My opinion pales beside that of John Steinbeck in “Travels With Charley in Search of America” (1962).

“From start to finish, I found no strangers. If I had, I might be able to report them more objectively. But these are my people and this my country. If I found matters to criticize and to deplore, they were tendencies equally present in myself. If I were to prepare one immaculately inspected generality it would be this: For all of our enormous geographic range, for all of our sectionalism, for all of our interwoven breeds drawn from every part of the ethnic world, we are a nation, a new breed. Americans are much more Americans than they are Northerners, Southerners, Westerners or Easterners. And descendants of English, Irish, Italian, Jewish, German, Polish are essentially American.

“This is not patriotic whoop-de-do; it is carefully observed fact. California Chinese, Boston Irish, Wisconsin German, yes, and Alabama Negroes, have more in common than they have apart. And this is the more remarkable because it has happened so quickly. It is a fact that Americans from all sections and of all racial extractions are more alike than the Welsh are like the English, the Lancashireman like the Cockney, or for that matter the Lowland Scot like the Highlander. It is astonishing that this has happened in less than 200 years and most of it in the last 50. The American identity is an exact and provable thing.”

Wouldn’t it be good for all of us to allow Mr. Steinbeck to rest in peace.

Doug Yohman
East Waterboro