There’s a bit more to say about Democrat Illinois Rep. Delia Ramírez, who in her recent opening remarks at the second annual Panamerican Congress in Mexico City declared (in Spanish), “I am a proud Guatemalan before I am American.”
You might think, as I initially did, that Ramírez is an immigrant from Guatemala. But she was actually born in Chicago. Her mother illegally entered the United States by crossing the Rio Grande while she was pregnant, which gave Ramírez birthright citizenship. In common parlance, she’s an “anchor baby.”
That Ramírez, a natural-born American citizen, sees herself as a Guatemalan first is telling, and it gives us a window into the mindset of the political left, which believes it’s problematic, even shameful, to identify as simply an American — that there is something wrong with being an American as such, and something uniquely noble or praiseworthy about being an unassimilated immigrant and a foreigner.
Telling, too, was Ramírez’s reaction after negative coverage of her remarks by conservative outlets and social media. She issued a statement that almost perfectly distills her animating ideology. “Let’s call it what it is: today’s attacks are a weak attempt to silence my dissent and invalidate my patriotic criticism of the nativist, white supremacist, authoritarians in government.”
She went on: “No one questions when my white colleagues identify as Irish-American, Italian-American, or Ukrainian-American to honor their ancestry. I’ve consistently expressed pride in my heritage and history — a pride also often reflected in the origin stories of my colleagues. Only those who believe America should not include the children of immigrants or be diverse would attack me — and Americans like me — for honoring my roots. Honoring my Guatemalan ancestry only strengthens my commitment to America.”
Ramírez is here attempting a clumsy bit of legerdemain, claiming to honor her ancestry when in fact she was placing it above her national allegiance and identity as an American. And of course her comparison to her white colleagues is totally dishonest. No American with Irish or Italian ancestry goes around proclaiming they’re an Irishman or an Italian before they’re an American. It’s like pretending, as many on the left have done, that waving a Mexican flag during an anti-ICE riot is the same as waving an Irish flag at a Saint Patrick’s Day parade. At the parade, you’re actually paying homage to your ancestry. At the riot, you’re staking a claim against the nation to which you have emigrated, essentially declaring war against it.
full story at https://thefederalist.com/2025/08/08/mass-immigration-legal-or-illegal-is-incompatible-with-national-survival/