Responding to internet-driven debates of late over American identity and what it means to be an American, John R. Puri recently published a vigorous criticism of arguments that “Americanness” has any specific genetic, ethnic, or historical component to it. “American heritage has never been static — a closed system incompatible with newcomers,” he writes. “There exists no American culture that preceded American immigrants.”
Later, he observes that American history has been marked by periodically high waves of immigration. Puri writes:
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