Essay on What Is an American?

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Quynh Nguyen
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Exam#4: In your opinion, what is an American? What if anything, are the common characteristics and values of the American people? Support your choice with facts, evidence, reason and logic In my opinion, an American is a mixed race and is not delineated by a particular skin color. An American is English, French, Chinese, Mexican, Vietnamese, Russia, or Greek….An American is also free to believe in no religion. Being an American is a multifaceted endeavor with both individual and group implications. Americans are fragmented people with varying values that share a common flag and consumer culture. America is a nation of immigrants yet immigrants have always faced discrimination, often violently so. No matter how hard some immigrants have tried to earn their stripes as American citizens they have often been rejected by ignorant “citizen” who see an accent as an IQ indicator. In other countries most citizens are not only bilingual, but trilingual and often speak 3-4 languages. The fact remains that unless you are Native Americans, you are an immigrant. Yet immigrants become Americans through the citizenship process and are no less patriotic than those who have been born here. An American is someone how values, appreciates and respects the person next to him/her regardless of class, education, or wealth because there is so much more to learn from him/her. It's the ability to move across these boundaries relatively easily that defines Americans and

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