Quote Originally Posted by Hanna View Post
So looked at it from our perspective, the nationalism of the USA is pretty extreme, with 4th of July, daily pledges in school, famous anectotes about leaders. There is endless talk about supposedly "American values" that are all about "freedom" and things like that. Sounds good, but for whom, how and at what price?
Okay, let me try to put it this way. In 2006 the United States accepted more legal immigrants as permanent residents than all other countries in the world combined. That does not even begin to include the illegal immigrants that we get. Now, how do you go about uniting all of these people into a "blended" family. How do you get them to assimilate? You want them to be able to keep some of their culture, but at the same time "can't we all just get along?" You have to understand, if one family just came from Israel and one from Egypt and they moved in next door to each other, we don't want a bloodbath on our hands here. By having these "American" traditions, it is something that everyone "can" do no matter what. It's the Fourth of July, it's a national holiday, go out and watch the fireworks with your neighbor and forget for one night that you have been sworn to kill him as your life long enemy. There's time enough to hate him tomorrow.

The Judge at my hubby's Citizenship ceremony said something like ... today you become American. You are not Irish American or Russian American or Central American, you are American.

Now, that really doesn't work, except... when we say our pledge or sing our anthem or on national holidays. For in those few moments, that is when we forget all the negativity about who we are supposed to dislike or kill and we remember that we are all "united."