I know X is a form for clever clap backs. But I want to have a real conversation on this. You see, Lincoln had to answer the same objections about the Americanness of recent immigrants. Back then, many claimed that those with French and German and Scandinavian blood were not American because their family did not fight in the Revolution. How can you be an American if no one in your family, not a great grandfather or great uncle, spilled blood fighting for this country? Today the question is put to those of us of Indian heritage, or Mexican, or Chinese, to Hindus and Muslims, Jews and Buddhists. What did your family do in this country’s wars? What did they build? Where do you sit in the hierarchy of Americans? Some tech barons would count your votes by your net worth, as if the only value that matters is what wealth you produce. The heritage school answers with a different ledger. Your standing as an American should be measured by how much your family has bled or sacrificed. Lincoln answered the heritage school in some of the most beautiful words ever written in the English language. His speech for July 4, 1858 has more wisdom than everything collectively ever written on X, or for that matter, social media. Lincoln said that if you believe in the Constitution, if you believe in the Declaration of Independence, then there is an electric chord that links your heart to the hearts of the men who fought in the Revolution for those principles, and that you are blood of the blood and flesh of the flesh of our founders. He articulated why our nation, unique in the history of the world, is constituted based on a devotion to a common set of ideals and principles. I attach the text below. If even a few who engaged with my tweet read it, well, then our country would be a little better for it. Dinesh the irony is that the President you worked for --Ronald Reagan --who gave an Indian immigrant with a thick accent a job in his White House knew this Lincoln passage very well.