Dewey, or Dewey not?

Last week Solon posted on death threats over pizza. I responded to his post with a comment about a sign in front of a liquor store that reads "American-owned." Solon and I noted how both these instances attempt to exclude Americans who embody some kind of otherness. We also acknowledge how uncomfortable it can be when such attempts to marginalize and exlude groups are cloaked in a language of patriotism.

I've been reading some John Dewey today, and I think he aptly addresses the issue of American otherness:

No matter how loudly any one proclaims his Americanism, if he assumes that any one racial strain, and one component culture, no matter how settled it was in our territory, or how effective it has proved in its own land, is to furnish a pattern to which all other strains and cultures are to conform, he is a traitor to an American nationalism. Our unity cannot be a homogenous thing...; it must be a unity created by drawing out and composing into a harmonious whole the best, the most characteristic which each contributing race and people has to offer. ("The Principle of Nationality" 288-89)