Being an American citizen used to mean something; now, not so much. We are on the decline, lacking focus and unable to answer the most important question that matters: what is an American? By 1800, America was largely an established and cohesive nation. We had an almost industrialized process of taking people in and producing fundamentally similar people, thoroughly American, within a generation or two. This process continued for the next 160 years with laws and policies aiming to integrate immigrants into a predominantly Anglo-Saxon, Protestant identity. Laws were enacted to encourage English language learning and cultural conformity. ... An...