EBR approved. Shout out to
@JoeyB2198 for the
original idea.
Vereinigten Völker von Amerika
United Peoples of America
Pueblos Unidos de America
…
The station was bustling with activity as I stepped off the train after riding it from Sacramento International Airport. As I walked through the train terminal, I could easily see and hear what made this iteration of the United States, or the United Peoples as it is known here, unique in the multiverse. From the general hubbub of the rush hour crowd, I could catch snippets of conversations in English, German, Chinese, and Spanish. Signs helpfully listed directions in various languages and indoor digital billboards flashed as they flipped between even more languages, advertising various products. In a way it reminded me of the bustling halls of the Nutshell.
The cultural pluralism of the United Peoples of America is famous throughout the world. The country being a self declared land of promise for immigrants from around the world isn’t a rarity in the multiverse. However in this world’s America, instead of pursuing a policy of assimilation, a policy of acceptance allowed these immigrants maintained their cultural heritage and identity, resulting in one of the most linguistically and culturally diverse countries in the world. German is the most widely spoken language in the country, followed by English, Spanish, Italian, Polish, and many many more.
From the station, it was a short stroll through the streets of downtown Sacramento to the German District. I did not walk long before the multilingual storefronts and advertisements transitioned to mostly German and the packed eateries served German cuisine. The tantalizing smell of roasted meat wafted in the air and my stomach grumbled, but I had an important meeting first. The offices of the Northern Californian branch of the
Zentrumspartei were easy enough to spot; although it was a rather unassuming modern office building, it was draped in the green-white banners of the party. After entering the lobby, I saw my contact, State Assembly representative Stefan Heitkamp waiting for me.
“Ah Mr. Chana!” he said in German as extended his arm for a handshake, which I took. The fifty year old gentleman shook my hand with some enthusiasm.
“I would have asked you to meet me at my office, but I happened to be tied up at the party office when you landed. I hope you don’t mind if we do the interview here.” he smiled sheepishly.
I shook his hand and asked him to lead the way.
We stepped onto an elevator and rode it to the fourth floor, where a secretary directed us to an empty conference room. An American flag hung on the wall, but what caught my eye was the black-red-gold flag of the German republican movement that hung next to it. After making ourselves comfortable, I pointed out the German flag and asked if they considered themselves Americans.
“Of course!” he said in accented English “Just because we choose to remember their heritage it doesn’t mean we aren’t proud Americans. We are loyal to the United States and no one else.”
I wasn’t satisfied by this answer and pressed on.
“Sure some do have a connection to their ancestor’s homeland, which I feel is only natural” he admitted. “However those born on American soil, only know America as home and nowhere else. Accusing loyal Americans of dual loyalty and treason just because they speak a different language is wrong and belongs in the past.”
I asked if any politicians employed such rhetoric.
He shook his head.“The last time any politicians seriously suggested that, it was during the Troubles of the 1910s”.
The origins of the United Peoples’ policy is still subject to debate among historians, but the general consensus is that a policy adopted in 1795 by the Old United States, that required translation of federal laws into German began this policy. However this policy created backlash among English-speaking Americans, as Revolutions in Europe brought more and more immigrants to America's shores. These nativist feelings fueled the return of the American Party (also known as the Know Nothings) after the Civil War. As the American Party pulled in nativist voters, the traditional bases of the Whigs and the Democrats began to shun those parties as they supported continued immigration, in part because it shored up their voting blocs. As their traditional bases atrophied, they pursued very specific demographics brought over by the waves of immigration.
By the 20th century, both parties were a loose front for the interests of immigrant voters, namely German and Irish voters respectively. It did not take long before other ethnicities formed their own political parties to advance their own interests. Meanwhile, the American Party became a party exclusively for English speaking Americans and continued to promote cultural and linguistic assimilation. As the political landscape fractured, it became increasingly difficult to govern the country. Tensions grew until it exploded during the 1910s, a period aptly called the Troubles.
I asked him to explain the events of that decade. He grimaced.
“When I was young, my grandfather told me of the violence that he witnessed. The street fighting between the English, the Germans, Italians, and the Irish was incredibly bloody.”
I asked what caused the Troubles, to which he sighed.
“The Troubles were the culmination of decades of rising tensions between the ethnic communities of America. It was made worse by the fact that the United States government could barely govern.”
I asked him to explain.
