Hispanics as Americans

 Who Can Be an American?

This month we are celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month, and the celebration can teach us something about what it means to be American. Anyone can become an American because we Americans invented the idea of citizenship as a voluntary commitment.  We believe in the idea that anyone who accepts the responsibilities and duties of citizenship can be an American citizen, and we have no other definition of what it means to be American. Most other countries are different. If I moved to France, I could become a French citizen, but that would not make me a Frenchman; if I moved to Mexico, I might become a Mexican citizen, but that would not make me a Mexican; but the United States is different, a person who moves here can really become an American. American society is very open.

Our Openness Has Made Us Strong

Our openness to has made us strong. We have attracted people from all over the world, and they have built our society and our economy. The army that fought in World War II was made up in large part of children and grandchildren of immigrants. We had no shortage of people who could speak the languages of our enemies: German, Italian and Japanese.

Our definition of citizenship has made it possible for millions of people to become Americans without giving up elements of their ethnic heritages that they cherished. The Irish immigrants, who were scorned when they arrived, constructed an entire alternative school system to allow them to maintain their Catholic religious heritage in a largely Protestant country. It is not an accident that Notre Dame’s football team is known as the “fighting Irish.” The school system that the Irish created later helped millions of Italian and Polish immigrants to adjust to American life and to become Americans.

So, Let Us Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month

So, it will be with the Hispanic heritage. Hispanic immigrants and their children will work to maintain parts of their heritage even as they integrate into American life. The children of Mexican immigrants will remember the Virgin of Guadalupe and their mothers' guisados even as they gradually lose the ability to speak Spanish, and their food will enrich our culture. Indeed, Mexican food has already become a part of American culture just as pizza and egg rolls did at an earlier time.

That is what we can learn from Hispanic Heritage Month. The maintenance of the Hispanic heritage does not make Hispanic immigrants less American in any way. The Hispanic immigrants are following the well-worn path that other immigrant groups followed before them, and the fact that they are able to do that will make us strong, and it will enrich our culture. So, let us join in the celebration of Hispanic Heritage secure in the knowledge that such celebrations are the secret of our success as a country.