On July 18, 2013, Marc Anthony took the field to sing “God Bless America” at the MLB All-Star game, only to receive a backlash of people calling him “Unamerican.” Anthony, who was born in New York, was discriminated against because people thought that because of his Latino heritage he should not be singing a country’s anthem that he was not actually part of.

Recently, debates have surfaced over what the actual definition of being an “American” is. Some say that being an American means having the utmost pride in your country. Others argue that it means to follow the ideals put forth in the Declaration of Independence — the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But with America being a melting pot of different heritages and races, the status of being a true American seems to only fall with the Caucasian men and women.

“I would have to say that being an American means having guaranteed liberty and rights at birth, ” sophomore Zach Novicoff said.

However, even though being born on American soil gives you individual rights, it’s not always perceived well.  The Atlantic published an article titled “What is American?” explaining how the word  “American” also can be interpreted as a loaded term when verbalized by people from the U.S. Someone from the U.S. calling him or herself ‘American’ is equivalent to people from the U.S. traveling anywhere in the world and expecting everyone to speak English. In other words, many link the practice to that negative U.S. tourist stereotype: rude, culturally unaware and self-centered.

“I mean not all of Americans are bad, most of them aren’t but as a nation we seem greedy,” senior Alex Peuser said. “However as an American we have that freedom to be who we want to be.”

Some focus on the idea that we are a nation of immigrants, that America is not based on a particular ethnicity. When you say you have to be Japanese to be Japanese, you are not making a redundant statement. But you can be Japanese and still be an American.

“Our ancestors came from all over the world,” senior Bailey Barnhart said. “People still say I’m part Irish but we are all American.”

We used to call America the melting pot, where all these different nationalities combine to form a new nationality, an American. But now we talk of the salad bowl, where each individual part of the mix retains its individual identity. There is no longer considered to be a distinctly American culture, certainly not one to be retained. Every culture is equally good; but if there is no actual American culture, then we become a mixture of all the other nations.

“An American means I have the rights I need to better myself,” Barnhart said. “I can do anything I’m willing to work for and I have a say in how things are run. It doesn’t depend on your heritage or ethnicity, we are all the same.  All American.”