Hyphenated American
🗣️ DISCUSSION 💬
There is a problem with the epidemic of hyphenated Americans. That is, putting ethnicity before nationality in a sense. Of course, there is nothing wrong with being proud of your heritage, whether you're an Irish Catholic or a Nigerian Christian, but putting that identity over your American identity is a problem. You are an American first.
“An American of European Ancestry”
Except it’s so obvious, nobody has to say it.
“My ancestors are from England.”
“I came here from Nigeria.”
No hyphen needed.
True. Those are fine examples. But, usually in english the 'specific' goes in front of the 'general.' Latin, spanish, and greek are the opposite. So, I want to use an animal as an example. Let's use the rat snake. If we say rat snake we know that we are talking about a snake, but, if we reverse it and call it a snake rat, now we are talking about a rodent (there is no such rodent). But, maybe the point is that we are Americans. America first, Americans.