Advocacy of "One Nation, One Language" gains support in USA and Europe.
Citizens increasingly seek to promote the concept of assimilation over
loyalty to one's country of origin.
Assimilation
Key
Julia Rourke DELRAY BEACH
April 14, 2006
The words "melting pot" have been used frequently in regard to the illegal
migration to the United States from Mexico. My source for the following
definitions is Webster's New World Dictionary.
Melting pot -- a country in which people of various nationalities and races
are assimilated.
Assimilate -- to make similar.
Similar -- nearly but not exactly the same or alike.
I believe that learning to speak the language of the country in which you have
chosen to live legally would be the starting point toward the goal of
assimilation into this wonderful melting pot we call America.
Copyright © 2006, South Florida
Sun-Sentinel
Why Immigrants Won't
Assimilate
David Kessel April 2, 2006
There has been a lot of debate as to why immigrants will not assimilate into
the American culture. However, all those who are now assimilated children of
immigrants seem to have forgotten how long it took their families to
assimilate.
I am sure it was not done in 2-3 years or even one generation. But even
if they could assimilate rather quickly, here are some of the reasons why
the present ones are not assimilating as quickly as you may wish they would.
1) Socially, the American society is not very accepting of people with
foreign accents (except British colonial, soft North European- Swedish,
Norwegian etc,. and a gentle French accent). Learning to speak a language
without an accent is a very difficult proposition after the age of 12. If
you have an accent, ostracism or mockery is very common. Scorn for and
phobia of other cultures and languages is common, too. Many people do not
want to be mocked and ridiculed (do you?), so they stick to their own kind.
I remember in NY, where I used to live, it was common for kids not to
play with someone whose parents had an accent. This is how bad it can get.
Latin American societies such as Brazil or Argentina, on the other hand,
are much less anal about such things and if you have an accent it is no big
deal. Hence, there you have people who came at a more mature age and found a
society that is far less suspicious and more embracing. After a person
becomes a citizen of Argentina, he is called an Argentinean and that's that.
Accent or no accent. But try speaking with an accent to a bunch of working
class Americans. Suspicious looks and frowns will abound. And few if any
will see you as an American.
2) The Anglo-Saxon culture of the US is cliquish and not very friendly;
socially that is. The laws are very generous and the Constitution is superb.
A great friendly government, but many people are very much into their small
groups. Breaking into those groups is not an easy task. So, many people just
don't bother- they have other priorities.
3) Nativism; "American means: born here!" I remember a very classical
example of how it works: I was at work and one employee called me a
"foreigner" in an unfriendly way. Actually, this had happened more than
once. He had found out that I was not born in the US because I am fluent in
many languages and the 'terrible truth' had surfaced. Then, when I answered-
"I am not a foreigner, but a US citizen", a pat answer came my way: "I mean
a foreigner; not born here!". This attitude is very common in the US,
although, admittedly, not all people adhere to it- there are some nice
people that see you as someone who 'became' an American. But socially,
unless you are British or Aussie who turned into an American and have no
accent now, you will not really be seen as such by many common people in the
US.
Just look at the websites that have been organized to stymie Arnold
Schwarzenegger’s alleged bid for US presidency.
They are calling him a "foreigner" even though he is a US citizen and had
taken the Oath of Renunciation without which one cannot become one. Such an
attitude is 'very' widespread in the US.
There is also an ingrained social way of looking at immigrants. In the
American culture people do not ask you "Are you a US citizen?” they ask you
“Where are you from (originally)?". Once you tell them, bingo! You are an
immigrant to many (if not most) people. And it does not matter how long you
have been in the country and if you are US citizen.
And also, the US media simply loves to attach the title "German- born",
"Russian-born", etc. to anyone who was not born in the US. Even if they are
US citizens. And God forbid if you do something bad- immediately the word
"immigrant" surfaces. Remember Zsa Zsa when she slapped that policeman? The
judge was telling her “It is like you slapped every American!" meaning in a
subtle way she was 'not' an American. Some huckler started yelling " Go back
to Hungary" at the hearing, too.
In Argentina or Brazil, no. Look at Carlos Gardel- the famous tango
composer. He is referred to as an Argentinean even though he was
French-born. Few even talk about his foreign birth. But in America, it is an
issue. At least one that is worth mentioning.
There is no difference in the popular culture and understanding between a
legal immigrant, illegal immigrant and a naturalized US citizen as far as
the working masses of the US population go. They are all the same. And then
they have censuses of the foreign born population in which the above
categories are dumped into one.
4) The class of people that would want to come and live in the US is
usually that of people in economic need or refugees. Refugees do not really
'want' to be in the US. Coming was a necessity; not a need. It is just that
they were unfortunate enough to be in very bad circumstances, and although
they are grateful to the US government for all the benefits, emotionally
they are still attached to their country. Add to that the social (not the
official) hostility against them and you have a recipe for multiculturalism.