“The Founders were great men but they could have never foreseen the ethnic centered parties. Under the old constitution, House elections often resulted in the largest party consistently winning with less than a majority of the vote and shutting out everyone else. It resulted in an unrepresentative legislature and some rather angry people. That is not even mentioning the nightmare that was the presidential elections; there were contingent elections for 6 elections straight, each more contentious than the last. What finally lit the spark was the Great Crisis in Europe.”
The Great Crisis?
“
Ja. In 1912, the Emperor of Germany was assassinated by a group of Polish nationalists which turned out to be tied to the Russian Empire. By the end of the month, the entirety of Europe was ready to go to war and our country was ready to burst into flames. Even in the 20th century, many Polish and German Americans were still first generation immigrants and brought Old World disputes and animosity. Tensions that had simmered between the Polish and German communities exploded into violence and things only escalated from there. In Europe cooler heads prevailed in the end, but in the United States, the violence continued for another year.”
And the government couldn’t stop the violence?
“Of course! If the government was a mess before the crisis, it all but stopped working at the start of the Troubles. The Constitution made federal elections, especially Presidential elections, during the crisis nearly impossible. It took months before the moderates in all the parties finally decided to work together but by then it was already too late. It took until 1914 for the worst of the violence to subside. The toll was horrific.” He shook his head sadly.
And that was when it was decided that constitutional changes had to be made?
Mr. Heitkamp nodded. “It was abundantly clear to the reformers that the old Constitution could not effectively represent the peoples of America which contributed to the ethnic violence of the Troubles. At first, the reformers thought that it could be addressed with several constitutional amendments, but it soon became clear that comprehensive constitutional reform was needed. Eventually a Constitutional Convention was called and a reform committee consisting of representatives from the German, English, Italian, Irish, and the Polish communities was created. After three years of hard negotiations and writing we came out with a Constitution that we all agreed on.”
So what did you change?
“Well the original rights of the American people were reaffirmed, but the New Writers also affirmed the rights of the peoples of America. It was called the Second Bill of Rights.”
What did it entail?
“First it declared the creation of the United Peoples of America, a federal state organized to deal with the many languages, religions, cultures, and ethnicities within its borders. The New Consitution protects all Americans, it ensures that we all shall not face discrimination regardless of their ethnic and cultural origins. The key piece of it was that the government cannot favor or disfavor the use of any language over the others, ensuring that no language could be declared the official language of the United Peoples and that no language could be suppressed. In addition the federal government was required to support all recognized languages and set about a process to do recognize it. It took only several months to complete the Second Bill of Rights. It was easy compared to the Census and reorganizing the government.”
The Census?
“Yes a lot of the reforms depended on an accurate and comprehensive census to work properly. In the new Constitution, they added a question asking about ethnicity to the census so the government could accurately track the total population of a community. We made sure to exclude ‘American’ as an option.”
I asked him to explain why.
“The former American Party and its supporters liked to call themselves true Americans, implying that the non-English speaking communities weren’t. We made sure to avoid the implication of a ‘true’ American ethnicity.”
What were the government reforms?
“The New Framers sought to ensure that the peoples of America would be fairly represented in the federal government. The House of Representatives would be elected by statewide proportional representation instead by districts, allowing the results to be as close to the state's demographics as possible. In the Senate each state, depending on their population, can receive up to four additional Senators. Each senate seat is reserved for the largest ethnic communities in that state. Here in Northern California we have 4 Senate seats, which are given to the German, Spanish, Chinese, and Irish communities. Finally to prevent the messes of the contingent elections, it was removed and the Electoral College is allowed to vote multiple rounds. The states were left to their own devices, but all of them reformed their governments to better represent their peoples.”
How well has the system worked since then?
“Well I argue it has worked out rather well, despite the political landscape of America significantly changing in the past century. I won’t deny that there were some major bumps in the road, but the system has ensured that the peoples of America are represented and protected.”
What do you mean by significant changes?
“Back when the new Constitution was ratified, there was only one monolithic ethnic political party for every ethnic group in America. However in the 1960s, this state of affairs began to break down as these political parties split or collapsed entirely due to ideological disagreements. For example my party,
Zentrum, suffered a major split in 1965, when the socialists left to form the
Sozialdemokratische Partei. Most of the other parties suffered the same. Today our politics are not only divided by ethnic and linguistic lines but by ideological divisions as well.”
I asked if he could explain the political parties.
