Walzer’s “What Does It Mean to Be ‘American’?” discusses the many aspects of being “American.” An interesting point that Walzer brings up is his comment about patriotism. He says, “[p]erhaps [loyalty to the patrie, or father/motherland] isn’t assumed here because the United States isn’t a patrie” (p.634). This is a very interesting point because I personally see the truth in this, being the child of two immigrants from Jamaica. America is truly a conglomerate of many different types of people, none of which consider the United States their homeland. Walzer supports this notion when he says that America is a “country of immigrants who… still remember the old places. And the children know… that they have roots elsewhere” (p.634). You can see that immigrants cling on to the memories and practices of their homelands. Here in America, we have Chinatowns, Little Italy, and many other communities of immigrants who hold on to their countries. An example of this is the fact that there are many immigrants who come to America and never learn to speak English, only speaking their native tongue. These people do as Walzer said and maintain their “loyalty to the patrie.”
Another point that I found intriguing is when Walzer says in the opening page that, “Canadians and Mexicans are also Americans, but they have adjectives more obviously their own” (p.633). We really do not have a name that would describe the people who live here as other nations such as the Canadians, Mexicans, or Italians do. “It is peculiarly easy to become American,” says Walzer. Becoming American is not hard at all, as everyone who comes here and lives here is American. If an American were to travel to another country, it would be difficult for them to become assimilated into the culture of the nation. The natives of that country may consider them to be an outsider, even after years of living there. On the contrary, if someone from that country came to America, they would more easily be accepted as American. It seems to me that the only qualification to be American is to have the desire of the American dream.
