The only way I can assess that proposition intellectually is by comparing it to something else. The word 'unique' is inherently comparative. That means, say, comparing Bulgarian Americans to Irish Americans, or to Korean Americans, or to Bulgarians, Irish, and Koreans in other parts of the world in order to explore what may have shaped a particular group and how it sees itself. Similarly, if I am interested in the politics of ethnicity in the United States, I'll want to know how this differs from the politics of other sorts of things, like conflict over economic issues. The experience of race in the United States is dramatically different from that of ethnicity.
Ethnicity is much more plastic than race.
And, at Harvard, the study of ethnicity is already a well-established subject in most departments in the humanities and the social sciences. Scholarship and teaching on ethnic studies are especially vibrant thanks to the contributions of various departments, disciplines, methodologies, and intellectual traditions.