The Meaning of American National Identity: Patterns of Ethnic Conflict and Consensus

Abstract

Abstract National identity is one among many often co-existing and overlapping social identities, including territorial, racial, religious, linguistic, and gender identities. The psychological task for individuals is to order and integrate their different collective “selves” (Ashmore & Jussim, 1997). The political task for government is to balance the need for national unity with the competing claims of other group identities. In modern society, emphasizing loyalty to the “nation” and making this the essence of the individual’s political self-definition emerged as the dominant way to boost social solidarity (Greenfield & Chirot, 1994). As an immigrant nation, the United States has always faced the problem of coping with ethnic diversity; the motto e pluribus unum expresses the desire for a strong sense of common American identity without indicating the proper balance between the national “one” and the ethnic “many.”