One America?: Political Leadership, National Identity, and the Dilemmas of Diversity (review)

Beyond challenging domestic security, confounding foreign relations, and rejuvenating patriotism—perhaps unrivalled since World War II—the September 11, 2001, tragedy forces a resounding call to recuperate as a people and to question the stability of a true American identity. Can we unite under a common culture while accentuating differences? Do we champion national identity over ethnic and class identity? Most significantly, should we pursue a common culture at all? Stanley A. Renshon, professor of political science at the City University of New York, seeks to examine these questions by bringing together authors from both ends of the political spectrum, many of whom grapple with each other both on the political stage and in the ensuing pages. Joining these variant voices in one text speaks volumes about the importance of discovering ways to redefine American identity. One America, named for the subtitle of President Clinton's initiative on race, approaches identity and leadership from a structural standpoint as opposed to a case study method. Authors discuss the structures of affirmative action, immigration reform, dual citizenship, and varying issues that contribute to, or detract from, an American identity.

In the introductory essay, "America at the Crossroads," Renshon argues that American identity is threatened by the sub-identities of race, culture, and ethnic heritage. Not since the Civil War has such a perilous internal conflict loomed within the United States, especially between national and individuated identities. This conflict remains infused throughout the corridors of American culture: "Unlike the Civil War, this conflict's primary focus is not waged between one section of the country and another, but in every section of the country" (4). The conflict breaks America not into two rival parts, but rather shatters it into innumerable slivers. Thus we cannot, Renshon writes, take for granted familial, religious, social, cultural, or political ideals. We lack this steady foundation on which to fall back. He asks whether we need to (re)build this foundation or to decide that our American identity comprises no foundation at all. The essay raises some potent questions about identity but offers little solution other than the obvious: elect leaders who can either unify America as a common culture or coalesce America as a mosaic of many cultures.

Richard J. Payne's essay, "Moving Beyond Racial Categories," brings the reader face to face with an actual solution to the American identity issue. Payne suggests we communicate as individuals, not as "blacks," "whites," and "Hispanics." He does not discount race, but does challenge the importance of the social construction of race. If we shift the social ills away from race, he argues "(it) will become less important as individuals get to know each other on a personal basis" (144). This idealistic argument rejects the multicultural wave's thesis that we must embrace our differences because they are inevitably ingrained into our racial consciences. To Renshon's question as to whether we should unify or coalesce American culture, Payne prefers the former. He urges a universal, not a racial, frame. This approach, he contends, "facilitates the perception of shared values. It also moves us closer to the goal of creating One America" (166). Such a unified vision of America presents a stark contrast to multiculturalism. Whereas the 1990s witnessed an increase in encouraging differences, Payne seems to say that such fragmentation must cease if we are to establish an American identity. Implicit in his argument for unification is the notion that American identity remains important to pursue.

Jim Sleeper's "American National Identity in a Postnational Age" argues that in order to face current challenges "we will have to reckon with American national identity more fully, and less dismissively and destructively" (309). Sleeper, a self-professed liberal, critiques globalization, noting that it threatens to strip away both American identity and other nations' identities. Viewing America...