OPINION: The historical struggle to create an America for all Americans 

By Ivory Phillips

JA Contributing Editor

While we realize saying we advocate “America for Americans,” we run the risk of being misunderstood. It is risky because earlier in this country’s history the Know Nothing Party promoted such a slogan. They meant America should be the country of people whose ancestors were European, not the rainbow of other people having arrived as immigrants over the centuries. 

Their position is powerfully represented today by the Make America Great Again adherents. Such nativistic proponents have been active in every generation since the arrival of European colonizers in the 1500s. That line of advocacy, however, is not what we have in mind when we advocate America for all Americans. 

When we speak, we are verbalizing that America must become the home country of all who were born here and desire to remain here, and all who have come here to live and have undergone a standard, simplified naturalization process. This includes Native-born peoples, whether they are on reservations or in the larger society; European and African people who were born within the states; and people from all of the other continents and islands, who would make this their home.

An American can be an individual from anywhere on the globe because, due to the “wars” the Europeans waged against the Native American people, the country is and has long been open to virtually everybody. Unlike France where people of French ethnicity have their roots and where the majority are French, or China where people of Chinese ethnicity have their roots and where the majority are Chinese, or where people of Egyptian ethnicity have their roots and where the majority are Egyptian. We could go on down the line, but one can see where we are headed. In the case of the U.S.A., it is possible for people from elsewhere to come here and become hyphenated, as in African-American, European-American, Japanese-American, Pakistani-American, and so forth and so on.

As they made their bid to gain control of that part of North America we now call the United States of America, the Europeans in America drew up a Declaration of Independence and a Constitution making it possible for those who came here to become Americans. While in the beginning they excluded African people, whom they had enslaved and the Native people, whom they had decimated and put on reservations, as the idea of democracy grew, they were incorporated as citizens, and thus became entitled to the same civil rights as the European Americans.

Continuing through history, one finds that legislative measures, executive actions, court victories, economic strikes and boycotts, protests, and more have helped advance the idea of America for all Americans. Although these struggles moved things in spurts and jerks rather than in one stream of continuous progress, the changes did occur.

In addition to the struggles, people of every creed and color have made contributions advancing the country as a whole, making them truly Americans in terms of what the country has become politically, culturally, and economically. These things, including their military service, also reveal their patriotism as Americans. Yes, people came from all corners of the globe; some of whom came seeking opportunities, some of whose ancestors came as forced laborers, and some of whom came in order to escape the threats of a harsh life or even death, and made their beds as Americans.

Thus, no one has the right to decide that people of one group or another should be considered as less than American. Considering America’s basic documents and the history experienced, all of them are Americans or no one is. (In a strange twist of human ignorance, not even the Native people are Americans since this land should never have been named America, after the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci. The Native people were Apache, Sioux, Seminole, Quapaw, and so on, as nations.) Let us all then recognize and put every group on the same footing. 

Nobody is just American, as Trump and many of his followers feel they are. Except for the Native American people, each of us is either (a) an African American because he/she is of African ethnicity, but have made America his/her home; (b) European American because he/she is of European ethnicity, but have made America his/her home; (c) Asian American because he/she is of Asian ethnicity, but have made America his/her home; or (d) of whatever other dually identifiable group that is relevant, Korean American, Ghanaian American, Laotian American, etc. We repeat, nobody is just an American, since there is no such original ethnicity. Furthermore, no group should be so arrogant or bodacious as to claim itself and only itself to be the real American people. There is a difference and it makes a difference.

We would be wise to adhere to this truth as we speak of ourselves and of one another in our writings and speech. It would help us in understanding our history and would assist the Native nations in asserting themselves as people of strong historical ethnicities, such as the Choctaw, Navajo, Iroquois, Shawnee, Comanche, and the Natchez.

America must be for all people, with all of us being hyphenated Americans. What has been created and built by all must now be equally shared by all.