Talk:Hyphenated American

Old
Interesting you mentioned this article at Talk:Japanese American Internment because that article was recently (incorrectly, IMO) moved to a hyphenated title. I do recall Teddy's views on this but I wasn't aware that the use of hyphens is considered offensive. All the better, I guess, to avoid the hyphens then. I never did like the hyphens for aesthetic reasons along with the implication that the hyphenated form is a singular term (setting it distinctively apart from being "American"), while the nationality/ethnicity in the un-hyphenated version is simply an adjective that modifies "American". If I am not alone in this opinion then that may be a good thing to add to this article. --mav 04:37, 19 Nov 2003 (UTC)


 * IIRC, Jiang talked about the latter point as well: the adjective thing. He also mentioned that hyphenation seems like a hybrid (did he mean "mix-blooded"?), or something like that. I'm sure linguistically there's a difference, albeit not too conspicuous. --Menchi 04:41, 19 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Not really "mixed-blooded" but mixed nationality (double loyalites, not being fully American, etc.). It would probably make more gramatical sense to include the hyphen when not using the term as a compound adjective, but organizations such as the JACL and OCA have come out against it, for the reasons stated above. Most people use the hyphen w/o being aware of the pejorative connotation, but some use it to include immigrants who are not citizens/permanent residents. --Jiang 05:41, 19 Nov 2003 (UTC)


 * This really depends on the group and even the individual. One bit of speculation that I have is that Japanese Americans and Chinese-Americans have radically different self-identities because of differences between Japan and China.  Essentially, Japan think of  Japanese Americans as gaijin, while both Chinas very much welcome Chinese-Americans.

Roadrunner 06:22, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

What about Anglo-American? Isn't that term used? --Jiang 07:14, 19 Nov 2003 (UTC)


 * Apparently . Despite the common dehyphenation, there's no question that hyphenation must occur here, since "Anglo-" is a prefix and cannot stand on its own. Unless the rules of punctuation of English has been altered. --Menchi 07:17, 19 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Move here. This should be in Wikisource

''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. This is just as true of the man who puts "native" before the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or English or French before the hyphen. Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul. Our allegiance must be purely to the United States. We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance. But if he is heartily and singly loyal to this Republic, then no matter where he was born, he is just as good an American as any one else.''  ''The men who do not become Americans and nothing else are hyphenated Americans; and there ought to be no room for them in this country. The man who calls himself an American citizen and who yet shows by his actions that he is primarily the citizen of a foreign land, plays a thoroughly mischievous part in the life of our body politic. He has no place here; and the sooner he returns to the land to which he feels his real heart-allegiance, the better it will be for every good American. There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else.''  For an American citizen to vote as a German-American, an Irish-American, or an English-American, is to be a traitor to American institutions; and those hyphenated Americans who terrorize American politicians by threats of the foreign vote are engaged in treason to the American Republic. (Theodore Roosevelt, 1915)

JFK
Didn't JFK say something like "there shall be nor more hyphenated-Americans" or somesuch? I can't find a reference to it, but I'm sure I heard him say it in a speech. Jooler

Mistake
An outrageous mistake has been made in the article first part, where its implied that all countries of Latin America are also called "America Hispaniola"; thats actually quite a rude thing to say to a Brazilian, which is part of Latin America but not of Hispanic America. It would be the equivalent of saying that Canada, Mexico and USA are the same for being in North America.LtDoc 19:32, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Separation
Doesn't making hyphens in everything technically make america into a separate but equal society?
 * I think the Roosevelt quote shows how this is actually seen. Rmhermen 01:41, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Why specific to america?
it's common around the world to have ppl considering themeselves something-something. i don't see a reason for a articles discussing specifically the case of america (especially if it's the only case discussed and not even the general).


