America is not about diversity. It never has been.

Most Americans today, like me, have ancestors who came from other countries to become Americans. My ancestors came from Germany, from the Netherlands, from England and Scotland, from countries that had grown old and tired and from countries that had grown tyrannical. They came to America to flee what they had known. My ancestry, like that of so many in this country, is a rich diversity of cultures and histories.

But today, I don’t speak German. My name does not reflect the Dutch history in my family. I do not owe allegiance to any king, and I do not speak with a Scottish brogue. The diversity of my ancestors has been lost in the generations that separate them from me. What do they all have in common?

What they have in common is America. They left countries and cultures to become Americans. They stopped pledging allegiance to a variety of flags in order to pledge allegiance to one flag that bore stars and stripes. They stopped speaking German or Dutch and gave up their English or Scottish accents. Their choices in foods and clothing styles changed as they became Americans. This was not a celebration of diversity. It was a celebration of something far greater.

America has traditionally been described as a melting pot. Diversity goes in, but all is blended to make something new that comes out. That new thing is a love for freedom. People left cultures and ancestries and countries because they were not free; they came to America to be free.

This was not a do-your-own-thing kind of freedom. It was not a freedom used to preserve that which was no longer appropriate. It was not a freedom-to-be-me thing. It was a freedom to be an American that they sought and obtained.

They did not come to America with the intention of having America change for them or accommodate them. They came to America with the intention of becoming Americans. The change was for them, not for the country to which they had come. They did not come expecting America to adopt its laws or its culture to please them. They came to adopt America’s laws and cultures as their own. They did not come to preserve their diversity. They came to be melted into Americans.

America is much stronger when it celebrates freedom, and weaker when it celebrates diversity. This weakens us because it divides us. When we focus on our different languages, religions, cultures and traditions, we become less one and more many. This is not to say everyone should be expected to throw away their individual cultures and languages. It is to say that we do better when we have a common goal, which is the defense of freedom, and we do not do as well when our goals are diverse.

For decades, our coins have born the motto e pluribus unum, “from many, one.” But celebrating diversity turns this motto around, encouraging us to be less unified and more different. But it is still true that a house divided against itself cannot stand.

Let us celebrate freedom, not diversity. Let us seek to be unified though diverse. Let us be Americans first and all the other things we are second.