Today's U.S. a nation divided

Thanks to multiculturalism, the United States has gone from the world's "melting pot" to the world's "salad bowl," and I for one wish a return to the former.

What made the United States unique from other nations on earth was assimilation. Do you think a German citizen immigrating to England is considered an Englishman? Do you think a Mexican citizen immigrating to France is called a Frenchman? But before 1970 if these two immigrated to the United States they would be considered Americans because they proudly assimilated into our society.

Thanks to multiculturalism we are a nation divided by a hyphen. We are no longer Americans but instead Mexican-Americans, Afro-Americans or Irish-Americans. The hyphen, a punctuation mark used to join two words, has become the means of destroying our national pride.

Our retreat from being one nation became evident this past May 5 at a California high school. Because of "fear" of starting trouble during Cinco de Mayo, five boys were told to turn their T-shirts inside-out, four decided to go home instead. Did their shirts have slogans mocking Cinco de Mayo? Were their shirts printed with Mexican racial slurs? No. They had the gall to wear T-shirts emblematized with the American flag - imagine the horror.

To me even more chilling than the boys being denied their First Amendment rights was a quote by sophomore Jessica Cortez. "It's disrespectful to do it on Cinco de Mayo. They can be a patriot on some other day. Not that specific day."

To me, unless improperly displayed or disrespectful, it is never wrong to wear or fly the symbol of our country.

I want to return to being "One nation under God, indivisible" and not the "multicultural society ruled by political correctness" we are today!

Bob Kovanic

Sugar Grove