclusive.

Perhaps it can be whittled down to the Ken Burns trilogy of the Civil War, baseball, and jazz. So if you are the most knowledgeable about those that make up a large portion of the American experience, then you are more American. Doubtful, though it doesn’t hurt to be familiar with them.

The other obstacle rendering this even more challenging is the fact that there is more than one America. Save from the fact that there is a South America and a Central America, North America is comprised of more than one country. The United States seems to pretty confidently maintain that whenever someone says “America,” the reference is to it. Unfortunately, I’ve also erred in that way throughout this entry, but at least I’ve acknowledged it here.

I seem to have inconclusively answered this question, talking in circles and winding up even more confused than when I started. The United States, America, whatever you want to call it, has become an amalgamation of all sorts. As Israel Zangwill said in his play, The Melting Pot, “..America is God’s crucible, the great melting-pot where all the races […] are melting and re-forming…” Metaphorically, this epitomizes what America is, and as such a mixture of people, cultures, beliefs, ideologies, how can one pinpoint what is more? I truly implore you all reading to respond because through the countless hours of rumination, I’ve come up short.