Theodore Roosevelt Quotes

We quarrel with no man for being a foreigner, but we recognize the moral right in no class of American citizens to train up their children to be foreigners, and then to claim for them all the rights, franchises, and immunities of American citizens.

Our confederacy must be viewed as the nest from which all America, North or South, is to be peopled … speaking the same language, governed in similar forms, and by similar laws.

A man who thinks of himself as belonging to a particular national group in America has not yet become an American. And the man who goes among you to trade upon your nationality is no worthy son to live under the Stars and Stripes.

I think the American people would be compassionate and practical. But we need to be talking about assimilation as well, something that is politically incorrect, I know, to say that people should learn English, should learn American exceptionalism, shouldn't come here to use our freedoms to undermine the freedoms we give to everybody. But there's nothing wrong with saying people who want to come here should want to be Americans.

America is destined to be peopled by one nation, speaking one language, professing one general system of religious and political principles, and accustomed to one general tenor of social usages and customs.

The Americans of other blood must remember that the man who in good faith and without reservations gives up another country for this must in return receive exactly the same rights, not merely legal, but social and spiritual, that other Americans proudly possess. We of the United States belong to a new and separate nationality. We are all Americans and nothing else, and each, without regard to his birthplace, creed, or national origin, is entitled to exactly the same rights as all other Americans.

America gave the world the notion of the melting pot - an alchemical cooking device wherein diverse ethnic and religious groups voluntarily mix together, producing a new, American identity. And while critics may argue that the melting pot is a national myth, it has tenaciously informed the America's collective imagination.

It takes more than just walking across the border to become an American citizen. It's what's in our souls.

The making of an American begins at that point where he himself rejects all other ties, any other history, and adopts the vesture of his adopted land.

No encouragement must be given to social and political organizations or methods which perpetuate in this country foreign ideas and customs. An Irish-American, a German-American, or a French-American vote is an intolerable anomaly.

The unifying characteristics that make us Americans are becoming more and more diluted now because new immigrants want to set up ethnic enclaves to retain their culture and language.

To become an American is a process which resembles a conversion. It is not so much a new country that one adopts as a new creed.

I received a letter just before I left office from a man. I don't know why he chose to write it, but I'm glad he did. He wrote that you can go to live in France, but you can't become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Italy, but you can't become a German, an Italian. He went through Turkey, Greece, Japan and other countries. But he said anyone, from any corner of the world, can come to live in the United States and become an American.

People came to America and they did not abandon their own cultures, but they assumed new ones, a new one, an American culture rooted in liberty and freedom that they had never enjoyed in their lives prior. They didn't have to sacrifice who they were. They didn't have to change or give it up, but they were eager to become Americans.

There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.

The hyphenated American is ridiculous. But that's what we have to put up with. I think that any person that's in the United States is better off here than they would be where they came from.

Nobody's American," said Wednesday. "Not originally. That's my point.

I don't really identify with America, I don't really feel like an American or part of the American experience, and I don't really feel like a member of the human race, to tell you the truth. I know I am, but I really don't. All the definitions are there, but I don't really feel a part of it. I think I have found a detached point of view, an ideal emotional detachment from the American experience and culture and the human experience and culture and human choices.

We should only admit into America those who share our values and respect our people.

People from all over the world came to America and assimilated into a single culture rooted in the founding, which is rooted in individual liberty and primacy of citizen over government. Everybody who came here, that's what drew them.

Americanization means the process of becoming an American. It means civic incorporation, becoming a part of the polity - becoming one of us. But that does not mean conformity. We are more than a melting pot, we are a kaleidoscope, where every turn of history refracts new light on the old promise.

I was confident about America and the idea that in America people can become American without masking their ethnic identity.

Different nations have different ways of forming their national identity. In America, for instance, the model was one of homogeneity breaking from different backgrounds, and the whole effort was to blend them all together like a wonderful making of a milkshake!

Everything that came out of Europe, every blue-eyed thing, is already an American. And as long as you and I have been over here, we aren't Americans yet.

Some Americans need hyphens in their names, because only part of them has come over; but when the whole man has come over, heart and thought and all, the hyphen drops of its own weight out of his name.