For millennia on end, mass migrations have flowed over the face of the earth in trickles, ripples and tsunamis. Recorded history names each wave of migrants as a people, and it names places as the lands of the people who have lived there long enough to establish reasonable stability and control, but the idea of nations of ethnically discrete people and fixed borders is not clear at all. That’s true even in the time of the Roman Empire.
It’s only within relatively modern times that nation states defined by exclusive ethnic identity living within fixed borders have become the norm. Consider how long it took for the battling dukedoms and principalities of France, Germany and Italy to become singular nations. Britain, the last frontier of westward migration is an ethnic dumping ground. It’s only within the last several centuries that the English have confidently described themselves as Anglo-Saxon.
With that as background, consider the European settlement of what is now the United States. It began with trickles of migration the huge land could easily absorb without seriously affecting the equilibrium of the place. That soon turned to ripples, then tsunamis of violent conquest. Out of it came a new nation state of mixed pedigree that the early 19th century had self identified as an Anglo-Saxon nation. The ideal of civilization itself was defined confidently as Anglo-Saxon with an American twist. Even the most liberal of thinkers agreed it was so: Emerson and Frederick Douglas for instance. African Americans had no voice in the matter. Indigenous American Indians were aliens to be conquered, converted to European ways or killed. The dominant Mexican culture of the Southwest was a trinket to adorn the Anglo-Saxon structure. Asian immigrants were a needed but troubling subset fairly easy to subjugate.
Anglo-Saxon America was said to be free and open to all. And it was to all who were willing and able to adapt to Anglo-Saxon hegemony. I don’t think there was any evil intent. Civilization was a good thing. America should be a civilized country, and civilization was defined as Anglo-Saxon. That was the plain and obvious way of what made for the common good. The USA would become a nation state of Americans with a particularity like the particularities of France, Germany, Sweden, Spain, etc. woven seamlessly into the Anglo-Saxon fabric of American civilization.
Times have changed. The ancient peoples who first settled America many thousands of years ago want a say in what it means to be American. Millions of African descent, burdened with the history of slavery, want a say in what it means to be American. The same is true for Asians, and of a growing number of Arabic Americans. The Mexican heritage of the West is no longer willing to be just an adornment or repository for cheap farm labor.
Will these forces destroy the Anglo-Saxon foundation that has defined everything America is and stands for? Some are afraid it will, especially as they see White America on the way to becoming just another minority among a nation of minorities. I wonder.
The Anglo-Saxon foundation of American civilization is not a bad one. It’s strongly built on high ideals and solid reasoning: exemplified by the Constitution as amended, principles of individual liberty in the interest of the common good, the virtues of family, self reliance, accountability, etc. In short, it’s a solid, reliable foundation on which to build. It’s not going to be destroyed or demeaned. But as with any foundation, the structures to be added will make improvements in the old while adding things entirely new.
What will that look like? There are some indicators in the ethnic diversity of men and women in high public and private offices who endorse and exemplify the best of American ideals. There is growing recognition that American history can be told honestly from different points of view without jeopardizing the foundation of American civilization. There is growing recognition that integration does not require homogenization. “E pluribus unum” can be more than a slogan.
The same pressures are now facing Europe, creating the same concerns. How can Germany remain German, or France remain French and yet absorb African and Arab immigrants of strange ways and religions? Can England remain Anglo-Saxon if it’s flooded with peoples from its former colonies? America is poised to help answer these questions by leading the way.
There is an alternative. We could follow China’s path. China is determined that everyone will be Han Chinese and speak standard Mandarin. There are to be no exceptions. Re-education, suppression, imprisonment and execution are the tools used to make it so. There can be only one China, only one way of being Chinese, and that way is Han. It remains to be seen how that will work out for them, but is it a way we would want for America? The White Supremacist movement heads in that direction. Even as they claim to want to save the country and its Constitution, they favor authoritarian rule, the very antithesis of all that America stands for.