William Petersen, Michael Novak, et Philip Gleason, Concepts of Ethnicity (Cantabrigiae: Harvard University Press, 1982, ISBN 9780674157262), 62: "To be or to become an American, a person did not have to be of any particular national, linguistic, religious, or ethnic background. All he had to do was to commit himself to the political ideology centered on the abstract ideals of liberty, equality, and republicanism. Thus the universalist ideological character of American nationality meant that it was open to anyone who willed to become an American."
Richard Slotkin (2001), "Unit Pride: Ethnic Platoons and the Myths of American Nationality,"American Literary History 13(3):469–498: "But it also expresses a myth of American nationality that remains vital in our political and cultural life: the idealized self-image of a multiethnic, multiracial democracy, hospitable to differences but united by a common sense of national belonging.
