On "hyphenated Americans"

If someone wants to be called one thing, and not another, that's their business.

But there's something deeper going on here. When white immigrants came do America, their first priority was to fit in. To be accepted. Why? Because "Pseudo-scientists and polemicists in the 1920s popularized the notion that Italians were a separate race from Anglo-Americans." [Source] In that situation, I wouldn't want to stand out either.

It was only later, when the eugenics crowd was debunked, that the immigrants' grandchildren -- who grew up indistinguishable from other Americans (apart from their last names, maybe) -- took an interest in their ethnic history.

That Smokey Robinson seems to still be in the first stage -- the one where acceptance takes priority -- in an indictment of American culture as a whole. If you're not white, the thinking goes, then you're not *really* American. No white person with an American accent gets asked "where are you from?" Yet those with non-white backgrounds get asked it with disturbing frequency.

For people to co-opt someone's desire to be accepted, and then use that as a way to belittle other people in the same situation, is really messed up. You don't see people using that with Irish-Americans or Italian-Americans anymore. They can wave their ancestors' flags at parades without being questioned.
[Picture source]

Yet somehow a different standard gets applied to those with Mexican ancestry. Why? "Because they're different than us. Our ancestors came here legally."[Source]

That's what's wrong with this meme -- it takes one man's perspective and then implies that the millions of immigrants should feel likewise. It's just wrong.