The other, very poor people may not have the smarts (and the IQ) to go to
school and assimilate. And even if young you would not want to be a kid with
an accent at a US school. I have been one and you are harassed very often
and can get beat up. Young American kids can be nasty. You will have no
friends, no dates, nothing. Unless of course you are from a popular country
such as Switzerland, Australia, the UK, etc. But these are not coming to the
US for the most part.
If you had people of “high class” with means coming to the US from places
such as Belgium or the Netherlands, etc, there would not be an assimilation
issue- they would all assimilate very quickly. But people from those
countries rarely want to come- life is better there than in the US now.
The US immigration quotas favor non-white people from very different
cultures for whom the Anglo-based culture is not easy to learn, plus they
would not really be accepted into the mainstream even if they wanted to.
Racism is still strong- from the whites, the blacks and even other
immigrants who had come before them.
5) The US now is not about culture, assimilation, etc. It is mostly about
making money. So, people concentrate on that. Prices are high, rents are
high. People work to make ends meet. Some work to save for school, cars,
apartments, etc. Cultural and language studies are secondary.
Thus, assimilation is left to its own devices and it will take its
natural course- two or three generations. Just like it has with most other
assimilated immigrants' children whom you see around you. So, immigrants are
assimilating, at their own pace, although you may not see it. Just like you
cannot see grass grow. First they will learn accented English, then, have
American-born children; and those, in turn, will have American-born
children-these will be completely American. It is simply taking the usual
30-50 years as prescribed in an unwritten way by the American culture for
all those who are not Anglos, whether white or black.
A Question of Assimilation
By Marcelo M. Suarez-Orozco US News & World Report
As the Danish cartoon virus continues to spread from Europe to the Middle East
to Central Asia to Africa and beyond, politicians, religious leaders, and the
media have all come to frame the issue as a case of freedom of expression and
the limits of tolerance in an age of global communications. A cartoon that is
supposed to be "funny" in Copenhagen leads to riots and death in Afghanistan,
Pakistan, and the Middle East. The origin of the crisis, however, is rooted in
a local European context, revealing the Continent's greatest postwar failure:
its catastrophic record in integrating large and growing numbers of immigrant
minorities--especially the second-generation children of Muslim immigrants.
If the Muslim protesters in Denmark had not pressured various Mideast
governments to act, the story would have been nothing more than a case of bad
taste and poor judgment by an obscure Copenhagen daily. But the Danish case is
just one in a series of recent European eruptions. Item: The rioters in
France last October and November were overwhelmingly the children of
immigrants. Item: The terrorist bombers in London last year were
second-generation immigrants. Item: The killer of Theo Van Gough, the
Dutch filmmaker who had taken a controversial stance on Muslim immigrants, was
also the child of such immigrants. Item: Several of the 9/11 hijackers
had been enrolled as students in various prestigious German campuses.
How do we explain Europe's sorry record on immigration at precisely the
time it will need more immigration? How will Europe manage to integrate into
its economy and society the estimated 50 million new immigrants it will need
in the decades ahead to cope with its declining fertility rates and rapidly
aging populations--not to mention its over-the-top welfare system that will
require new immigrant workers to pay for the benefits of its retirees?
To understand the problem, it is instructive to compare the situation in
Europe with the recent U.S. experience. America today is seeing the largest
wave of immigration in its history. Why is immigration a dream here but a
nightmare on the other side of the Atlantic? There are at least three sets of
important differences in the nature of immigration in Europe and the United
States.
First, experience matters. Large-scale immigration in western Europe
is a relatively new phenomenon, going back just to the end of World War II.
Prior to that, Europe was a continent of emigration, not immigration. In the
aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars (1815) and into the first decade of the 20th
century, some 50 million Europeans left for the New World. These immigrants
settled--indeed, made--cities like New York, Montreal, and Buenos Aires. In
the United States, the current wave of immigration is the fourth large wave
that has substantially altered the fabric of our nation over the past five
generations.
Second, policies matter. If immigration gave birth to the vibrant
multiethnic nation we are today, the parturition in Europe was very different,
For a long time, western European nations--the Scandinavian countries,
Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, and others--felt that when it came to
immigration, they could be a little bit pregnant. Hence the various "guest
worker" programs and temporary-asylum initiatives that have resulted in
Europe's current dilemma. These temporary arrangements proved to be quite
permanent. But the ambivalence with which Europe allowed large-scale
immigration has had defining consequences. The temporary workers and asylum
seekers came to be a permanent reality without any significant public debate
and conscious understanding of the long-term changes immigration was causing.
