Patriotism is not something you have or don't have

Great op-ed in the LA Times today about history, American Indians and the nuanced ways we should understand patriotism. Michael Elliott writes about the Indians who defeated Custer in the iconic battle, and the lesser known facts that Indians also fought alongside Custer, and that many members of his opponents' tribes fought the next year with the U.S. Army against the Nez Perce. He moves from this example to the apparent conflict between high enlistment rates among Native Americans, and the fact that their tribes claim independence from the US.

Another example: 

The Lakota Sioux offered some of the most fierce resistance to the United States in the 1860s and 1870s, but in the decades that followed, Lakota artists regularly incorporated the design of the U.S. flag into their beadwork, painting and weaving. What those stars and stripes meant to the Lakota artists could vary widely: In their hands, the U.S. flag could be a gesture of their new allegiance, a plea for justice from the U.S., a symbol of the nation for which their young men were no fighting or simply a decorative motif they knew to be popular with collectors. It might have been all of these things at the same time.

Ultimately Elliott concludes that "genuine patriotism can still take place amid divided loyalties. Americans are capable of more nuanced thinking about what it means to be an American than we usually give ourselves credit for," and that this genuine patriotism is "too big to fit on a lapel pin."

Agreed.