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Tuesday, April 4, 2006
Why must we hyphenate ourselves to be American?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jesse started it.
Way back in 1988. He and other prominent blacks said members of their race prefer to be called African-Americans. The New York Times carried the story on Dec. 21, 1988.
“Just as we were called colored, but were not that, and then Negro, but not that, to be called black is just as baseless,” said Mr. Jackson, who held court at a news conference in support of the term.
“To be called African-Americans has cultural integrity,” he continued. “It puts us in our proper historical context. Every ethnic group in this country has a reference to some land base, some historical cultural base.
“African-Americans have hit that level of cultural maturity.”
The term was said to be a psychological lift.
Hmm. I’m 42. Still waiting. I expect to be raked over the coals from some readers when I say this, but I don’t identify with Africa. Of course, I’m of African descent. We all know how I got here.
I’d love to go to Africa some day,just like I want to revisit Italy, Jamaica and Costa Rica. But to equate my existence to the continent of Africa, and to think that doing so further legitimizes my life in these United States seems to be a mighty long stretch.
With all due respect to Mr. Jackson or anybody else, I don’t want anybody telling me what I should be called. For them, the term, “black” may be passé. Cool. But I prefer it. It’s just neater, simpler and demands fewer syllables. Say African-American. Seven syllables. Of course, it should be uppercased, but does it require a hyphen?
Here we are two decades after the despotic shift to the term African-American, and we’re still dealing with semantics.
Not only are we using hyphenated terms to refer to people who look like me, we’re doing it — and had been doing so before the term African-American became standard — with other ethnic groups, too. Irish-Americans. Italian-Americans. Mexican-Americans. Cuban-Americans. The list goes on.
This subject came to mind after I read several responses to my Sunday column. I wrote that immigrants sent the wrong message when they waved their ancestral flags in protests against proposed federal and state legislation that targets illegals. That they hindered, rather than helped, the cause.
Osvaldo Ordonez said immigrants, particularly Mexicans, shouldn’t have to choose one flag over the other. That they can embrace their native flag and Old Glory, too.
“My kids will never be considered ‘full-blooded Americans,’ ” he wrote. “This is what someone told my sister-in-law, who was born in New York. Oh no. They will first be Hispanics, Latinos, refugees, first-generation Americans, Cuban-Americans, but never ‘Americans.’
“We are always something else first, then we are called Americans.” Maybe Ordonez is right.
What do you think?
If you belong to a particular ethnic group, what term do you prefer? A hyphenated one that combines your ethnicity with your mother country? And really, now, how much does it truly matter? Is it a struggle to balance your foreign heritage and culture with your Americanism?
Drop me a line via e-mail. Call me. Or post a comment on the Badie blog (ajc.com/gwinnett).
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