Last Saturday was our nation’s 250th birthday. Along with many other people, I’ve been thinking about the question of who is an American. For me, the answer is simple—an American is anyone born here or who has been naturalized. Although my own family history in the U.S. stretches back for generations, I see no reason to limit citizenship to those with deep ancestral roots. We were all immigrants at some point, including indigenous peoples whose ancestors crossed a land bridge many millennia ago.
I’d always known that some of my mother’s ancestors arrived here even before the United States existed. Some recent genealogy research showed me that some of my father’s ancestors came here in colonial times as well. And none of my family branches came to the U.S. later than the middle of the nineteenth century. In fact, only one of my eight great-grandparents was an immigrant. The other seven were born in the United States.
My husband’s family has deep ancestral roots as well. They originated in Virginia, and moved to Missouri five generations ago in the late 19th century. When asked about his family’s histories, he only says “I’m an American.”
Maybe it sounds as if our family story is finished, but it isn’t. One of our children married someone born in Finland. Another married the child of Polish immigrants. Our grandchildren will inherit those stories along with the stories of ancestors who crossed the Atlantic centuries ago.
America has never been static. Every generation has been renewed by people who chose to make this nation their home. They brought different languages, customs, skills, and perspectives. They became Americans—not by erasing their past, but by embracing the opportunities, responsibilities, and optimism this country offered.
Ross Douthat wrote recently in the New York Times that part of the American culture is “the knowledge that here, you can begin again. Not just once when you leave behind an Old World identity, but over and over across multiple generations.” He described how that was true in his family, and it is true in mine as well. [NOTE: Douthat’s piece may be behind a paywall.]
My early ancestors began in Massachusetts and Virginia. Some moved to Illinois, and later emigrated to Oregon in 1848. Others settled in Nebraska, and during the Depression years moved to California. My parents moved to Washington State and lived there for most of their marriage.
We have always been a restless people, a frontier people, drawn by the hope of something better just over the horizon. As Douthat wrote, “Everyone who builds, who plants, who marries, who has a child, who makes a new beginning, reaches for the next American frontier.”
Each new wave of immigrants invigorates the nation and adds to the American story.
As we mark 250 years since the Declaration of Independence, I hope we remember that America has always been more than ancestry. It is a shared commitment to liberty, self-government, opportunity, and responsibility.
In my newsletter to readers on July 1, I wrote:
“In the fifty years since the Bicentennial in 1976, our political divisions have deepened, and so have arguments over the challenges facing our nation. Despite our differences, I hope we can agree on the ideals that shaped our country—the promise of freedom, our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and the desire to make tomorrow better than today.
None of us is perfect, nor do we live in a perfect nation. Let’s make this anniversary a time to listen to one another with respect and kindness, remembering the ideal expressed in our national motto: E pluribus unum—out of many, one.”
This week, I embrace both the many paths to becoming an American and the one nation we become.
What family history do you bring to this 250th birthday of the U.S.?
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