Who Are We?:

The Challenges to America's National Identity

By; Samuel P. Huntington

Page Number: 370

Originally published: 2004

"Cosmopolitanism and imperialism attempt to reduce or to eliminate the social, political, and cultural differences between America and other societies. A national approach would recognize and accept what distinguishes America from those societies. America can not become the world and still be America. Other people can not be American and still be themselves. America is different and that difference is largely defined by its Anglo- Protestant culture and its religiosity."

(pg. 365)

Who are we?

Are we a nation whose citizens share a single race, one ethnicity, a specific culture, or a religion?

Are the people living under the US flag solely held together by a political ideology?

Is the United States a nation in which distinct communities and diasporas without common practices and beliefs reside; if that is the case, is this a sustainable setting, or will the faith of America be similar to those of the Ottoman and Byzantine empires who failed to establish a strong sense of unity in the public?

Is the national identity being thrown to the back and other titles, such as dual nationalities, race, age, or sex, being prioritized?

If the loss of the American culture that is founded on Anglo-Protestant values is being dismissed, how will the peoples of America differ from the rest of the world as they have done for the last three centuries?

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In the book titled “Who Are We?” Huntington illustrates the causes and outcomes of the denationalization crisis in the US faces.

Divided into four portions, the book gives a comprehensive standpoint of the significance of preserving the roots of this nation, as it was created by the settlers, and the detrimental consequences of the lack of such preservation by Americans, especially the elite.

Huntington supports a conservative perspective on the issue and suggests that to keep this nation unified and parallel to the values of the original American Creed- principles of liberty, equality, individualism, representative government, and private property- the salience of being an American should come first and foremost, above any other identity.

Huntington argues that initially, the American identity had multiple features: racial, ethnic, religious, ideological, and cultural. Over the decades, the nation lost its racial, ethnic, cultural, and religious uniformity. Now, Huntington suggests, we are faced with a state whose peoples are only held together by an ideological tie. A tie that is weak and has repeatedly been seen in world history as an inadequate factor to hold big empires or states together.

Part 1: THE ISSUES OF IDENTITY

• The lack of strong external opposition, Huntington claims, lowers the strength and salience of national identities. A powerful “other” is what brings the “us” together. In modern history, the attacks of September 11 are an example of how an outside threat increased the American national identity in public.

• The 20th century displayed a world that no longer showed the same prominence toward nationalism. This decline of nationalism is not restricted to US borders, as countries all around the globe are facing the same problem. This decline, Huntington argues, is caused by four developments. Notable improvements in communication & transportation, higher levels of migration, the global expansion of democracy, and the end of the Cold War.

• Huntington argues that globalization, the emergence of the global economy & global corporation, multiculturalism, cosmopolitanism, immigration, and sub-nationalism are melting down boundaries, which have been the basis upon which differentiation of “us” from “them” could occur. The global mindset has completely dismissed the lines that separated cultures, races, ethnicities, and religions that created the nations. If in the case that globalization does not lessen its influence, there will not be a difference between the American culture than the others. To keep America great, we must have a stronger grip on American values, and keep other ideologies and people away from home, where they can disrupt the system.

• The substance of American identity involves four elements: the homogeneity of race, ethnicity, culture, and ideology. According to Huntington, race, and ethnicity have lost their purity. Culture is under siege with the repressive and dominant nature of the global culture. Leaving only ideology as the sole commonality between different communities in the nation. However, the homogeneity of the political ideology will not hold a nation together. It won't be enough to unify such distinct groups in moments of crisis, because it is not a powerful and binding element. The collapse of the Soviet Union is the most recent example that displays the need for a rooted connection between the citizens of a nation for it to last. The countries that were born after the war all have their own ethnic, religious, and cultural backgrounds that caused them to separate from the bigger Soviet Union. The monolithic nature of communism was not enough, just like it won’t be enough for the American government to hold these different diasporas linked by the weak bond of American political ideology.

Part 2: AMERICAN IDENTITY

• Huntington argues that America is not the land of migrants, it's the land of settlers.

• The racial, ethnic, cultural, and ideological uniformity in the American public is the foundational basis of American nationalism. Racial purity has been eliminated with the Civil War, and the Civil Rights movements of the 50s and the 60s. It is interesting to note that Huntington does not see the loss of racial homogeneity in the country with the start of the forced movement of Africans to America. Instead, he cites the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement as the source. With the war, the African - American population in the US, on a more open, collected, and bigger scale, began to be active in the political dispute. The racial boundaries, with black and white soldiers fighting side to side and the African- American communities being deciding actors of the war, the racial homogeneity was lost. Second, Huntington argues the initial damage to the ethnic commonness of America was with the Irish and German migrants. Between 1880- 1914, the massive quantities of Irish and German migrants flowing in caused the fall of a unified ethnicity. Third, American culture is also being displaced by the cultural bringing of millions of migrants who still have strong ties with their native cultures, and who impose their cultural practices and beliefs into American life. Finally, the only element left untouched, thus far, is the ideological uniformity of America. The capitalist and democratic political ideology is the one component left standing that still preserves its existence in all American circles. But is it enough?

