August 2004

August 13, 2004

Hyphen American

Why is it the minute I open my mouth the whole world is telling me they’re Irish and we should all have a drink? It’s not enought to be American. You always have to be something else, Irish-American, German-American, and you’d wonder how they’d get along if someone hadn’t invented the hyphen.

—Frank McCourt in ‘Tis

Isn’t that’ the truth? I understand honoring your heritage and all, but why can’t we just be American? I guess these days a lot of people hate American’s, though, and maybe we should identify ourselvs as Irish or German or, in my case Polish, while travelling abroad.

Posted by Phil at 01:08 PM | Comments (0)