"There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans. Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all...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. There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else." - President Theodore Roosevelt
In the current time we live in, as multi-culturalism and diversity have taken over our culture, we have lost what it means to be Americans in this melting pot of a country. Rather than following the motto "Out of many, one" we have been driving towards the mistranslated version "Out of one, many."
The quote "United we stand, divided we fall" works perfectly in this context. By trying to force our "diversity" on others and creating dozens and dozens of subgroups, we are no longer united, but divided, and it shows in our political, social and economic struggles being faced today. Do not take this to suggest that we should abandon all pride in our heritage. Rather, understand that most Americans have much more in common with their neighbor of a different background than they would if returning to the place of cultural heritage, be it Germany, Africa or wherever.
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