What Makes an American?

What makes an American?

We Americans are different. We are different than the British who colonized our east coast and the Spaniards who colonized our West. We are different from the Canadians to our north and the large hispanic popuations to our south. Our attitudes are not those of the waves of German, Scots/Irish, and Eastern European immigrants who flocked to our shores seeking opportunity and remained to become the backbone of the nation. Neither are they the same as those of the indigenous peoples or the slaves transported here against their will.

Together, we are all Americans, different from the peoples of all other nations of the earth. We are different from one another depending on our region or background, but alike in more ways than we are different.

We are Americans. We are united by a spirit of independence, a spirit that says "we can or will do it or die trying," a spirit that says "we will survive and survive on our own terms." It is the spirit expressed by President John F. Kennedy when he announced "I have decided that we will put a man on the moon and safely return him to earth again." Based on those words, the nation buckled down and did just that.

Nowhere have I found this spirit better expressed than in the following piece by Dean Alfang first published in "This Week Magazine" in 1952:

An American's Creed

By Dean Alfange

"I do not choose to be a common man. 

It is my right to be uncommon—if I can. 

I seek opportunity—not security. 

I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after me. 

I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed. 

I refuse to barter incentive for a dole. 

I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence; 

the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of utopia. 

I will not trade freedom for beneficence nor my dignity for a handout. 

I will never cower before any master nor bend to any threat. 

It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid; 

to think and act for myself, enjoy the benefit of my creations, 

and to face the world boldly and say, this I have done. 

All this is what it means to be an American."

What makes you uniquely American?

What spirit is in you?