Cultural Loyalty and Political Loyalty
2008-08-R12
(Copyrighted 2008
by Don M. Tow)
At the 2008 Summer Olympics, when
Cultural Loyalty:
Except
for the Native Americans, the
Such cultural identity is not surprising because the
culture of one’s upbringing becomes an integral part of that person’s
personality.
A change of clothes may be able to alter the
external appearance, but it cannot all of a sudden change long-embedded
traits and characteristics.
Not only this should not be surprising, it
should be welcome, because we can then get the benefit of a mix, match, and
selection of the best of both worlds.
A cynic may argue that it could also result in
a mix, match, and selection of the worst of both worlds.
However, personally I believe in the innate
goodness of humankind[3],
and that one would select something that is good over something that is bad.
Such cultural identity leads naturally to cultural
loyalty, which is often manifested in the type of sports team that one roots
for during international competition.
Therefore, it is not surprising at all that
immigrants even after they have become American citizens still root for
their native team during an international sporting event.
As a general rule of thumb, most
first-generation immigrant Americans would root for their native team,
unless they were unjustly persecuted by the government of their native
country.
Second-generation Americans may root for either team,
but probably more likely for the
Political Loyalty:
So far our discussion has focused on cultural loyalty.
What about political loyalty?
To which country should an immigrant or
descendant of an immigrant pledge his/her political allegiance?
If an immigrant is only a permanent resident
and not yet a citizen of the U.S., then his/her political loyalty may be to
his/her native country, unless he/she was unjustly punished by that native
country.
If an immigrant has become a naturalized citizen of
the
This means that if war erupts between the U.S. and a
U.S. naturalized citizen’s native country, then that naturalized citizen
should pledge his/her political allegiance to the U.S.
This, however, does not necessarily mean that
the naturalized
What about a person who was born in the
One may ask who decides whether or not a war is
unjust.
The answer is that that particular individual decides.
His/her decision may or may not be right.
But other Americans should respect his/her
decision as long as he/she is willing to bear the full consequences of his
decision, and this respect should be independent of whether he/she was
originally an immigrant or a descendent of an immigrant.
A naturalized
Cultural Loyalty and Political Loyalty:
Now that we have discussed and differentiated cultural
loyalty and political loyalty, we can answer the original questions posed in
the first paragraph of this article.
There is nothing unusual for various types of
Americans to root for the team of their native country or the native country
of their ancestors during an international sporting event.
There is nothing to be concerned about for
It may be true that in terms of political loyalty, what one should do may be different from what actually happens, i.e., first generation naturalized U.S. citizens may take some time and may have some difficulty in quickly adopting the appropriate political loyalty while still keeping their cultural loyalty. This may require better education as part of the naturalization process. However, one should be careful in passing judgment on the political loyalty of a person based on his/her cultural loyalty, especially when we take into account that the cultural loyalty of certain nationalities may be more obvious than other nationalities. Otherwise, we may be performing another type of non-justified racial profiling.
[1]
In this first paragraph, we are referring to first generation
Spanish Americans (or Brazilian Americans, Chinese Americans, etc.).
Later in this article, we will discuss differences between
first generation and subsequent generation of Americans.
[2]
This is still true, although to a lesser degree, for children of
mixed marriages in which only one parent was an immigrant.
[3] This, however, by no means implies that humans don’t make mistakes.
[4] In this article, we do not discuss the complications introduced when dual citizenships are allowed.
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