With the passing of generations, yesterday’s hyphenated-American born in America has become an unhyphenated ethnic American by default.

The claxon call by Timothy P. Carney for wearing ethnicity as a badge of honor is an understandable reaction to the loathsome politicization of what was formerly a straightforward, useful descriptor for the successive waves of proud immigrants coming to America. We are now at a point where we admit about one million immigrants a year from all over the globe — nothing remarkable for a country our size. With our fertility rate historically low, immigrants are needed and are seamlessly absorbed into our population without fanfare. Legal immigration has almost become unnoticeable, as has most legal immigrants’ tribal identity.