 * Because the idea pretty much started in the US. Its only really in some European countries and New World countries where the hyphenation is used (every heard of a Tamil-Malaysian? A Greek-Turk? An Eskimo-Russian? A Chinese-Ukrainian? Yes, there are Basque-Argentines, Irish-Australians, Indo-Fijians, etc., but it really did start in the US). Saimdusan Talk|Contribs 08:14, 23 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Fact tags don't belong on talk pages. At any rate, the reason this article is specific to America has nothing to do with whether or not hyphens are used in other nations or where/when they were first used. It is not an article about multi-national or multi-ethnic identities generally, but exists because "hyphenated American" is a specific and encyclopedically notable concept in the United States, one that we Americans have debated specifically in the context of our own nation. If there is an article about multi-national or multi-ethnic identities generally, it would be appropriate to link from there to here, but the importance is sufficient to warrant a separate article. CAVincent (talk) 03:09, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

what does this paragraph mean
Any idea what is the meaning of the contents of this section of the article: 'Opposition to hyphenated identities outside the U.S.' Is it talking about an objection to the use of 'hyphen' (-) as in 'F00-American' vs 'F00 American' or is this talking about a political objection to the use of ethnic identifications of any kind with or without 'hyphens'. In any case, the section is very poorly written and needs help. Thanks Hmains 05:34, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

The list is a POV slur and meaningless
The list should be removed. There is already a reference to demographics and ethnic groups in America. The list does not use any hyphens, and it is not clear that any significant population in the groups indicated in the list refer to themselves with the hyphen. Case in point, "Jewish-American" is not commonly used. Today, people at the eschaton blog note that suddenly Joe Lieberman is suddenly referring to himself as a Jewish-American, and these people all wonder "who ever heard of Jewish-American? The list should be removed and replaced with a list of ethnic groups in which a significant number of members refer to themselves with the hyphen.  Elements in the list should contain links to proof and evidence.  Until then the list is meaningless, POV, and to the extent that the hyphen is an epithet, the list is a POV slur.
 * I won't go so far as to say it's a slur, but I don't think it adds anything useful to the article. Is there any "[country] American" that wouldn't go in that list?  They all follow the same formula.  I don't think there should be a list at all, and especially not one simply labeled "List".  -- Scarlet SpiderDavE  04:37, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Hypen in "hypenated(-)American"?
Technically speaking, shouldn't the article be titled Hyphenated-American, with a hyphen? Isn't that the whole (ironic) point? Alki 23:37, 29 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, certainly is ironic, esp. since African American is also not written with a hyphen. Technically speaking, the hyphen should only be used when the compound is used as an adjective, as in "African-American men". Dicklyon 05:02, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

African American
I perceive the AFrican Americans as a different case when compared with the rest of the hyphenated groups. It is not like they preserved their beliefs, or their cooking, or any other aspect of their original culture (except, suposedly, in music). It is more because of the current conditions rather than because of their past that they are considered a special group. Should they be included here?


 * African Americans are certainly among the groups sometimes referred to as hyphenated Americans. The notion of Americans retaining some kind of cultural, ethnic, racial, or other identity is applicable here, even if it's more racial than cultural in their case; or if their African American culture is greatly diverged from the African culture. But the lead definition is this article is too narrow to include racial, and says too much about allegiance, so I suspect it's not the right definition.  The modern meaning seems to be quite divergent from Roosevelt's original meaning.  Certainly African Americans are included in books such as The Hyphenated American: The Hidden Injuries of Culture, By John C. Papajohn. Dicklyon 19:37, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Most Italian-Americans are nothing like modern day Italians either. The further removed from the culture it is, the less likely the two will resemble. I technically do not like the use of hyphenation, for someone that has been in the country for say 5 generations. 68.173.163.248 (talk) 02:07, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

