A country is a nation with a government. The US’s government is specified in the Constitution. The Constitution said only white men had a say. White men decided to change the Constitution to let others participate.

After first writing the constitution to bar other from participating. The constitution did not come from thin air.

Did America belong to the Indians at a point in history? What made it "their" land more than anybody else?

> 1. I have a problem with "their country". What makes this any country any more "their" than anybody else's

People who share kinship ties and cultural ties built the physical and political world of the country. My wife’s family fought in the American revolution, and settled the Oregon coast. All the rugged frontier individualism that permeates American culture is her people. By contrast my family came here on a plane I. 1989. My ancestors contributed nothing to this country. This country’s culture, institutions, etc., bear none of their imprint. If they had, this would be a very different country. We have a whole country that they made but it’s not this one.

Many non-white people contributed to American culture and history as well. Why should it be only white peoples' country? My ancestors contributed nothing as well, but I am white. Is it my country or not?

It’s also black peoples’ country. And in this context, “white” means British Americans (and their subgroups), Germans, Dutch, Norwegians, Swedes, Irish, and Italians. It doesn’t count white immigrants.

I am totally confused by your selection of nationalities that are supposedly non-immigrant. What makes Poles or French or Spanish immigrants that does not make Germans or Dutch ones, too?

* * *

Thank you for the explanation, I can see your point now. I still think it is overly simplified, ignoring fairly large Spanish influence in the south and southwest and French in the north (all you need to do is look at names of towns and geographical features) and other groups like Moravians in the Midwest and Jews in the east. Also, "German" in the 18th or 19th century is not necessarily the same as German today, for example, lot of Austrians were included, and at that time that would be a fairly geographically large and culturally diverse area.

I was mostly objecting to your simplified division of people into those "correct" groups whose country this is and those who are foreigners that don't belong here (I know you did not use these words, but that's how your comments sounded to me). I come from a place that has a long history of sentiments like that, and as far as I can tell, there was never anything good coming out of them.

> By contrast my family came here on a plane [in] 1989. My ancestors contributed nothing to this country.

So when is the cut-off date for having "built the physical and political world of the country"? My ancestors (on different branches of the family tree) came here in the mid- to late-19th century and early 20th century — to what extent do their contributions count?

The time increases as the country develops. The British obviously had the most impact. Germans had less impact but did greenfield development off a large swath of the country. At the other end of the scale, Asians will probably never have more than a superficial impact.

Some of us came a lot earlier than 1989 and had arguably more than a superficial impact. I commend to you Vivek Bald's book on Bengali Harlem.

1. What makes any country "their country"? Why does everyone only focus on the Western World? Can I move to Japan, China, Israel, France and just become a citizen without passport, visa, etc? No.

2. Yes.

Is Ecuador a country for Ecuadorians? If millions of white people moved to Ecuador, refused to learn Spanish, and said "this is no more your country than ours" and so forth, would you object to it?

Probably not, as long as they did not terrorize local population and act like they are somehow better.