Hyphenphobes

Smalltown letters to the editor are a prime source of entertainment for me -- like reading FreeRepublic with the racial and homophobic epithets cleaned out, to a certain extent. This one, which appeared in my hometown daily The Facts on Sunday, is an instant classic, and not merely because it's one of the most poorly argued points I've ever seen. Emphasis is mine.

HYPHENATION IS A POLITICAL ISSUE

I cannot stand the hyphenated designation of Americans. Do people not think that that people born in America would not like to be called “American?” Many of us were here since before WWII. Can’t you just say American?
I have learned that categorizing helps some of us think. We categorize things so they fit into our cognitive framework and so that we know how to think of them in relation to other things. What’s wrong in assigning labels to them is that it makes a political issue of them.
Politicians break it down and say they have the Mexican-American vote or the Afro-American vote. They can’t just say I have 57 percent of the population. You never hear them say I have the white vote. This does not sound fair, does it?
I have chosen to reject hyphenation, and some have called it race treachery, but it is really a demand that we are Americans equally. Many of us ignore it to not rock the boat. The older folks have gotten used to it. The younger folks have to reject the hyphenation. After all, is there not only one race? The human race?

Linda Vasquez-Allen, Brazoria

Yeah, I know that's not what she meant. But it's still funny.

By the way, if anyone wants more information on the, er, "city" of Brazoria, Texas, it's kind of like one of those places to which the lawyers in John Grisham novels are always being sent to invesetigate.