Hyphenated Americanism

Throughout human history, people have tended to want to be around people with whom they have something in common. Around these commonalities they have formed affinity groups. There is no evidence that Americans will defy that timeless universal human propensity.

Nor did they in the past. While the discussion of hyphens is of relatively recent vintage, hyphenated Americanism (hyphens of accident, choice, or imposition) has existed throughout our history. How else can you explain slavery, religious colonization, ethnic communitarianism, racial segregation, anti-Semitism, and the long denial of women's right to vote?

But hyphenation can lead to vertical or horizontal multiculturalism. In vertical multiculturalism, Americans with certain hyphens have had the power and sometimes the legal right to impose limitations on those with other hyphens. In horizontal multiculturalism, hyphens would not limit one's rights, access, or opportunities -- a goal for which affirmative action was established. In short, hyphenization exists whether within the opportunity-limiting hierarchy of vertical multiculturalism or within the option-expanding equality of horizontal multiculturalism.

Hyphenated Americanism will not disappear. … But subdivision, an inevitable by-product of growth, does not have to result in disunity. Pluribus can coexist with Unum, similarities can be discovered, recognized, and created even as differences persist, people can come together to create a larger sense of community without having to surrender their smaller sense of affinity communities. ...

But are affinity groups inevitably good? No, they are just inevitable. Affinity groups can have their downside -- when people latch onto affinity groups to isolate themselves from other Americans, to inhibit the access of other Americans to equal participation in institutional and societal life, or to disparage or vilify other Americans on the basis of their group affinities. ...

Contrary to the nostalgic musings of those who call for a return to a mythical pre-affirmative action time when we were all just plain old non-hyphenated Americans, such a nation never existed. … One of our challenges is to forge an inclusive, horizontally multicultural Unum that can coexist with a healthy, constructive Pluribus.

From "Beyond Affirmative Action," Multicultural Review, March 1996. GP Subscription Publications. Reprinted with permission.