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DISCUSS: Heritage Americans?

DISCUSS: Heritage Americans?

Last updated on: December 5, 2025 at 5:55 am by Gene Veith

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DISCUSS: Heritage Americans? 2025-11-29T18:56:08-05:00 Gene Veith

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I was always taught that being an American meant holding to the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence and committing oneself to the system of ordered liberty established in the U.S. Constitution. Being an American is not being a member of an ethnic group, as in the decadent nations of the Old World.

But many conservatives are now promoting the notion of “Heritage Americans.” These are defined as descendants of Americans who have been here since colonial days so are somehow more genuinely American than the descendants of later immigrants. See Mark Tooley‘s article on the subject.

Those who accept this notion see Heritage Americans as constituting an ethnic group, though it is an ethnic group that consists of other ethnic groups. Tooley cites C. Jay Engle, who coined the term and promotes the concept:

“At its most fundamental, said Engel, “heritage American” refers to the offspring of the Anglo-Protestant and Scotch-Irish settlers. . . who populated the original colonies before heading west to settle the American frontier.”

So you have to have English or Scotch-Irish ancestry to be a real American?

Engel concedes that slaves were around during the colonial era, so black people, most of whose ancestors were brought over before importing slaves from Africa was banned in 1807, can count as Heritage Americans. So can Native Americans.

But these criteria would mean that people of German ancestry are Heritage Americans if they settled in William Penn’s Pennsylvania, but not if they came over in the 19th century in pursuit of religious liberty? And Donald Trump, whose grandfather came over from Germany in 1885, is not as authentic an American as the WASP patricians of New England?

Engel thinks that Ellis Island migration was a mistake, but that other Europeans and Catholics are closer to the Heritage American sensibility and can assimilate. But every one else should be sent back.

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