Default Americanism

The use of hyphenated names to label specific ethnic groups in the United States is a puzzling use of rhetoric that, while used to replace words that have derogatory connotations, places invisible barriers around these groups and elevates Americans of European descent to a state of "default Americanism." These labels tie people closely to their heritage and the homeland of their ancestors, while distancing them from their current American heritage. Meanwhile white American citizens are most often called simply "white," "caucasian" or a simple, un-hyphenated "American," almost every other racial group (defined initially by physical experienced and narrowed down to region of origin) is associated with the United States only through a given name based on their family history, or the part of their family tree that happens to be not of european descent. Even the label "Native-American" used for those of us whose lineage is truly American before European imperialism and recorded history in general, places an extra descriptive name to differentiate their non-European ancestry. Unfortunately this is the most progressive, widely-used categorization which is moving toward a more inclusive definition of "American," albeit it can still easily be used to construct the "other" that our nation is required to fear and/or rally against (this is evident most recently with those of Middle-Eastern descent after the tragedy in 2001).