Hyphenation, a Bridge
or a Barrier
by
Dick Prosapio © 2003
I was watching a PBS program recently in which
several gay couples were reported to be investing in, and working on
a project to re-hab housing for themselves in a low income black
community. Among the complaints the residents had was that, "These
people have money and are fixing up these houses and we can't afford
to do all that kind of fixing."
So one of the problems was not that the new comers
were bringing the neighborhood down but that they were bringing it
up! Nobody mentioned racism or sexism or economics.......the problem
didn't seem to really have a definition, not a clear one at any
rate.
But what stood out for me was the constant use by
both groups of the "hyphen" when they referred to each other; the
terms, "Gay-Americans" and "African-Americans" were used in every
conversation between and within the groups, in private or in
public......and what I noticed was that it seemed it was the
constant use of the hyphen that kept the differences alive. It led
me to wonder if, in service of keeping everyone apprised and
appreciative of ethnic roots, this hypenization of America is really
acting as a way of keeping us distanced from one another.
As an Italian-Irish-Scotch-Dutch-possiblyGerman-and......maybe
Viking-American should I feel very different from you if you
identify yourself simply as "American"? Would it be the same kind of
reaction one might have when you discover that a Californian is not
necessarily a transplant from the Middle West?
"That's it?" I'd be tempted to ask. "You
really are a native? How rare." or, "How dull." Etc.
My fathers mother and father came over from Italy
and the first thing their kids, who were born here, wanted to do was
become American. "Forget the old country!" they'd tell their
home sick parents, "You're in America now, we're Americans." I'd ask
my mother if she thought of herself as Irish or Scotch or Dutch or
what. She'd say, "I'm American that's all." My father would say,
"Italian" (pause) ".and I'm American" would come later. But I had
begun looking for an identity that was more substantial, something
with more history and mystery than just being an American. I mean,
in those days everybody was "American". This was even more true for
my kids. So much so that the typical teen quest for identity began
to exclude being an American at all and include being whatever the
"Roots" declared or implied. If my oldest teen daughter were asked,
"What are you?" She would respond, "Mexican." identifying with her
mother's side which was more easily defined. Years later, as she
became more sure of herself she would add "American" to the reply.
"Assimilation" was kept at arms length with a hyphen.
I don't know if this is true in other countries;
are there American-Canadians? American-Mexicans? Usually Americans
who decide to move to France, for example, became "American
ex-patriots" but did they call themselves American-Frenchmen? I
never heard the term.
Don't get me wrong, I think the hyphen thing has
its place, but its use these days as an automatic ID seems more a
way to say "I'm different from you." than a way of saying we are all
in the same boat.......or at least, in the same country. I wonder if
those people in that neighborhood-in-transition could have been
brought a bit closer to working together if they had both been
acknowledging one another as "Americans" rather than versions
of Americans as delineated by their particular hyphens.
By the way, when I'm filling out one of those
forms that asks what my ethnicity is, since I was born here,
shouldn't I check "native-American"?
Dick Prosapio ©2003, All Rights
Reserved
