From the discovery of the continent to the foundation of an independent country, all the way to its indisputable preeminent position in today’s society, the United State keeps growing as a front of world attention. Admired as a place of freedom and hope, millions of immigrant worldwide were shipped to the country every year. And because of this spetial formation of population, the American identity, the meaning of American citizenship, individual belonging, and the nation-state is repeatedly discussed and defined. Starting with the classical questions ”Who am I?”, ”Where do I belong?”, the issue of identity has been a central concern of Western philosophy for a hundred years. For centries, philosophers, sociologists and writter were engaged in defining American identity, trying …show more content…
Bourne’s essay has been influential, that he points out the failure of the “melting-pot” that aims at assimilating all immigrants into America culture, and erase their original identity to adopt a pure American one. He instead lays emphasis on the vigorous power of immigrants to shape and reshape America, suggesting an ideal higher than the “melting-pot” should be asserted, a better defined Americanism should be …show more content…
This is a remarkable transition of cultural focus which has always been on the search for the American identity. It is now needless to admire the nationalism of European countries as America is built up as the first international nation or cosmopolitan federation, which however can be dangerous to generate an early complacency and aversion toward the rest of the world, even a misinterpretation of it as economic imperialism. Bourne thus supplements the idea of international nation with “dual citizenship” which emphasis that the state of being an American citizen will never eclipse