An interesting forum post at Amazon.com on a movement to drop the dash (hyphen) in social and governmental labeling inspired this piece of an American perspective of the effects the ethnic-American label has on society.

First of all, let's define some terms; according to the Merriam-Webster online dictionarythe definition of:

national or nationality "a legal relationship involving allegiance on the part of an individual and usually protection on the part of the state b: membership in a particular nation"

ethnic: "of or relating to large groups of people classed according to common racial, national, tribal, religious, linguistic, or cultural origin or background"

heritage:"something possessed as a result of one's natural situation or birth"

According to the above definitions, if a person is born in the United States of America, their nationality and heritage is American. They are American, not African-American, Latin-American, Hispanic or Asian-American, simply American with an ethnic background of African, Asian, Latin, Spanish, German, etc.

When a person uses ethnic-American they are stating they are the ethnicity first and an American second. That their ethnicity is more important than their nationality.

In today's society of multi-tasking, many people create lists. The lists are then categorized into priority with the first item on the list being the most important or first thing to be considered or accomplished.

Although society uses ethnic-American labels, not all of society has accepted the ethnic-American as a full American, entitled to all rights and freedoms of an American. This can be explained because of the individual claiming ethnic heritage as the priority and that they expect acceptance granted to their ethnic background before the rights granted to Americans. These ethnic-American labels and statements are telling fellow Americans to consider you as a secondary American. Your allegiance is to your ethnic heritage before your birth heritage if you were born in the United States of American.

Some Americans teach their descendants that other ethnicities are not true Americans and should not be treated as such; at the same time, Ethnic-Americans are re-enforcing that they are not true Americans by claiming allegiance to their ethnic heritage first.

Pride in one's ethnic heritage is a wonderful and encouraged trait of America. No one is trying to take away pride of one's ethnic heritage. The expectation of all people embracing ethnic ancestors' beliefs and struggles which they are not a descendant of, is not the answer to ending prejudices and discriminations.

Take a look at the gay/lesbian marriage fight; it is a fight of whether or not Americans should be discriminated against because of sexual preference. The gay/lesbian society is not claiming to be Gay-American or Lesbian-American; they are Americans who are gay and lesbian. They are fighting first and foremost for their American right not to be discriminated against, to be recognized as Americans and achieve equality. Not special consideration because they are gay or lesbian and have endured discrimination, hate-crimes, and were forced into hiding for many years. They are fighting for their American rights as Americans.

Ethnic-Americans are fighting for their claim to another country (Ethnic location) and at the same time expect America and Americans to grant them American rights and protection. By law, a person cannot claim two countries or allegiance unless they have dual-citizenship and even with that, a person must choose whose allegiance is priority over the other.

Statistically speaking categorizing ethnic heritage is important for many reasons, most documents which categorize ethnicities first ask: "Are you a citizen of the United States?" and the last question asked is: "What is your ethnicity?" So, although statistics do categorize the ethnic relations of individuals, the priority of classification is of citizenship or the nation you pledge your allegiance to.

In essence, when a person proclaims, "I am": African-American, Hispanic, Latin-American or Asian-American they are proclaiming that their allegiance is to their ethnic heritage first and foremost and America second. In doing this, people are promoting prejudice and discrimination against themselves.

According to political correctness, which is governed by society, my label is: German-Welsh-American. However, because I was born in America, I am an American citizen and I am, by my heritage, entitled to the protection of America, not Germany or Wales. Therefore, I am an American.

In an unrelated article, I read this sentence and the truth of it was inspiring.

"The right words can cause us (to) rally around a cause or think about things in an entirely different manner."

Thinking about that statement and how it can be applied to ethnic labels, it appears to be feasible that by "dropping the dash" it could promote society to "... think about things in an entirely different manner." and "... cause us (to) rally around a cause..." the "cause" being the uniting as Americans and acceptance that we all have different ethnic heritages.