ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a close reading of Who Are We? in an effort to fully understand Samuel Huntington's position. Who Are We? is a provocative look at American national identity. The target at which Huntington aims most clearly is anything that might be construed as or contained within multiculturalism. For Huntington, Americanization explicitly means Protestantization, which is, of course, not a characterization preferred by Catholics or members of other confessions. Huntington directly addresses what he calls the 'Assimilation Debate', focused on turn-of-the-twentieth century immigration. He describes the America he fears is under attack, an America defined by Anglo and Protestant culture: The 'American Creed', as initially formulated by Thomas Jefferson and elaborated by many others, is widely viewed as the crucial defining element of American identity. The Creed, however, was the product of the distinct Anglo-Protestant culture of the founding settlers of America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
