In the prologue of all we say the battle for American identity, author Ben Rhodes asked two questions to get right to the heart of this battle.

What does it mean to be an American and who gets to decide? As we approach our 250th anniversary, these are questions that many Americans are also

deeply contemplating. How have 15 speeches shaped and reflected that debate over history? And can

they help us understand our ongoing and evolving search for a national identity?

Music ongoing and evolving search for a national identity. Hello and welcome to USA Today's The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Monday, June 1st,

2026. Ben Rhodes is a former national security advisor and speech writer to President Barack Obama. It's so good to speak

with you, Ben. Thanks, Dana. Good to be with you. Well, some speakers profiled in your book

have stood out historically for their ability to persuade and motivate Martin Luther King,

Jr. comes to mind. Others were far less known, people like Mary Lees or Dolores Swartha. What led you to

choose these 15 speeches and speakers? Well, I wasn't looking for the 15 greatest or most well-known

speeches. I wanted 15 speeches that portrayed different parts of this struggle over American identity that you identified.

You know, if you were to shorthand it, there's kind of two predominant stories in America.

There's a story of a kind of inherited exceptionalism that is a more traditional nationalism.

This is an inheritor of Western traditions and supremacy. It's essentially a white

Christian nation where there are other people, but you are kind of subordinated to the predominant

identity. And then you have a more progressive story of America trying to live up to the

creed and the Declaration of Independence about equality. That's the movement for abolition and suffrage and

civil rights. Are we a country that is constantly seeking to live up to something that we have

not, or are we a country that has a kind of fixed identity? And so the speakers I chose all reflected

different windows into that debate from different perspectives.

You know, as you mentioned, a Dolores Huerta reflects in that speech, her speaking up for

not just farm workers, but Latinos in this country and saying, we are here to embody our needs

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