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The more we divide ourselves the more problems America will have. It is that simple. A lot of Asian kids today have nothing in common with Asia other than Pokemon...
I just came back to America after a short trip to some places I wanted to visit. On my last trip, I went to Italy and Namibia. One thing I learned from this trip is we as American's divide ourselves so much. My taxi driver was actually an Asian man, but he said he was just plain Italian. He didn't feel the need to describe to say he was Asian-Italian.
So my point is I am not African American, and I am not a Black American. I am an American. Why are minorities labeled as sub-Americans? I don't see anyone saying Euro-American. Are white people the only true Americans? No. These labels just divide us. This causes a lot of problems. Why do we do this?
Still looks can be deceiving much of Europe has it sections of major cities with only the rich living near each other. But like US major cities with its Italian& Chinese sections its quite the right of people to live now they like as long as they are peaceful. and obey the laws.Causian amercans is often used and on most forms or white after all.
Labels in themselves are not the problem. Nothing wrong with variety.
In Hawaii, people are please to be able to rattle off as many ancestral ethnicities in their background as possible. Yes, there is a negativity to racism even there, but also a certain healthy attitude about the variety. Nobody wants to be "nothing" (and only a few people can be "Hawaiian").
The problem with being "American" is that there are too many definitions of what that means.
When I was a kid, I was taught very clearly by the majority culture that I was not part of their culture, and would never be. My people and I were kept separate from the majority culture, not allowed to become part of them. Eventually, I became aware that it wasn't a morally superior culture anyway--they just had more guns--so I haven't hankered for membership since then.
Here it is in regards to African Americans. Africans were brought to America and stripped of their identity and their family structure totally destroyed. Then throw in lack of financial, social, and educational opportunity and people wonder why there are issues within the African American community? Do a search on Black Wall Street and other incidents of what happened when Blacks were doing for themselves. Next search how Blacks were treated during war times. My point is America has had a hard time embracing their own people. Please don't bring Native Americans in the topic. How many people know anything about how the Asians were treated during the World War 2? We are all Americans one nation under God. Sounds good but walk in another man's shoes.
We have had large groups of immigrants come to this country, set up small towns representing their identity. They still do to this day, they see America as a place for financial opportunity, not for social purposes or bonding socially.
America is a capitalist run government, our country is based on opportunities, it's about an opportunity to make a living doing whatever you can see fit. It's not a socialist government where we take the equality and welfare of our social structure first, we just don't have that warm and fuzzy feeling about each other, we compete for our opportunity. We are a unique country that way and I'm afraid your wish of equality will never come true under such a competitive structure.
In order to change this, you'd have to first change the entire structure of American ideals. What we think is important isn't unity, it's divide and conquer as quoted above. We conquer here, we seek opportunity first, unity second. Immigrants hold on to their backgrounds, they aren't here because they want a new family. They are here because they want to make more money, for better opportunities. They set up small communities that mimic their past countries to feel comfortable, to identify, while using America for opportunities their countries had a hard time offering them. They want money, not friends or family, they don't want to identify with America socially. You come from others that did this as well. As far as blacks go, what exactly do they have to feel good about historically? They can never identify because they were stolen and used for American opportunity.
Last I checked we are still capitalists first, socialist second. You won't get that fuzzy feeling until that is switched or hell freezes over.
A somewhat oversimplified answer to the original question:
We do it because its a natural consequence of our upbringing -- all of us. From birth until we begin truly venturing out into the world (e.g. preschool, kindergarten, etc.) we are raised in an insular, largely monolithic and monocultural society -- our parents, grandparents, aunts/uncles, siblings, cousins, neighbors. Through our experiences in this society we learn our values, our sense of right-and-wrong, and 'how things are done.' From this we develop our own personal "yardstick" by which we measure the goodness/badness, rightness/wrongness of our own behaviors and that of others around us.
This works well within that insular society. However, as we get older we begin encountering others who are NOT from that same society. When we apply our "yardstick" to them, we often find that they "don't measure up." Then we begin discovering entire groups of people who don't think and feel and believe and behave exactly like we do.
We begin judging and labeling, and this continues throughout our lives. This is where biases and stereotypes come from. This is where ethnocentricity, that most disturbing human trait, comes from. And this is where bigotry -- in all of its myriad forms -- comes from.
Unless we are specially and specifically taught otherwise, at a pretty young age, this type of thing haunts us all of our lives. Human beings carry with them an entire network of individual-, group- and culture-based biases and stereotypes.
There's no harm in having them, because we all do. The harm comes when we begin acting on them.
I agree, I am American, I view others as humans and I hardly think about other's ethnicity or my own.
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Well boy-howdy, what won't they think of next? 
