in Terms

Hyphenated American

Hyphenated Americans aka Bywords

by Hebrew Living November 30, 2016, 8:00 am

Deuteronomy 28:37 King James Version (KJV)
³⁷ And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all nations whither the Lord shall lead thee.

Cartoon from Puck, August 9, 1899. Uncle Sam sees hyphenated voters and asks, “Why should I let these freaks cast whole ballots when they are only half Americans?”

In the United States, the term hyphenated American is an epithet commonly used from 1890 to 1920 to disparage Americans who were of foreign birth or origin, and who displayed an allegiance to a foreign country. It was most commonly used to disparage German Americans or Irish Americans (Catholics) who called for U.S. neutrality in World War I. Former President Theodore Roosevelt was an outspoken anti-hyphenate and Woodrow Wilson followed suit.^[1]

The term “hyphenated American” was published by 1889,^[2] and was common as a derogatory term by 1904. During World War I the issue arose of the primary political loyalty of ethnic groups with close ties to Europe, especially German Americans and also Irish Americans. Former President Theodore Roosevelt in speaking to the largely Irish Catholic Knights of Columbus at Carnegie Hall on Columbus Day 1915, asserted that,^[3]

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 … The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the American Republic … 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.

President Woodrow Wilson regarded “hyphenated Americans” with suspicion, saying, “Any man who carries a hyphen about with him carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this Republic whenever he gets ready.”^[4]^[5]^[6]

Usage

Modern style guides^[which?] most often recommend dropping the hyphen between the two names except when the compound is used as an adjective; some recommend dropping the hyphen even for the adjective form.^[7] On the other hand, compounds with name fragments, such as Afro-American and Indo-European, are recommended to be hyphenated.

American English

The first term typically indicates a region or culture of origin ancestry paired with “American”. Examples:

Region, continent or race: African American, Arab American, Asian American, European American, Latino American, Native American, or American Indian, Pacific Islands American.
Ethnicity or nationality: Armenian American, British American, Chinese American, Colombian American, English American, Filipino American, German American, Greek American, Indian American, Irish American, Italian American, Japanese American, Jewish American, Korean American, Mexican American, Norwegian American, Pakistani American, Polish American, Russian American, Scottish American, Swedish American, Ukrainian American, Vietnamese American, and so on.

The hyphen is employed when the compound term is used as an adjective.^[8] Hence, correct forms include an African American and an African-American man.

The linguistic construction functionally indicates ancestry, but also may connote a sense that these individuals straddle two worlds—one experience is specific to their unique ethnic identity, while the other is the broader multicultural amalgam that is Americana.

In relation to Latin America

Main article: American (word)

Latin America includes most of the Western Hemisphere south of the United States, including Mexico, Central America, South America and (in some cases) the Caribbean. U.S. nationals with origins in Latin America are often referred to as Hispanic or Latino Americans, or by their specific country of origin, e.g., Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans and Cuban Americans.

Hyphenated-American identities

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Some groups recommend dropping the hyphen because it implies to some people dual nationalism and inability to be accepted as truly American. The Japanese American Citizens League is supportive of dropping the hyphen because the non-hyphenated form uses their ancestral origin as an adjective for “American.”^[9]

By contrast, other groups have embraced the hyphen, arguing that the American identity is compatible with alternative identities and that the mixture of identities within the United States strengthens the nation rather than weakens it.

‘European American,’ as opposed to White or Caucasian, has been coined in response to the increasing racial and ethnic diversity of the U.S., as well as to this diversity moving more into the mainstream of the society in the latter half of the 20th century. The term distinguishes whites of European ancestry from those of other ancestries. In 1977, it was proposed that the term “European American” replace “white” as a racial label in the U.S. Census, although this was not done. The term “European American” is not in popular use in the U.S. among the general public or in the mass media, and the terms “white” or “white American” are commonly used instead.