Does this country have room for the Italian-American?

Do you like salad? I do. My favorite is a good cobb salad. I like it because of all the different flavors and textures. You have crispy bacon and creamy avocado next to some nice blue cheese, eggs, and chicken all in one bowl. What’s not to like? In my opinion, the worse thing you can do to a cobb salad is to add salad dressing. Why disguise all those beautiful flavors? Why hide all that variety under glops ranch or green goddess?

A funny thing happened to me the other day at lunch while I was eating a cobb salad. I realized that it was a great example of the United States of America. When I made this observation to my son-in-law, Ryan, he said it is the old question of whether the United States was a melting pot or a salad. I don’t want the United States to be the great melting pot, as some have called it. I want it to be a great salad without dressing. I want the crispy bacon bit Italian-Americans to live peacefully alongside the creamy avocado Mexicans. When I take a great big old forkful of Americana cobb, I want to taste the blue cheese Swedes with the Chinese chickens. I don’t want us to be an indistinct blob.

Thinking of the United States as a salad where people with various cultural heritages come together in one big bowl seems the epitome of what it means to be American. Sadly, many people disagree with me. There are those uber patriots who love to quote Teddy Roosevelt, who said, “There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism.” I think Teddy Roosevelt is perhaps one of the greatest presidents in American history, right up there with Washington, Lincoln, and his relative FDR. Unfortunately, even the best of us gets it wrong. The diversity of the United States is one of those areas where Roosevelt was quite often wrong, not just wrong, but badly wrong. In a letter to his sister, shortly after the lynching of 11 Italian-Americans in New Orleans, Roosevelt said, “Monday we dined at the Camerons; various dago diplomats were present, all much wrought up by the lynching of the Italians in New Orleans. Personally, I think it is rather a good thing, and said so.” Putting aside the use of the word dago, Roosevelt’s sentiment on the murder of Italian-Americans by a mob disqualifies him as an authority on American diversity.

If we take the former president’s words seriously, then there is no room in America for the Italian-American. No room for us to celebrate the subculture in which we were raised. No room to recognize what makes us unique. We must all sink beneath the milky blandness of uniformity. I would contend that not only is there room in the United States for the hyphenated American, but I would also say that Americans are a hyphenated people, a quilt or patchwork of subcultures where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Such people want to drown the American salad with a flavorless dressing.

One of the greatest strengths of the United States is its diversity. This statement has become a platitude, but there is truth here. The integration of different cultures enables us to see the world and issues from different perspectives. I have often been in meetings with people born in India, China, and Iran, where their unique views would not have been seen were they not present. Beyond the improvement in the quality of the work product, producing that product is also improved. People of various cultures learn to get along with one another to respect our mutual differences, which leads to an improvement in society.

One of the main sticking points for Roosevelt and many other hyphen-haters is that they see any affection for any other nation, any different culture, as a betrayal. In their minds, people cannot love both Italy and the United States. We cannot live peacefully together, appreciating our differences. President Roosevelt went on to say; “The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English- Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian- Americans, or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality than with the other citizens of the American Republic.”

Here again, he is wrong, as well as those who support his opinion. Why must we be a tangle of squabbling nationalities? I have worked in many offices where people of different cultures not only worked well together but the diversity enhanced the work experience. As far as having heartfelt sympathy with Europeans of that nationality is concerned, the Italian-American community has always been proud of our cultural heritage and possessed a great love for Italy and the Italian people. Yet, when Italian-Americans were called on to serve in Europe during WWII, we did. We served in Italy, fought on Italian soil for the United States.

I once heard of a Japanese man who was asked during WWII how he felt about the war. He said that he loved both the United States and Japan as he loves both his parents. He went on to say that just like when his parents fought, he simply wanted the fighting the end. So, what is the problem with loving the country, culture, and people of our ancestors?  None. It is silly to suggest that there is.

The shunning of hyphenated Americans is wrong. It is more than wrong; it is unamerican. I am a proud Italian-American. As I have written in the past, I am an inheritor of two of the most significant nations in human history. I celebrate who I am and from where my family came. I hope that all Americans, regardless of ethnicity or race, embrace their respective heritage, celebrate their hyphen-ness.

For more on Italian and Italian-American culture, read my book Italianità, The Essence of Being Italian.