• Huntington argues that since the 60s, America’s core Anglo-Protestant Creed faced four challenges: dissolution of the Soviet Union, spreading ideologies of multiculturalism and diversity, harder assimilation by Latin American waves of immigration, and the Spanish language. First, the collapse of the Soviet Union removed a force that caused Americans to come together in the name of national security. Second, the encouragement of diversity lessened the uniformity of American standards. Third, the Latin American population does not mix with the greeter American public. Huntington focuses on the Latin American, especially Mexican, migrants who refuse to assimilate into American life, who marry, get educated by, and raise kids closely in their ethnic crowds. Fourth, the Spanish language. As the Spanish- speaking population grows more and more, Huntington spots a threat of a bilingual nation that lacks a central collected language. It is all too easy to complete daily tasks, work, shop, get educated, start a family, and make friends and connections in Spanish on American grounds. As a nation that is slowly losing all the elements of its being, the duality of the legal language is a dangerous threshold that, if not treated, will cause great disunity among its folks.

• Huntington illustrated the importance of religion in the American nation. America is not only a Christian nation but a Protestant Christian nation, whose legal and social practices are built upon the values suggested by the faith. Huntington suggests that America is a leading country when it comes to religion, and is above the UK, French, Germanic, and other Christian nations in their beliefs in God.

Part 3: CHALLENGES TO AMERICAN NATIONAL IDENTITY

• “We may be building toward the one thing that will choke the melting pot: an ethic area & grouping so concentrated that it will not wish to undergo assimilation” (pg. 247): In Chapter 9, Huntington discusses the six factors relating to Mexican immigrants and Hispanization. The first is contiguity. The leading nations of the first- world all have firmer immigration strategies compared to the US. The US has a critical geographical location, with a long border to Mexico, a third-world country, whose residents are significantly in lower economic standing. With this, the US has to have stable, efficient, and conservative laws regarding immigration from our neighboring Mexico. The second is numbers. When immigration to the US from 1960 is compared to that of 2000, the leading nations were all replaced. In 1960; the most migration the US received was from Italy, Germany, Canada, UK, and Poland. However, in 2000, the leading nations are Mexico, China, the Philippines, India, and Cuba, and the number of Mexican migrants is almost equal to the total of the rest of the leading five. Third is illegality. Because of the loosely monitored border, illegal immigrants are at a high from Mexico. However, US policies are not helping the situation The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, for example, granted 3.1 million illegals with green cards. Corporations are in favor of the situation because migrants are willing to work for less than average Americans. Considering the US highly prioritizes the elites and higher flow of capital, the laws are not to the advantage of the average American and damage the national identity. Fourth and fifth are regional concentration and persistence. “Dispersion is essential to assimilation”, Huntington says. However, the Mexican population tends to stick to themselves and refuse to travel outside of their cultural groupings, which might have detrimental effects on the unity of the country. Lastly, is the history. In places like Texas, there is a sense of ownership of the land in the migrants because of the historical background. This makes it harder to assimilate the groups into other locations as they feel more connected and comfortable in the formerly associated lands of Mexico.

• “It is war, which turns people into a nation” (Heinrich Von Treitschke): The war in Iraq & Afghanistan, America’s first enemy of the 21st century, is causing a rejuvenation of the American national identity. The “war on terrorism” is sparking a new wave of national soar.

• “Globalization involves a huge expansion in the international interactions among individuals, corporations, governments, and NGO’s” (pg. 264): According to Huntington, there are three types of transnational ideals: Universalists, economists, and moralists. Universalists advocate for the rise of cross-national interactions and argue that the national identity of America is universal. The economic approach prioritizes global capital. A company will not have a basis in one single country, its home is the international market. Lastly, moralists argue against the existence of sovereign nations. They are the founders of non-governmental, international organizations such as the UN and the International Criminal Court. Huntington goes against all three of the transnational ideals, thinking that they are inefficient as there is a lack of international government and an executive power strong enough to apply the laws and restrictions of the international community.

• “Elites are cosmopolitan, people are local”: Huntington argues that the 21st-century corporations, who are in an attempt to remove their original identities and take a global stance are not the true representatives of how America feels about globalism. In reality, Huntington suggests, the American people are eager to go back to their roots of being a more isolated, Anglo-Protestant community, rather than an international community.

Part 4: RENEWING AMERICAN IDENTITY

• America is facing a serious and lethal question. “Will America be a cosmopolitan, an imperialist, or a nationalist country in the future?” If it is to be cosmopolitan, the world will reshape America. The more diverse it is and the fewer Americans it contains, the more American the country will become. If it is to be imperialist, it will either be from an American superiority standpoint or a universalist standpoint, in which both cases will encourage the spread of American influence in the other parts of the world. In essence, contrary to the cosmopolitan stance, it will allow America to shape the world. Lastly, if it is to be nationalist, America will remember how it differs from the rest of the world. "America cannot become the world and still be America". Thus, advocating for the nationalist approach, Huntington argues that to preserve our Anglo-Protestant values, we must re-evaluate our attitude toward the world and our country.

personal rating of the book: 8/10