What Does the Hyphen Mean?

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The hyphen equates a person's identity with an ethnicity. America is the greatest melting pot of cultures in the world. Full of ethnicities of all kinds. However there are only three groups of people that have no ethnicity. The Native Americans, the White Anglo Saxon Protestants (WASPs), and the African Americans. To be considered as an ethnic group, one must have a connection to a culture outside of the United States. 

 

“‘African American’ is a misnomer,” said Fouron. The term was popularized by Jesse Jackson in the 1980’s to attempt to give black Americans a land based ethnicity but it has been highly disputed within the black community as legitimate. 

 

Any cultural link black Americans had to Africa has been erased due to the over 400 years of slavery. Ethnicity cannot be based on an entire continent, and Africa is a place of many nationalities and cultures, therefore one person cannot claim their ethnicity as them all.

 

Most white Americans still embrace their ethnicity. However some find it more beneficial to be associated with the WASPs who are at the highest rung in society.