When we fill out paperwork, why is it required to fill in which nationality we are? Aren't we all Americans?

Question

The government has the immigration list, so they know who is coming from where. It is ridiculous that I have to tell the college/work/church, etc what race I am. How are we supposed to all be equal, AMERICANS, if they won't?

Answer 1

They need that so  when the right wingers take control of the country thy can hunt down all those who are not white anglo saxon

Answer 2

The terms African-American and European-American does not identify a race or skin color either. There are MANY white people from Africa...and there are MANY black people from Europe.

Answer 3

Its called affirmative action, and it did more to Davide americans than any other single program possibly could. We will not survive as hyphenated americans.

"There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all. ... The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the American Republic. ... There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else."

President Theodore Roosevelt

"Any man who carries a hyphen about with him carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this Republic whenever he gets ready."

President Woodrow Wilson