It must be time for Americans to be known as Americans. People call others who live in Florida and New York, as Floridians and New Yorkers. But they do not call President Obama a Hawaiian. This inconsistency raises confusion, and blurs definitions.

It is often overlooked how much an American’s identity is shaped by culture, -or not. At the present, America has her first African American president. Yet, Barack Obama is arguably at least as much a Caucasian American president, having been given half his genes, and a much greater part of his upbringing, by his mother. However, how often has he been referred to as a Hawaiian American? The nation of Hawaii, is considered by some of Obama’s fellow Hawaiians, as being occupied by the greater invasive force of the United States, but unless one is as blithering, dim and clueless as a Birther, one does not mid-identify Obama as Hawaiian.

Neither do we call first nations people the original Americans. Although they have obviously been around for thousands of years longer than some Americans who came just this afternoon, they would not choose to be identified neither as Americans nor as people of India, as the brilliant explorers who first depended upon them identified them to be. In southern states people often see themselves as “pure” Americans. Many people wonder how this could be, as there is clearly no such animal. The myth of racial and even cultural “purity” is false.

The red states are sometimes known to be quite possessive about patriotism, and even at times, God. Blue states are more willing to see American identity as that which is diverse as proof of both its strength and hunger for justice under a rule of law. Coastal communities, -the opposite sides of the continent of the lower forty eight states -are fond of thinking of their cultures as being strengthened and tolerant as a result of being more progressive, more diverse, more agile and more educated. However, crime, injustice, sexism, racism, and ageism continue to plague these areas, especially in large cities.

What then truly is a cultural identity? All of the above examples show it is not demonstrated by just the place from which ancestors came. Is it the language, music, dance, food, faith, or fellowship one finds he or she is engaged in perpetuating?

It can be argued that human cultural identity in the new and connected wide- wired world is just that—human. It is time for human beings to see that almost all language, music, dance, food and even faith and fellowship are more assimilated, shared, mutated and propagated now than ever before, and at vastly accelerated rates. Given that, there is good reason to try to hang on to cultural origins and diversity as it contributes to the flavorful, melting pot of modern culture. This still allows that one’s cultural identity can be thought of as unique, but blended. It is at once shared and uniting.

Once united under the human umbrella of tolerance, compassion and understanding are spread. When this happens, the cultural identity of humanness can be further utilized to try to reach beyond human culture to that culture of earth that is also a crucial part of the human heritage.

Animals, plants, oceans and forests are often thought of as being outside the cultural identity of humanity, but they are not. The resources of the earth are as much a part of human beings as the air, water and soil shared between species, and indeed created by them. Those cultures most typically oppressed and disenfranchised share the scars of homelessness, being exiled from earth, of dispossession keenly.

Native Americans were stripped of their sustenance, driven from their sacred connections to earth. African Americans were ripped from many nations and savaged, even while they were denied the right to “own” resources and homes. Minorities from every corner of the world have taken turns thus being the dispossessed. Where ever on earth one finds such marginalization, one can see being stripped of cultural heritage usually involved the taking away of the sacred bond a culture had to a place, its food, its music, beauty and rhythms of life.

Now inter-related cultures can begin to celebrate, not just new-found relationships to others people, but everything sacred from which all rich cultures arise.