PC and the USA - 21st Century

For centuries, immigrants have come to America to seek the "American Dream" of a better life and a place where they were treated as equals amongst the population. This dream has been fulfilled by many people, we have all heard or read the stories over the years of the "poor immigrant who made good" in the United States.

 How we identify these individuals has changed over the years. In particular, early immigrants would be identified by their country of origin without any reference to being American, they would simply identify themselves and be identified as, say, Irish. This slowly transitioned into the hyphenated version of Irish-American, especially for follow on generations, while the ancestors would still be identified as Irish.

 This type of identification would,and does, imply that there is an inherent trait or characteristic of these individuals based on the country of origin of their ancestors. And this type of identification leads to some serious issues.