Hogwash!
The immigration debate has always been the same, and the anti-Immigrant nativists have always made the same arguments. Now people who are continuing an anti-immigrant campaign that has lasted over 100 years are claiming that somehow their hatred of today's immigrants is somehow different than before.
Your argument is not new. It has been the same tire Nativist rant from 100 years ago. The idea is that America belongs to White Protestant Europeans and admitting too many aliens who didn't meet this category would dilute the purity of the American (White Protestant) race.
Latinos assimilate fine, just like the immigrants before them. The people who received amnesty in 1986 and are now doctors and lawyers show this. Just like immigrants before them, the second and third generation Hispanic immigrant now know English with many gaining education and success.
You are now making the same accusations against Latinos that they made against the Chinese, Catholics and Jews. The Chinese exclusion act, racial quota laws and doubts whether a Catholoic could be president were all parts of this.
Assimilation doesn't mean forcing everyone to be white and Protestant. Some of the best parts of America come from elsewhere-- Jazz and cappucino for example.
Do you take exception to the Orthodox Jewish communities in New YorkCity (and elsewhere)?
We have fought very hard in this country to live up to the idea of "Liberty and Justice for all". This means defending the rights of people to be different and trusting that each part will add to the whole. History, and the current richness of our culture, shows that this has been the right policy.
Multiculturalism is the best of America.
Nobody said that. Assimilation does require that newcomers learn our customs, laws, and traditions, language, and history. Some immigrants bring customs and habits with them to are unacceptable in our society
I am asking for you to answer this question with some real substance to this question. Please elaborate what customs, laws, tradition and history you are talking about.
- and today's immigrants are just like the yesterdays immigrants.
I really don't get the bilingual education thing. Education works when there is local control. Parents should be free to decide what is best for their kids without outside interference. When there is disagreement about schooling, there is a political process from local constituents to decide what is best.
My nieces are in a bilingual school. Their parents (both American citizens) decided that it was best and that they wanted their kids to stay in touch with their language. Our local community supports this school and has voted for it.
My niece's are fully American and speak English as well anyone (and love Disney, each hotdogs and watch to much TV). The difference is that they also know Spanish (and knowing more is never a problem). This school has a good measurable success rate to the point that some non-Hispanic families send their kids they just for the educational value.
These are American citizens sending their kids to the school of their choice based on their American values and beliefs about what is best for their kids. This school is supported by voters who have chosen to fund it.
This is what liberty means. I don't see why you are against this?
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Atavastic.
Your ideas about what it means to be an American are quite a bit different than mine.
As background, not that it should matter, I trace my family roots on both sides to before the Revolutionary war. The last of my blood relatives immigrated from Germany late in the 19th century.
The reason that I say this is that my ideals of what it means to be an American are at least as legitimate as yours.
You quote "E pluibus Unum"... but I don't think this really speaks of the core ideals that America is based on. To me the most important part of American Indentity is embodied in this quote...
Quote:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
I see American history, the civil war, the civil rights movement, the fight for womans suffrage and the current struggles for gay marriage and immigrant rights as part of a continual struggle for these core American ideals.
As one American citizen to another I want to tell you very clearly. I doubt if you and I share many values or mores or folkways. I doubt if we even share heroes-- at least I would bet that my list of the 10 most heroic Americans in history would not contain any of your top 10.
I consider myself Patriotic just as you do, I doubt we mean the same thing when we say this.
The fact that I disagree with you does not make me any less American than you. In fact it is probably a good thing since it means that America is still, above all, a country based on freedom.
I am not an isolationist. I value the democratic parts of our government more than the republican parts (and I mean the philosophies not the parties).
And legally you are wrong (as well as philosophically) about dual citizenship. It is legally held by many Americans.
My point in all this is the following...
You don't have the right to force your view of what is American onto other Americans
The is the problem with the conservative movement. They want to marginalize anyone who doesn't fit a very narrow mold.
The fact is whatever you say about America-- it is a Democracy and we do believe in Liberty. If an American citizen wants to start a Spanish speaking radio station, they can (and they are still an American citizen). If a citizen wants to send their kids to a multicultural school, they can.
What really bugs me is that you think you have the right to tell me what I should teach my kids.
I think that's exactly what a lot of people are saying, Atavistic. That what the founding fathers had in mind was actually much more narrow than what America has come to mean, in the years since. What was the Civil War if not rewriting history? (ALL men are created equal.) I think we're rather better as a nation after slavery than before.
That doesn't mean that every act of "progress" is good for the country. Some things might feel good temporarily, but in the long run they could prove disastrous.
My point in all this is the following...
You don't have the right to force your view of what is American onto other Americans
The is the problem with the conservative movement. They want to marginalize anyone who doesn't fit a very narrow mold.
Atavistic wrote:That doesn't mean that every act of "progress" is good for the country. Some things might feel good temporarily, but in the long run they could prove disastrous.
Then in terms of this discussion, its on you to show that whatever "progress" we're experiencing now (I'm still not clear exactly what you mean by that, anyway) will prove disastrous.
The “melting pot” has proved to be a myth. We are slowly awakening to the consciousness that education and environment do not fundamentally alter racial values.
Today we face the serious problem of the maintenance of our historic republican institutions. Now, what do we find in all our large cities? Entire sections containing a population incapable of understanding our institutions, with no comprehension of our national ideals, and for the most part incapable of speaking the English language. Foreign language information service gives evidence that many southern Europeans resent as an unjust discrimination the quota laws and represent America as showing race hatred and unmindful of its mission to the world. The reverse is true. America’s first duty is to those already within her own shores. An unrestricted immigration policy would work an injustice to all, which would fall hardest on those least able to combat it.
George Washington in his Farewell Address said: Citizens by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affection. . . . [W]ith slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles.
Washington observed—slight shades of difference.
But today we see huge masses of non-American-minded individuals, living in colonies or ghettoes, or even cities and counties of their own. Here they perpetuate their racial mindedness, their racial character, and their racial habits. Here they speak their own tongue, read their own newspapers, maintain their separate educational system.
Let's take these one at a time.
"Multi-culturalism" -- what does that mean, exactly? What specific incidents (or whatevers) are you objecting to?
History shows the exact opposite.
Each time we have become more open we have become a richer nation for it. I love the way that my country has grown through the years to become a flourishing, diverse country.
When slavery was ended (which was a battle in itself) there was a call to send all people of African descent back to Africa (since many "Americans" didn't think they fit into the American culture). But we decided that African-Americans were rightfully part of American history.
This broadened America and despite the dire predictions this would hurt the nation... I feel confident in saying that it was a good idea.
We allowed Chinese immigrants to stay... first by a legal decision that Children born here were Americans, then by reforming the law that excluded them. There were dire predictions that the Chinese couldn't assimilate and would hurt the culture. I think history shows that these predictions were false.
This history was repeated with people from Catholic nations and now with Hispanics through the 1980 when the grateful recipients of the amnesty were very diligent and success at becoming productive parts of the American society.
These dire prodictions of the doom of America at the hands of an alien menace are nothing new... they have been made throughout our history.
I think America turned out OK in spite of them.
California is over 50% Hispanic and growing
