“Ideals rather than origin”

From an opinion piece by Philip Bump, a former Washington Post columnist, “My family has been here since 1621. That is not what makes me American” (CT Insider ):

It is in vogue in some quarters at the moment to insist that being truly American depends to some extent on one’s background or heritage. That America isn’t simply a collection of people from around the world who share a common commitment to freedom and democracy but, instead, the terminus of a throughline that begins with the continent-crossing settlers of the 19th century and ends with the red-capped, star-spangled Americans of today.

America, Vice President JD Vance offered last year, is “not just an idea. We’re a particular place, with a particular people, and a particular set of beliefs and way of life.”

This is an important argument for Vance to make because it draws a line between Those Who Were Here and Those Who Have Arrived. His boss, President Donald Trump, is in the process of deporting as many recent (and not-so-recent) arrivals to this nation as he can; defining those people as necessarily un-American presumably reduces any lingering friction Trump’s supporters might have about the entire process.

But it is grotesque, particularly on the occasion of the nation’s 250th birthday, to suggest that this is anything other than a country centered on a commonality of ideals rather than origin. And I say that not as someone whose presence in the United States is a function of having immigrated here or having been born here to immigrant parents.

I say that as someone whose family has been in North America longer than America itself.