- Utah leads nationwide initiative called "America's Potluck" for America 250.
- The initiative invites people to host a neighborhood meal on Sunday, July 5.
- Gov. Cox called America a "creedal nation" that can overcome differences.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox chose to begin the Western Governors’ Association annual summer gathering in Park City on Tuesday with a bold statement on American identity as the country approaches 250 years old.
Filing in front of the governors of seven western states to flank the U.S. and Utah flags were two dozen students of Hispanic descent, dressed in traditional Mexican mariachi attire, prepared to play the national anthem.
After the color guard exited the room, the band played “America The Beautiful.” The choir brought new life to his favorite hymn, Cox said, underscoring the power of America to unite people with distinct customs.
Then, Cox made his position clear on a fault line that has increasingly divided conservative commentators about what it means to belong in the United States of America — and whether mass immigration threatens to unravel it.
Being American, according to the governor, means accepting the truths set out in the Declaration of Independence, that men and women are given equal rights by God to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
“As a creedal nation, we believe in those things, and it makes us patriots together,” Cox said. “Even if we have different backgrounds, different faiths, different families, different experiences, we can all have those things together, and we can solve problems together.”
The idea that America was founded on shared beliefs about self-government, personal responsibility and God-given rights, instead of on ethnic or religious ties, is quickly becoming outmoded in corners of the Republican Party.
What is a ‘Heritage American’?
The phrase “Heritage American,” referring to family lines extending to U.S. residents before the 20th century, is now synonymous with the America First worldview articulated maybe most famously by Vice President JD Vance.
In his vice presidential nomination acceptance speech in 2024, Vance declared that the U.S. is first and foremost a homeland, “not just an idea,” with a particular history tied to a specific group of people who helped to build it.
By December 2025, the question of whether American identity depended more on principles and “abstractions,” as Vance described them, or on immutable blood and soil characteristics had transformed into a political flashpoint.
Ohio GOP gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who gained national recognition during his 2024 presidential run, wrote an opinion piece for The New York Times arguing that identity politics rising on the right, mirroring what happened on the left under “wokeism,” undermines the country’s ideals.
The article prompted a wave of angry social media reactions, and a flurry of columns backing Ramaswamy’s points, and even more tearing them apart for downplaying the importance of common ancestry, culture and values.
By calling America a “creedal nation,” Cox clearly sided with Ramaswamy, affirming an ideas-first definition of what makes the U.S. unique for people like Latter-day Saints who were not always welcomed by a majority of the population.
The governor has taken this approach one step further to celebrate America’s 250th by leading a national initiative to bring diverse peoples together for what he sees as a metaphor for what makes America great: a potluck.
What is America’s Potluck?
America’s Potluck, promoted by America 250 Utah, invites people around the country to host a communal meal on Sunday, July 5, to kick off the next 250 years of the U.S. by finding common ground around good food and dialogue.
The concept was coined by Interfaith America founder Eboo Patel, an admirer of Cox, as he said in the Deseret News in 2022, and in a commencement address for the University of Utah graduating class of 2024.
In a joint interview, Cox and Patel explained why a potluck is the perfect place to practice the kind of pluralism that they believe is essential to strengthen communities, maintain democracy and forge a collective American identity.
“The metaphor of bringing the best of people together without trying to change them, but also recognizing that you get this beautiful thing when we’re all in one place and sharing food,” Cox told the Deseret News.
The Beehive State is well positioned to lead out on this, according to Cox, because of its No. 1 rankings on metrics of social capital, which include neighborhood service, strong families, charitable giving and community cohesion.
Utah is an example of how people with clear community and doctrinal values can create an environment of positive civic engagement with other groups, according to Patel, whose fascination with the state dates back nearly 20 years.
A potluck physically demonstrates how communities benefit from a variety of ingredients, flavors and viewpoints, Patel said. Like potluck meals, groups do not need to abandon what makes them special to work toward common aims.
Can potlucks bridge polarization?
The secret to potlucks is they give people an opportunity to sit down with community members they may otherwise disagree with on political, social or religious issues, Patel said.
What he has found is that potlucks rarely become contentious because humans are more willing to give others grace, and to seek understanding face-to-face.
“Recognize that what you already do in your neighborhood is a profound act of American pluralism and lean into it a little bit more,’” he told the Deseret News. “Technology cannot fill your soul and it cannot fill your belly. Potlucks can do both.”
A potluck is different from a melting pot, Patel points out. Some “factional disagreements” do not disappear in a process of assimilation. They are unbridgeable. A potluck implies that can add to a better society, Patel said.
But Cox recognizes there are problems when unchecked immigration overwhelms a country.
In 2023, at the height of President Joe Biden’s border crisis, the share of the U.S. population born somewhere else reached a new high of 15.2%, following the largest surge of net migration in U.S. history of at least 8 million people.
Fixing the immigration system is a separate issue from how the country embraces a diverse population, Cox said. The nation has grappled with this going back to controversies over influxes of German, Irish and Mexican migrants.
“We found a way to bring people together. Not only can we, and not only have we in the past, but we must again,” he said. “We have to be more thoughtful about immigration, who comes and when. All of those things do matter, but there is room at our table for people who aren’t exactly like me.”
You can learn more about Utah’s nationwide America’s Potluck initiative at america250.utah.gov/utahpotluck.