Instead of 13 stripes and 50 stars for colonies and states, this flag features 7 stripes and 27 stars for Articles of the Constitution and ensuing Amendments to it. I feel like mere territorial growth doesn’t tell the story of America’s development as a society and republic as well as tracking the changes to its constitution. Especially the voting rights amendments.
Colors borrow from the cardinal direction colors used by Indigenous American nations, (black and blue are interchangeable depending on which nation your speaking to). This was done to bake some land recognition into the flag.
Lastly the torch of Lady Liberty is included both to visually distinct the flag from the original stars and stripes, but also to signify America’s status as a nation of immigrants. 99% of all Americans today either are an immigrant themselves or have an ancestor within living memory who was one, and Lady Liberty became a sort of patron saint of such folks by being the first sight a lot of people saw coming to America for the first time, not to mention how she’s technically an immigrant herself having been gifted from france.
That’s a shocking stat to me. My perspective is probably skewed because I am from a small town in central Appalachia so nearly everyone in the county was from one of the families that settled the area shortly before the American Revolution. I would have assumed the percentage of people whose families immigrated here before the Civil War was much higher.
I don’t think it is correct either, but consider this:
If the family is native american/settled before the civil war, but a single person married into the family who immigrated later, then the whole branch of the family tree falls under “immigrant in living memory”.
FWIW, I’ve heard this statistic before as “Only 1% of Americans today are Native Americans” which feels a bit closer, though a quick Google indicates puts that number closer to 3%. That fact sort of inherently rejects the 99% claim, which indicates to me it may be exaggerated or has been repeated in slight error.
The 3% is a reason to be skeptical, but doesn’t necessarily refute the 99% claim. A person can be a Native American, part of their community, and have a grandparent who was an immigrant. 2/3 of them at minimum would need to have a similar situation at minimum, but it’s less than the percent who live outside reservations (78%) so it doesn’t seem totally far-fetched. It seems high though to be sure
That presumes that all of that 3% of Indigenous folks are of pure indigenous american decent, which for a variety of reasons, doesn’t really jive with the reality of things.
Fact of the matter is that what people primarily identify as rarely reflects the whole story of their heritage, and even people who’s families are seemingly untouched by outside influence in centuries turn out to have a great grandparent who only signed documents the way they did because they were told to at Ellis Island when the clerk Americanized their name.