Matt Raimondo, Blog #4

What exactly makes me an American?  When this question is framed towards me, I feel that there are multiple factors behind what makes me an American.  First, I was born in this country, which constitutionally makes me an American citizen.  This is rather simple in theory, but this also ties into previous posts, such as "where are you from?".  My birthright as an American makes up a part of me, and is important to my overall character composition.  Second, I am an American because of my freedoms and personal liberties.  In our American society, I am free to think and speak without restriction, which is a luxury that many places cannot afford.  Third, I am free to pursue my happiness without restriction; by happiness, I mean building a career for myself and attending an excellent university in the process.  I personally feel that these factors contribute to the base idea of what makes me an American.

However, after listening to Dr. Haley's lecture yesterday, I believe that there is more to simply being an American based solely on birthright.  Dr. Haley's story about her own personal roots, as well as her work on developing the late Dr. Haley's piece on Roots, allowed me to think more about where we all come.  This country, in my opinion, is all about roots, and subsequently what the early founding fathers all brought with them when they started this great nation.  This process repeats itself throughout history, from the African slaves bringing their own culture over to America and subsequently integrating those practices after the Civil War all the way beyond the Civil Rights Movement.  More recently, Hispanic culture is integrating itself into American society, further creating a deeper web of roots that ground the United States to it's citizens.  Asian Americans, Native Americans and other groups of people have all contributed to the web of roots that make America special, and subsequently links us all together within society as well.

Without these roots, America cannot exist.  We all must come from something, and the United States is no different.  I believe that Dr. Haley's discussion on roots made this clear to me: if we don't know where we came from, then we can never know what we may be.