the prevailing ideas on Americanization of the time such as the idea that there should be some American standard that all new citizens need to live up to, that people needed to leave behind the lives and customs they had in the old country and remake themselves anew in America. He calls out those that would shed their past in the name of progress stating "Those carpenters' sons who are ashamed that their fathers are carpenters! Those born in America who are ashamed of the mother who reared them, because she wears an Indian apron, and who disown their sick mother, the scoundrels, abandoning her on her sick bed!”. The idea that Americans need not shed their past but rather embrace it comes up as a repeated theme throughout the essay. The essay makes the point that to establish an American identity people need to break away from Europe, from its history, its politics, and its culture. Instead, Martí urges Americans to instead to mine the rich history of the Americas. He says, "The history of America, from the Incas to the present must be taught in clear detail and to the letter, even if the archons of Greece are overlooked. Our Greece must take priority over the Greece which is not ours". Here Martí makes the point that for America to succeed it must use the knowledge and history that pertains to it and that European ideas were not formed in America and therefore do not take into account the realities of this American continent. Martí feels that people should be proud of being American, and not in some jingoistic or nationalistic sense but in the sense of being proud of history of the land and the people that inhabit it. He feels that the struggles that the masses have gone through here on this continent makes America unique among nations, that the common struggle of such disparate people is unique. He writes, "Never in history have such advanced and united nations been forged in so short a time from such disorganized elements". Here the point is made that while being a young country on a young continent America has overcome these obstacles and made itself a world power. Author and Political Activist Charles W. Chesnutt Charles W. Chesnutt wrote a literary review of William Hannibal Thomas's The American Negro: What He Was, What He Is, and What He