Armed with a Hyphen

Apparently, wearing patriotic clothing is no longer acceptable for students at Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, CA (Yes, that’s California. I know, all of your surprise just dissipated.) A group of five students were confronted by a school official yesterday because each was wearing either an American flag bandana or a shirt with an American flag displayed on it. According to school officials the students wore the shirts on a “sensitive day” known to most as Cinco de Mayo. Because the school has a large number of Mexican-Americans (or at least that’s what they call themselves), the students were told to remove their bandanas and turn their shirts inside-out. The students complied with the request to remove the bandanas but questioned the need to hide the American flag. Assistant Principal Miguel Rodriguez (I’m going to step out on a limb here and guess that he considers himself a Mexican-American.) felt that the shirts would cause a fight between the group of students wearing the shirts and other student who were celebrating the Mexican holiday. Rather than refuse to hide the flag and be suspended or comply with the request, the students decided to go home for the day.

As a former teacher (I know it was only one year, but doesn’t that count for something?), I can understand asking a student to remove a bandana. It can be a distraction and doesn’t look very orderly. However, if the only reason the students were asked to remove the accessories was because they depicted an American flag, it’s not a good enough reason. If the school allows bandanas of other sorts or would have allowed that one on a day other than a non-American holiday, its request for the students to remove the headgear is inexcusable and a violation of the students rights, not to mention it’s simply unpatriotic, especially considering that California is still a part of America. (Yep, that’s right. It doesn’t belong to Mexico…yet.)

Now as for the shirts (and really the bandanas, too)—Since when was the display of an American flag offensive in America?! The people who find the American flag offensive shouldn’t be within American borders! They should live in Cuba, Venezuela, or even North Korea where it’s actually common to take offense to a worthy symbol of freedom. Seriously, there they wouldn’t have to be concerned with any symbol of the sort because freedoms are practically nonexistent in such places. The idea of a school prohibiting students, and faculty for that matter, from wearing patriotic clothing is absurd and unconstitutional. The rights of these citizens are protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. When did the daily disregard of the Constitution become acceptable to so many people? As American citizens, it should be expected that people show patriotism to their country. Those who aren’t American citizens but are in America should be respectful of America, her heritage, and her patriots. If they can’t handle seeing a flag on any given day, holiday or not, they should leave.

Terrorism is born from feelings of offense, especially when that offense is in regards to a symbol of freedom and civil liberties. Terrorists are people who are offended by freedom, which is the very thing America has exemplified since her founding. Freedom is the very foundation upon which America was built. If that foundation is removed, America will crumble.

Considering that Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson were progressives, it’s not often that I quote them. However, even as progressives, they both realized a vital truth that the modern American public has forgotten; Hyphenated Americans should not exist. Roosevelt said,

There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all…The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities…The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else.

Wilson stated, “Any man who carries a hyphen about with him carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this Republic whenever he gets ready.”

The problem does not lie in the celebration of one’s heritage; the problem arises when that person’s heritage clouds his or her present existence. A person cannot claim to be an American and celebrate another country’s heritage more than America’s. If Americans born in or who have ancestors from Mexico want to celebrate a Mexican holiday, they should be allowed to do so but not at the expense of other Americans. If they see Cinco de Mayo as a sensitive day when American patriotism should be prohibited, they should celebrate the holiday in Mexico; chances are that they will see far less American flags there.

If classifications such as Mexican-American, Irish-American, African-American, and European-American were removed from people’s vocabulary, there would be fewer “offenses” because we would all just be American. We would no longer be armed with a hyphen.

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