The most recent issue of the Point—the Chicago magazine of philosophical writing named for south-side Promontory Point—wrestles with the question posed on its cover: “What is America for?” One way they’re approaching the question is to ask people who recently came here “Why?,” and then, what the reception was when they did. To this end, earlier this month the Point cosponsored a panel discussion with Contratiempo, a Chicago magazine of Hispanic literature and culture, at the Lincoln United Methodist Church in Pilsen. A video of the event is now online.
“As I learn more and more,” he said, “the mythos of the United States I had, what little patriotism I had pretty much went out the door. I’m no longer patriotic at all. Quite the opposite. . . . I can understand why previous generations would choose to be patriotic, because they had no choice but to assimilate, but for the modern Latino I don’t see why anyone would want to consider themselves either American or to consider themselves ‘patriotic’ in any sense of the word. When I see the massacres of—”
The response made me think about how Latino immigrants, though they’re defended as merely the latest in a long line of nourishing newcomers, are indeed exceptional. When waves of immigrants sailed here from Ireland, Germany, and Poland, the U.S. was a remote, indifferent land of opportunity; as their abandoned homelands’ histories had unfolded, America had no skin in the game.
