Tribute to strength

A terrorist attack that challenged our national security has also challenged the way we view ourselves and our fellow Americans.

Even as we check the mail for anthrax during this, the earliest and creepiest Halloween on record, some Americans are not afraid to stand up to that challenge at home by acknowledging the country's rich ethnic diversity.

One of them lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Take it from President Bush. We will not falter. We will not fail. And we will not fear "hyphenated" Americans. The man who wasn't afraid of terrorists is no more afraid of ethnic identification, cultural pride and specific political agendas.

In a ceremony at the White House last week, Bush got back to the business of inclusion by celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month. After recognizing among his guests nearly two dozen prominent Hispanics – hailing from everywhere from his own Cabinet to Major League Baseball – Bush showed why he is as popular with Hispanics as he now is with most Americans.

"This month, our country recognizes just how much we owe to the Hispanic culture and, more important, to the Hispanic-Americans we're proud to call our fellow citizens," he told the crowd.

Like no one other president in history – and unlike many in the opposing party, who continue to see race in America as black and white – Bush gets it when it comes to the 35 million Hispanics in the United States.

Moreover, he knows he gets it. Bush told the audience that his "appreciation for the Hispanic culture" dates back to his Texas upbringing.

Then, adding deeds to words, Bush signed an executive order establishing a presidential commission to improve educational excellence for Hispanic students.

The entire event was in tune with the compassionate conservative's familiar message: that America belongs to all Americans. And yet, it also seemed oddly out of sync with the times.

Buried somewhere in the rubble of the Sept. 11 attacks is the concept of a hyphenated American. For those Americans of a more generic variety who are uneasy about those of us who refer to ourselves as Mexican-Americans, African-Americans, Asian-Americans etc., the events of the last few weeks make their case for the nation to speak with only one voice and claim only one identity – as Americans.

Now more than ever, ethnic causes that operate independent of the whole are deemed to be in bad form, along with any political initiative or lobbying effort that is predicated on groups instead of on individuals.

Just ask Jesse Diaz, an official with the Dallas branch of the League of United Latin American Citizens. Since its founding in 1929, LULAC has been unabashedly patriotic and pro-American. But that didn't stop many Dallas residents from expressing anger and disappointment after Diaz recently kicked up dust over the refusal of the trustees of the Dallas school district to increase Hispanic representation on their board during the redistricting process.

After Diaz made headlines for disrupting a trustees meeting, some non-Hispanics said they were offended by Diaz's cause, which they labeled divisive and inappropriate in light of the events of Sept. 11. This is the time for us to put aside such agendas and stand as one, they said.

This really isn't about unity – it's about loyalty. We're at war and so, naturally, we want to know who is with us and who is against us. But as Americans call for loyalty oaths, who could have imagined that those who refer to themselves as a particular variety of American would be branded disloyal?

Actually, laying claim to one's ethnicity is less a threat to the country than a tribute to it. In the tradition of some of World War II's most valiant warriors – the Tuskegee Airmen, the Navajo Code Talkers, Mexican-American winners of the Medal of Honor and Japanese-American soldiers who fought in Europe while their families were interned in California and other Western states – the battle on the home front may be won by those who look, and sound, different than those in the American mainstream. In states like Michigan, with heavy concentrations of Arab-Americans, there are now thousands of Muslims who fit the profile of patriots by volunteering to act as translators to help the FBI locate, and liquidate, Osama bin Laden's terrorist cells in the United States.

In light of the bigger fish we now must fry, continuing to identify one's self with a particular racial or ethnic group may seem trivial. It isn't. Nor is it treasonous. In fact, as our commander in chief realizes, it may turn out to be one of our country's most powerful weapons.