He chuckled. “Oh dear.” He pulled a sheet of paper from a folder he was carrying. “There are many, but I can go over the major ones. We the Germans, have the leftist Social Democratic Party and the liberal-conservative Center Party, the Mexicans have the moderate National Liberals, and the Conservative Party, the Blacks have the conservative Freemen’s Party and the more moderate Free Labor, the English have the liberal Whig Party and the nativist People’s Party, and the Irish have the liberal Popular Republicans and the conservative Liberal Republicans. These aren’t all of them of course. There are parties for the Italians and the Polish as well.” He laughed.
Are there any parties that aren’t based upon ethnicity?
He paused and shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah there is one notable one, the New American Party. Bunch of naive idealists, those lot” he said vaguely.
I could tell he was dodging my questions about them, so I drew my interview to a close. I was supposed to return back to the Nutshell, but my interest was piqued by the mention of the New American Party. After spending the rest of my day sampling the local cuisine and snooping around, I was able to arrange an interview with a member of the state party leadership the next morning.
The next day, I went down to a city plaza to where the meeting was supposed to take place. It was another warm pleasant day and the square was full of people enjoying the sunshine, including a group of young teenagers chatting with each other. I was organizing my notes from the interview yesterday when the teenagers entered in earshot. I paused in confusion when I realized that I didn’t recognize the language and my confusion only grew as I recognized German, Spanish, and Chinese words. I was so lost in thought, I didn’t notice my contact, Maria Lopez, a 28 year old chairperson of the New American Party had arrived. I apologized for not noticing her arrival and greeted her properly. I was just about to begin the interview when I noticed her looking at the teenagers like I was.
“Do you know what language they are speaking Mr. Chana?” she asked in Spanish.
I shook my head.
“It's a creole language, one of many in the United Peoples; the result of cultural interaction by the newer generations of Americans. That language that they are fluently speaking did not exist 50 years ago.”
Surely interactions between the ethnic communities is nothing new?
She turned to look at me. “Traditional animosity between the communities limited cross cultural interactions for decades, but that barrier started breaking down in the 1980s. Until that point things like interethnic relationships and marriage were highly discouraged. Especially marriages.”
I heard bitterness in her voice.
“On the rare occasion that it happened, the unspoken rule was that the wife and kids had to adopt the culture of the husband. Although many of the older generation still held onto their old beliefs, the stigma and pressure among younger Americans is almost completely absent. Interethnic marriages are now common and many of the young people growing up today don’t strongly identify with any existing ethnic group, if at all. I think you can imagine the problems that can arise in a country whose laws use ethnicity as a way to govern?”
They don’t fit any category.
She snapped her fingers. “Exactly! For a large number of young adults, they don’t fit in this political system that revolves around ethnicities. That is what the New American Party is for; representing these Americans as well as the smaller immigrant communities that have always been excluded.”
The other communities?
She scoffed. “Oh of course that wasn’t mentioned in your other interview. Did that person mention that there isn’t a notable Chinese-American Party or a Norwegian-American Party? It's because these communities are small and lack the voter base to win anything. Furthermore they cannot suffer party splits like the major parties have, lest they fall under the 5% threshold present for most elections. Even though they may seek their support with token offerings, the major parties are still focused on representing the interests of their own communities. Communities like the Chinese have been sidelined for decades, but the New American Party is changing that.”
What are your plans?
“Right now our biggest obstacle is the Senate because its seats are distributed to ethnic groups and as far as the federal government is concerned, a mixed ethnicity doesn't exist. To get around this, we are fighting to add another ethnicity to the next census in 2020. This new group will be called the ‘New Americans’ to represent the birth of new kind of American in this country. Secondly we will get the government to recognize the creoles as legitimate languages because it isn't just slang; it is the languages of the newer generations. With seats in the Senate and the House, we can bring a voice to the growing community of New Americans and the other communities that were always left behind. We don’t plan on dismantling the system as many of our opponents claim; for all its flaws it does well to represent the peoples of America. But the fact of the matter is that the New Constitution hasn’t fairly represented everyone and it will continue to do so unless my party acts.”
I slowly drew the interview to a close and was just about to bid her goodbye when she asked me a question.
“I know you visited the state office for the
Zentrumspartei yesterday for your interview. Who did you meet with?”
I answered that I met a man named Mr. Heitkamp and that he was very pleasant to interview.
“Will you see him again before you leave?”
I shook my head. I told her that I would be heading straight back to the Nutshell.
“Shame,” she replied with a smirk. “I would have asked you to tell him that his daughter says hello.”