The American Identity Crisis

            The United States of America draws its strength from its complex ethnic and cultural diversity. Through this diversity America is always changing, evolving, into a more culturally enriched country by the year. This melting pot of cultures begs the question who amongst us is an American. The nuanced nature of this question has given birth to the National Identity Crisis. A crisis which has made America question its very ideological foundation. The answer to this question is open-ended due to subjective nature of the question. An American is not a single idea or state of being rather it is a melting pot of cultures and ideologies while still maintain a central idea of freedom and democracy. .
             Transitioning from one culture to another is a difficult experience and one that can cause a lot of confusion particularly to young children. Richard Rodriguez can attest to that fact in his piece "Memoir of a Bilingual Child". Here Richard feels that in becoming an American he is losing his Mexican culture. "A more confident speaker of English I didn't trouble to listen to how strangers sounded anymore at last, seven years old I came to believe what was technically true since I was born I was a US Citizen". Through this quote Rodriguez shows us the perspective that in order to considered an American he had to sacrifice his original culture. This perspective however can be seen to be inaccurate when one looks at the point of view of Peter Ferrara, an associate professor at George Mason University of Law in a commentary on National Review. "An American is Christian, or he could be Jewish, or Buddhist, or Muslim. In fact, there are more Muslims in America than in Afghanistan. The only difference is that in America they are free to worship as each of them choose. Americans welcome people from all lands, all cultures, all religions, because they are not afraid. They are not afraid that their history, their religion, their beliefs, will be overrun, or forgotten.