(reopening this discussion) The article characterizes African American as categorization by Continent/region. In practice, though, it is categorization by Country/ethnicity or nationality&mdash;specifically, by ethnicity. One illustrative example would be african-born Charlize Theron, who is now a U.S. citizen. She wouldn't be considered an African American. I'm not sure how far that can of worms should be opened up in this article, though, so I haven't made an edit to recharacterize or ro clarify this in the article. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 03:31, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Hyphen usage guide
In his fourth revert before reverting himself, Rmherme requested, "Please produce a c. 1915 style guide showing that the U.S. President was incorrect in the quote on this page - or accept that usage has changed". I don't have something handy from 1915 about the particular usage, but the general rule of correct hyphen usage was widely published before and after that time, e.g. in The art of writing & speaking the English language, By Sherwin Cody, 1903 (find on books.google.com): "When one noun preceded by an adjective is used as a sort of compound adjective, the two words (noun and adjective) are united by the hyphen.  For example, common sense used as a noun and adjective should never be united in any way, either by a hyphen or by being written as one word.  But common-sense reasoning is a phrase in which the noun sense united with its adjective becomes itself an adjective." It is always easy to find examples of violations of the rule, in both directions, but the usage that is traditionally considered "correct" has not changed much. Some guides say to drop the hyphen when the terms joined are proper names, but I've never seen a rule to suggest it was ever correct to use a hyphen in for example "an Italian-American". If such rules are out there, let's see them. Dicklyon 20:17, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

By the way, the Roosevelt quote is from a speech, so he didn't have to decide how to punctuate it, as far as I can tell (he has the speech in a book, too, but its four copyright holders suggest it was not mostly written by him). Contemporary transcriptions appear to have omitted the hyphen in "hyphenated Americans", to be grammatically correct I suppose, and put it into the others like "Italian-American" to represent what Roosevelt presumably intended. Interesting. Dicklyon 20:26, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Latin America
The section formerly known as "Latin-American controversy" has/had many problems I tried to fix. For one, "Latin-American" including a hyphen is a highly unusual construction, and I'm not sure any reliable source at all could be found applying it to a person. Certainly it would not be used to refer to a U.S. citizen of Latin origin (okay, maybe if someone from Vatican City immigrated to the U.S.). The issue of different usages of the word American in English and Spanish is, for the most part, not germane to the subject of how ethnic groups of U.S. citizens are referred to in the U.S. I think what I left is enough if not more than enough said. CAVincent (talk) 06:17, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

reference 10
Reference 10, The Hyphen by John Wayne, is a broken link.Ketchupstan (talk) 00:15, 24 September 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ketchupstan (talk • contribs) 00:13, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
 * It's been deleted in this edit. Info on this is available (with some significant differences in the quotes) from a large number of alternative sources; e.g.,, , , , etc. (www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/860226/posts quotes a long version, but a link to that triggers a spam filter complaint). Also, it is quoted in -- at the end of Chapter 8, Veterans : Do We Raally Support Them? Wtmitchell  (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 03:01, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Full text of speech
Is there a full text of Roosevelt's 1915 Columbus Day speech available? Illegitimate Barrister (talk) 17:08, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Never mind, found it. Illegitimate Barrister (talk) 18:44, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

So... Why does the history end in the 1920s?
The presentation in this article makes it sound like the use of hyphenated identities basically evaporated since the 1920s. There's absolutely no mention whatsoever of activist groups reviving and embracing the concept during the 1970s; the discussion simply jumps straight into certain groups disliking the concept. There's almost 100 years of complicated history missing, a good chunk of which involves hyphenated identities being in extremely common parlance--and not as slurs. 2600:1700:FCD:4740:39BD:CFEE:F9C4:E7BF (talk) 12:55, 16 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Because indiscriminate hatred of any and all hyphenated identities pretty much ceased to be an active force in U.S. politics after the 1920s. Afterwards, at least "ethnic" (non-WASP) whites were pretty-well accepted, and no one cared if Irish-Americans held their St. Patrick's day parades, or Polish-Americans their Polish festivals etc.  Of course, many ethnic and racial conficts continued to exist in the U.S... AnonMoos (talk) 11:30, 17 June 2022 (UTC)