Looks like roughly ten years.
I get the humor guys–and I appreciate it. This is still obviously an issue, though, and it’s a serious issue when the White House addresses Americans in the manner Spicer did.
The SPLC finds the European American Action Coalition & the European American Front among White Nationalist groups.
Men who hold some of these beliefs are whispering into the President’s ear. They demonize “Mexicans” & Muslims and even want to limit legal immigration by non-whites. (Some of the more extreme yearn for an all-white America that never existed.)
You are an American if you were born here or have been nationalized. If you don’t fit either category but reside here, contribute to society & want to become a citizen–I welcome you.
I wish I could dismiss the racists & xenophobes–but they are now bolder about speaking out.
I was actually going to ask, “Which pet jackass?” but you answered it implicitly.
The state of New Mexico was created to accommodate Hispanic and Native American cultures. Apache, Navajo, Puebloan and European Hispanic communities were in place long before the Pilgrims set sail. Some schools teach the first Thanksgiving was in El Paso in 1598 and the first American revolution was the Pueblo Revolt of 1680.
In rural New Mexico, the Spanish language is endemic, not imported like in Miami. Personal greetings at gatherings are always in Spanish. Some public meetings are, by tradition, only held in Spanish. Much of America was Spanish long before it became ‘English’.
The border has always been fluid. Family ties cross the border. A child may have been born on either side of the border during a visit. In small border communities it was assumed that Mexican mothers would have their children in the American hospital and Mexican children would attend school in the US.
At theatrical performances the crowd is as likely to break into “México Lindo y Querido” as “America the Beautiful”, but the place is AMERICAN. On Veterans day we have a motley, aging Color Guard composed of a couple of Indians, one black and one white guy and a little Mexican who all served as Americans during armed conflicts.
So, the folks in the OP are stuck with us.
Crane
You’re American when you live here with no intention of leaving. It doesn’t matter what bigots or the government (or government bigots) say. A piece of paper doesn’t make you American. Living here and participating in our society does it.
So… did you celebrate becoming American on your tenth birthday? 
I’m not that much older than you and I’ve definitely heard people say “go back to where you came from”
Dayton has a minor league team that has been sold out since it was formed. Its one of the only profitable minor league teams in the nation. So its pretty special in that regard.
I think he meant he has heard people say that TO Muslims who don’t like Western culture…
I am pretty sure that it gets said to Muslims that love America too. I don’t think its the state of mind that is driving the bigotry.
Depending on the part of the country you go to, you will see large German influences in the culture, or large Wasp influences, or large Irish influences, or large Cuban influences or large Chinese influences but people don’t generally tell the Germans and Irish to go back to where they came from. At least not anymore. The xenophobia diminished to almost nothing with the passage of time. I don’t know if that is in the cards for even the most assimilated Asians.
That’s been my experience as well. There has been resentment of Asians in the black community for a long time. Some of it justified.
I think I’d push it a bit further even than the other posters here. As an example, a family friend came here from Vietnam. He had to swim across the harbor to an overcrowded refugee boat that was already under weigh, carrying all of his worldly possessions in a bag held in his teeth, to get here. And I maintain that the moment he jumped into that harbor, he became more American than I am. All I’ve ever done to be American is just being born here, and Mom did all the work on that one. I haven’t earned it.
That would be naturalized, not nationalized. The sentiment, of course, is spot on.
Even those who–for whatever reason (financial issues in country of origin, personal/family issues in country of origin, etc.)–reside in the US and contribute to society, but do not wish or do not choose to become naturalized, I welcome them. And, obviously, quite a number of rich folks are welcoming (well, inducing) foreign workers to enter the US illegally to work for said rich folks.
No kidding!
I’ve been present when a Guamanian was told she is not American because she is from Guam. The law establishing Guamanians as citizens was passed long before her birth. And part of that “conversation” was to tell her she really should go back to her “own country”. Yeah, it happens and it’s not isolated.
Actually, it does matter what a bigot in high position in government says about the matter. Of course, that bigot is completely wrong, but the citizen concerned can no longer be assured that their government will recognize and support the law as it pertains to the one being discriminated against.
I asked some locals about this issue. They don’t see the problem with Asians.
They objected to the Cubans who did nothing other than cross the Rio Grande to be welcomed and subsidized by the government. A Mexican who crossed the river got thrown in jail. A Cuban got a free ride. There are areas of Miami where no English is spoken and the flags flown are Cuban. How many generations will it take for them to become American?
Crane
I’ll go one better.
I once heard a college admissions counselor talk about how the Vietnamese essays describing their struggle to get to America all sounded alike. I guess they weren’t written with enough flair or something to distinguish them from the other Vietnamese kids who had to live on a leaky raft for a week trying to get out of Vietnam.
But essays by whites or blacks talking about them overcoming hardship in their lives were all really compelling individual stories.
I would suggest that this is in part due to the “otherness” of Asians while whites and blacks seem more human to some folks here. Humanness seems to be a pre-requisite for Americanness.
Maybe its rare in Dayton. Maybe Dayton is a paradise for Asians or something but I have heard "go back to where you came from in LA, NYC, Chicago, and DC.
There’s what we each think, and then there’s how various people behave.
Observing the constantly shifting ideas about who is and isn’t a “real American,” both in my life, and in the larger history of the US, I would say it all comes down to a sense of threat.
When everyone is having a good time, differences are celebrated as being the core essence of what it is to be American. But when people feel threatened, either militarily or culturally or financially, they tend to suddenly see all sorts of important-to-them differences between “real Americans” and “others.”
The most common repeating theme I’ve seen, is when large numbers of identifiabley different people show up and start taking jobs that pay a decent wage. “Hispanic” illegals weren’t seen as a threat when they were picking fruit and taking out the trash. But when the rest of us started seeing lower wages and even being replaced by “them” in our careers, anyone with a Spanish accent started being suspect. Self-isolating people are usually seen as “quaint,” until they start to own all the local businesses or banks.
Generations matter. A large part of the perception of what it is to be American, is due to subconscious assumptions. The earliest generations that formed the US, were of mostly European stock. Western European. The self-indulgent self praise they heaped over their own heads, that we were a gloriously tolerant and inclusive nation, was based on the assumption that that wouldn’t change. But every time a new age dawned, and a new crisis occurred in the world, and a new rush of immigrants came here, that assumption was challenged, and the ideals of inclusion were overturned.
It happened when a rush of Irish arrived in the East, when a rush of Chinese arrived in the West. Some hatred of “foreigners” was inherited. Western Europeans pf various kinds arrived here already despising the Poles, the Irish, the Italians.
And of course, there have been lots of politicians over the years, who have encouraged fratricidal fears and anger, in order to gain profit for themselves.