Trans-National America

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. The early colonists came over with motives no less colonial than the later. They did not come to be assimilated in an American melting-pot. They did not come to adopt the culture of the American Indian. They had not the smallest intention of "giving themselves without reservation" to the new country. They came to get freedom to live as they wanted. They came to escape from the stifling air and chaos of the old world; they came to make their fortune in a new land. They invented no new social framework. Rather they brought over bodily the old ways to which they had been accustomed. Tightly concentrated on a hostile frontier, they were conservative beyond belief. Their pioneer daring was reserved for the objective conquest of material resources. In their folkways, in their social and political institutions, they were, like every colonial people, slavishly imitative of the mother-country. So that, in spite of the "Revolution," our whole legal and political system remained more English than the English, petrified and unchanging, while in England law developed to meet the needs of the changing times."

 Early colonists did not come to the U.S to get away from their own culture to learn a new one. All they wanted was to live their lives freely. They no longer wanted to follow the rules of a leader. Instead the colonists wanted to bring their own culture to this new country and live it as they pleased in peace. Early colonists felt it was best to start a new life in a new country and grow to create a better living environment. Although they wanted a new world to live in, they proudly continued their old ways, the only way they knew. It was if they brought their motherland with them without all the chaos. They wanted everyone to know where they came from because hiding who you are is a sign of weakness. Colonists were proud to remain who they were because they could not pretend to be someone they weren't. They felt like heroes for being able to escape their own country to start a new life in a brand new country they had never seen, And so, began the hyphenated Americans.

This passage makes me feel proud about who I am today. Although I am American born, I still get to have my own culture being that my parents are foreign-born. I have a mixed culture all around because I grew up in the U.S. but my parents had their own and passed it down to me. I'm glad the early colonists did not leave their cultures behind to start a new one because America wouldn't be what it is today. There are people from all over the world in just one country and it's amazing how we can all come together to show how different we all are culturally.