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Is diversity a root cause of dual loyalty in modern America?

“We can’t be divided by race, religion, by tribe. We’re defined by those enduring principles in the Constitution, even though we don’t necessarily all know them.”

So Joe Biden told the firefighters union this week.

But does Joe really believe that? Or does that not sound more like a plea, a wistful hope, rather than a deep conviction?

For Biden surely had in mind the debate that exploded last week in the House Democratic caucus on how to punish Somali-American and Muslim Congresswoman Ilhan Omar for raising the specter of dual loyalty.

Rebutting accusations of anti-Semitism lodged against her, Omar had fired back: “I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK to push for allegiance to a foreign country.”

Omar was talking about Israel.

Republicans raged that Nancy Pelosi’s caucus must denounce Omar for anti-Semitism. Journalists described the raising of the “dual loyalty” charge as a unique and awful moment, and perhaps a harbinger of things to come.

Yet, allegations of dual loyalty against ethnic groups, even from statesmen, have a long history in American politics.

In 1915, ex-President Theodore Roosevelt, at a convention of the Catholic Knights of Columbus, bellowed: “There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism … German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans, or Italian-Americans.

“There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is a man who is an American and nothing else.”

The New York Times headline the next morning:

“Roosevelt Bars the Hyphenated.”

It continued: “No Room in This Country for Dual Nationality, He Tells Knights of Columbus. Treason to Vote as Such.”

What would Roosevelt think of the dual citizenship of many Americans today? If someone is a citizen of more than one country, how do we know where his primary allegiance lies?

Does not dual citizenship, de facto, imply dual loyalty?

Nor was the Rough Rider alone in his alarm. As America edged toward intervention in the European war, President Woodrow Wilson, too, tore into “the hyphenates”:

“The passions and intrigues of certain active groups and combinations of men amongst us who were born under foreign flags injected the poison of disloyalty into our most critical affairs. …

“I am the candidate of a party, but I am above all things else, an American citizen. I neither seek the favor nor fear the displeasure of that small alien element amongst us which puts loyalty to any foreign power before loyalty to the United States.”

What is it that is tearing us apart?

Is it not our differences? Is it not our diversity?

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