Thus, biologically speaking the American people are literally only half an immigrant people.

We really only came around to accepting and integrating the propositional dimension of identity into a concept of ourselves at the time of the American Revolution.

Also, of course, for most of this time most Americans thought of America as a white country with, at best, only a very segregated and subordinate role for blacks.

The other aspect of American identity worth focusing on is the concept of America as a nation of immigrants. That certainly is a partial truth. But it is often assumed to be the total truth.

Immigrants are people who leave one country, one society, and move to another society. But there has to be a recipient society to which the immigrants move.

The American people are frustrated.