Blog 2, 6/5: Citizenship and American Identity

Randolph S. Bourne states in his essay, “Trans-national America,” “We are all foreign-born or the descendants of foreign-born, and if distinctions are to be made between us, they should rightly be on some other ground than indigenousness.”

In Trans-national America Bourne explained a contrary perspective to an anti-immigrant attitude of the native-born Americans of the time. He reminded the reader that even the favored Anglo-Saxons were immigrants who had no intention of assimilating into the culture of the American Indian, the true natives of America. He pointed out the hypocrisy of the ethnic hostility of America by expressing we are all either immigrants or descendants of immigrants. He stated that even the first settlers did not adopt the culture of the American Indian but, much like the current immigrants, kept much of their culture from England very much alive.

Though anti-immigration sentiments were always rooted in American history, with the Election of President Trump, it is no longer hidden but in the spotlight, backed by the government. As a daughter of immigrant parents, it is empirically easy for me to understand Bourne’s statement, but it should be for anyone who has ever taken an American History class.