What then is the American, this new man?" asked French immigrant Hector St. John de Crevecoeur in 1782. Two hundred ten years later, many Americans answer, "No one." America has always treated its ethnic and racial minorities abominably. The only consolation they have for being shut out of the mainstream is that they should never have wanted to join it in the first place. Happily -- what with multicultural education and bilingualism -- the very concept of a mainstream is being junked.
The facts that get pitched around in the multicultural debate are all familiar. Immigration has reached levels higher than at any other time since the turn of the century. Majorities or near majorities of students in some big-city school systems speak English as a second language, if they speak it at all. An urban underclass seems cut off from any culture, much less mainstream American culture. What is new, however, is not the facts but our attitudes toward them. Once upon a time, Americans knew what to do with people who seemed different: obliterate the differences. Today increasing numbers of nominal Americans refuse to see America as anything more than a collection of ZIP codes. Their ideal is Yugoslavia, without machine guns. Multiculturalism, in the words of historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., "belittles unum and glorifies pluribus."
The stakes are high, and so is the decibel level. Why then is only one side of the argument being presented effectively? Schlesinger's alternative to multiculturalism is "an open society founded on tolerance of differences." That sounds pretty pluribus, professor. If the toleration of differences is the be-all and end-all of America, then why not tolerate multiculturalism?
A less mealymouthed defense of the American character would begin by acknowledging its historical roots in the behavior of the Anglo settlers of 200 and 300 years ago -- what are known today as Wasps. The Ur-Wasps brought with them a load of cultural baggage, which they unpacked when they arrived. Their load included a politics of natural right, derived from English Whigs; Protestant churches, mostly Bible reading and "low" in ritual and theology; and a near religious belief in the virtues of working hard and getting rich. These traits reinforced one another: pulpits proliferated under nonauthoritarian government, and the work ethic flourished under the stimulus of earnest preachment.
The ways of the Wasp linger today, despite condoms and Madonna. America attracts hard workers from abroad and breeds them at home, whatever Japanese politicians may think. Thomas Jefferson could still vaguely recognize our politics (Aaron Burr would certainly recognize our dirty politics). Survey after survey finds that Americans are the most religious people in the industrialized world, and the seriousness with which we take our sex scandals amazes cynical Europeans.