BECOMING AMERICAN
"Here’s how Ronald Reagan put it in a 1989 speech, in which he explained:
“A man wrote me and said: ‘You can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey or Japan, but you cannot become a German, a Turk, or a Japanese. But anyone, from any corner of the Earth, can come to live in America and become an American.’ ”
A person becomes an American by adopting America’s principles, especially those principles summarized in the “self-evident truths” of the Declaration of Independence, such as “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
-- Robert Reich editorial, Dec 6, 2025
We know this aligns with the Democratic Creed. That the American legacy runs through Democrats and Republicans alike — Jefferson's Declaration of Independence and Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, FDR's Inauguration speech and Reagan's farewell address.
And now, in the Democratic Creed — this plain statement of what American values are, of how each of us is guided, of how all of us are measured, both as free individuals and as a freedom-loving people.
That's why we pledge ourselves to the Democratic Creed, why we adopt the Democratic Creed as our shared statement of values. Because we hold these self-evident truths to be the standard we pledge to live up to, the promise we strive to keep. The definition of the Americans we hope to become.
Image: Immigrants on the steerage deck of an ocean steamer passing the Statue of Liberty from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, July 2, 1887. Courtesy of the National Park Service, Statue of Liberty National Monument
