What Does it Mean to Be an American?

¶ … American?

Throughout our history incidents and occurrences remind us what it means to be an American. During this time of war, after the deadly terrorist attacks upon the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, our American ideals and identity have come into re-examination. But where to begin: hold up a mirror to this country and see a mosaic of people, culture, and opinions. Nearly four hundred years ago, the Europeans began colonizing this land to begin new lives and expand the riches of empires in the Old World. And in less than four hundred years, the descendants of those original colonists have created a superpower that defends the liberties of all free people through the creation of a democratic republic that is founded of inalienable rights bestowed by a Creator, and guaranteed by a Constitution of laws; a unique, non-oppressive empire has been created that has the ability to manufacture arms, deploy armies, engage in equitable trade, and promote the ideals of freedom and equality for all people.

But who are we as Americans? First, we must always remember that we are a nation of immigrants and descendents of immigrants, and that no person is more equal than any other -- not by wealth, not by bloodline, nor by political or religious affiliation. We are a classless society that promotes the individual's inalienable rights of freedom. President Richard Nixon, a man who abused his executive power and resigned in disgrace, said that the "greatest of America does not like in our economic strength or in our unequaled wealth. It cannot be measured by military power or diplomatic prestige. Other nations have been wealthy and powerful. But their wealth was for the few. The remainder…had duties rather than rights, favors rather than privileges. It took daring on the part of our founding fathers to say that all men were created equal….In America, there is no forgotten man, no common man, no little man, no average man. There is only our fellow-man." America's ideals and its very existence have been challenged from internal and external forces, and it has endured and maintained its integrity. The greatest threat in preserving the union occurred in the War Between the States (1861-1865) and one man, one leader, helped retain the Union and the binding laws of the Constitution. That man was Abraham Lincoln. Through the criticisms, the hardships, and the lonely position of his duty as President, Lincoln stood by his ideals and the Constitution that the war was about liberties for all people. Lincoln said, "We know how to save the Union. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free -- honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve, we shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth."

Americans are introspective. They constantly examine who they are, how they compare themselves with others, and how they fit in with others. In the book The "Average American" Book, editor Barry Tarshis "confirms what sociologists and psychologists have been saying…for a long time: that is, the one thing most Americans have in common with one another is how much differ from one another….[and as] Erik Erikson…adds: 'We are the sum of our disparities, and yet we are linked, we form a community' "(Tarshis, viii). This introspection of identity has been chronicled in all mediums -- books, articles, newspaper stories, stage plays, radio programs, songs, campfire tales, television shows, motion pictures, and the Internet. These chronicles have examined view points, exchanged ideas, recounted events, told fictional tales, displayed the humor, sweated, toiled, critiqued, and languished over the misdeeds of our actions yet raised and displayed the heroes who triumph over the oppressed. Imagine the billions of words that have been written and printed. In American literature, the spectrum of our lives has been told through the promotion of the individual -- as Whitman did in Democratic Vistas with "his attempt to outline systemically his concept of the common man and the America to come. Democracy was to be a moral force as well as a political force, and the average man was to be taught his own divinity and lifted to new levels of greatness;" or the examination of families, like Booth Tarkington's dwindling passage in The Magnificent Ambersons, Mario Puzo's Italiam immigrant family rise of power in The Godfather to Laura Ingalls life in Kansas that she told in Little House on the Prairie. Each of these works are timeless, their themes, the characters' own stories, thoughts, and feelings share a commonality of what we endure in our everyday life. Even John Steinbeck's masterpiece The Grapes of Wrath "is not a period piece about a troublesome past era. The allegory of the Joads applies…to the problems we face today….and the message…is that cooperation can be achieved only through the willingness of individuals… to put aside special interests and work towards a common purpose" (French, 108).