How Did Americanization Become Wrong?

About five years ago I was asked by my boss to be the first person from out department to attend a "Multi-Cultural Sensitivity Training" session being offered by some firm out of Washington D.C. The very first thing they did in this class was put up a list on the board and ask which word was appropriate. For example, should you call someone black or colored, Asian or oriental, white or Caucasian - you get the idea. So I raised my hand and asked what was wrong with just calling them "Americans"? For the next eight hours, I'm sure I irritated the hell out of them by contradicting everyone of their idiotic, touchy-feely ideas, to the point that the class was never offered again anywhere in the company. I'd love to take credit for it, but it was just such a lame-brained idea to begin with it probably expired from natural causes.

I received an email from a dear friend the other day, sporting a picture of Teddy Roosevelt and attributing a quote to him regarding immigration and Americanization. I found the words interesting enough to want to do some research to verify their accuracy, and I'm glad a did. The email has been circulating since 2005, and the factual error regards the date of the statement, not the context. I also located quotes from Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat not exactly in tune with Roosevelt's politics, and William Brandeis, a Supreme Court justice, in a related article by Dr. John Fonte, a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute.

Here are the quotes from Roosevelt, Wilson and Brandeis respectively:

ROOSEVELT: "It is not only necessary to Americanize the immigrants of foreign birth who settle among us, but it is even more necessary for those among us who are by birth and descent already Americans not to throw away our birthright, and with incredible and contemptible folly, wander back to bow down before the alien gods whom our forefathers forsook.

'In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile.....We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one soul (sic) loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.''' (ellipses in the original).

WILSON: "I certainly would not be one even to suggest that a man cease to love the home of his birth and the nation of his origin--these things are very sacred and ought not to be put out of our hearts--but it is one thing to love the place where you were born and it is another to dedicate yourself to the place to which you go. You cannot dedicate yourself to America unless you become in every respect and with every purpose of your will thoroughly Americans. You cannot become thoroughly Americans if you think of yourselves in groups. A man who thinks of himself as belonging to a particular national group in America has not yet become an American, and the man who goes among you to trade upon your nationality is no worthy son to live under the Stars and Stripes."

BRANDEIS: "What is Americanization? It manifests itself, in a superficial way, when the immigrant adopts the clothes, the manners, and the customs generally prevailing here. Far more important is the manifestation presented when he substitutes for his mother tongue the English language as the common medium of speech. But the adoption of our language, manners, and customs is only a small part of the process. To become Americanized the change wrought must be fundamental. However great his outward conformity, the immigrant is not Americanized unless his interests and affections have become deeply rooted here. And we properly demand of the immigrant even more than this,--he must be brought into complete harmony with our ideals and aspirations and cooperate with us for their attainment. Only when this has been done will he possess the national consciousness of an American."

So when did the "Melting Pot" become contaminated with Mad PC-Cow disease? Why do I have press 1 for English?

If you watched "Islam vs. Islamists" on Fox News last night as I did, you know full well what is happening, not only in our country, but in Europe and other parts of the world as well. Those few Muslims who wish to assimilate and become part of the culture they live in are scared to death to raise their voices. They have been beaten, threatened, and their families live in constant fear. I point this out not in an effort to create fear, only to illustrate one of the many results of embracing the faux-union of multiculturalism.

If you were born here, why are you Italian-American, Irish-American, African-American, etc. -

YOU'RE AN AMERICAN

Call me old-fashioned, but the sooner we start promoting the concept of Americanization again, the better off we'll be. If you'd like to be multi-cultural, go to Europe and see how Muslim efforts to create a Sharia-ruled caliphate within the structure of the European Union are coming.

If the pot that we've been stirring the best brew the world has ever known in should crack and spring a leak, I don't see any Teddy Roosevelt's on the horizon, with either a new pot or the means to fixed the old one. All I see are separate interest groups, unions, a biased media, and a rudderless ship of state incapable of building even the simplest of fences.