Like many Americans, I recently completed the 2020 Census online. I was prepared to engage in an act of civil disobedience -- refusing to answer any question about citizenship. Thankfully, I didn't need to.
But one question did catch my eye. I knew there would be a question about race, but it also asked about my origins. I was tempted to answer, "An American bedroom in an American city in an American state." But then I thought, "What if it wasn't the bedroom?" So, not wishing to tempt the ire of the Census Bureau, I dutifully told them what I knew about my own ethnic heritage.
My concern about the question was prompted by a comment I overheard recently. A man had visited a government office and later said, "Hardly anyone in the waiting room looked like a full-blooded American."
I have known a number of immigrants, who took the Oath of Allegiance to the United States, and in my mind they are as "full-blooded" an American as I am. Thomas Jefferson envisioned a country based not on genetics but on the acceptance of the American idea. That idea, based on a belief in equality and constitutional government, is what makes us Americans.
I'm Jim Kline,and that is my Perspective.