Policies, for example, on education kept changing from instruction only in the
language of the country of origin (if Turks were just temporary guest workers,
why should they learn German?) to bilingual education, to education in the
language of the new country. Differences in immigration policy between Europe
and the United States are the most obvious when it comes to the ease with
which immigrants can attain full citizenship. In the United States, all
children of immigrants born here are automatically citizens. In countries like
Germany, by contrast, there was the "law of the blood," changed only recently,
saying you could be a German citizen only if you had German blood; America
observes the jus solis or "law of the soil," which means if you are
born here, you are a citizen. Immigrants born in many European countries have
to wait until adulthood before they can even apply for citizenship.
In America, immigration has always been linked to the needs of the
economy--Mexicans were recruited through the ambitious Bracero program
(1942-1964), when World War II required a more abundant labor supply. The 1965
Hart-Cellar Act began the largest flow of immigration into the United States
in history and put in place the principle of "family reunification" as the
philosophical bedrock of U.S. immigration policy. Today, hardly a day goes by
when the political class, the news media, and the elites are not involved,
often loudly and sometimes demagogically, in debating the pros and cons of
immigration. In Europe, by contrast, when the subject was broached during the
past two decades, you could safely bet it was by the racist, Holocaust-denying
fanatics of the fringe political parties. The mainstream remained
silent--paralyzed and, therefore, irrelevant.
Third, diversity matters. In the United States, diversity defines
the new immigration. By any measure, immigrants to America today are more
varied than ever. They are racially and religiously diverse, economically
diverse, linguistically diverse, and highly diverse in terms of education and
job skills. Immigrants and their children are overrepresented among winners of
the Nobel Prize, recent secretaries of state (both Republican and Democratic:
Henry Kissinger, Madeleine Albright, Colin Powell), and tenured professors at
Harvard. (Will the next president of Harvard be of immigrant origin?) But
immigrants are also well represented among workers in the service sector of
the economy--a sector now totally addicted to immigrant workers. In New York
City schools, the children of immigrants are now half of the total student
population. What's new today, though, is the fact that they hail from the
entire world, with over 190 nationalities represented. In countries like
Germany and France, by contrast, there is a hyperconcentration of immigrants
from a handful of countries. In Germany, they are mostly Turks. In France,
North Africans predominate.
In the United States, diversity has become the high octane of
acculturation. With the spectacular linguistic diversity in schools, places of
work, and places of worship, English emerged as the undisputed lingua franca,
especially among the children of immigrants. The fact that English is a world
language has resulted in its rapid acquisition by new immigrants. The same
cannot be said of languages like Swedish or Danish. I was recently visiting a
school in Stockholm where over 90 percent of the students were the children of
asylum seekers and refugees. The students in the science class I visited,
overwhelmingly from the Middle East and Central Asia, seemed much more
animated speaking English than Swedish. When I asked for a show of hands to
the question "How many of you would like to go to New York?" the entire class
responded. That's bad news for Sweden's efforts to integrate these youth.
What about those like Harvard's Samuel Huntington who assert that
Spanish-speaking immigrants are a threat to American culture because they tend
to keep their customs and language? Well, they're wrong. Spanish-language
immigrants today learn English faster and better than immigrants before them.
Indeed, the American experience is one of rapid linguistic acculturation and
native language loss. As one of my former colleagues at Harvard once observed,
America is a graveyard for foreign languages.
Diversity here gets a huge boost from another uniquely American predilection:
marriage outside one's ethnic group. Immigrants to the United States have
always sought marriage outside their own groups. This was true a hundred years
ago, with Jews marrying Christians, Japanese marrying whites. Today, we see it
with Latinos marrying African-Americans. Census data over the past few decades
reveal that well over a third of all marriages involving immigrants have been
to partners from other ethnic groups. In the United States, Balkanization was
defeated at the altar. In Europe, on the other hand, immigration is
characterized by kinship and social structures that favor arranged marriages
and marriage within the group. It is common for second-generation Kurdish
immigrant girls in Norway, for instance, to marry cousins back in Kurdistan so
the men can migrate to Europe. This has two powerful effects: It prevents the
immigrants from crossing the most cherished threshold of social integration,
marriage with members of their new country, and it replenishes the cultural
traditions of the old country in the new setting as newly arrived villagers
settle in European cities.
Moving forward, what does the evidence suggest
will be different in the two settings? The best way to tell how future
generations will fare is to look at the education of the children of today's
new arrivals. Here again, there are big differences between what's going on in
Europe and in the United States. I was delivering a series of lectures in
Germany a couple of years ago when data from the Program for International
Student Assessment, a standardized assessment of 15-year-olds in schools, were
released. The data were shocking to many in Germany because they revealed the
multiple ways German schools were failing immigrant youth, who scored
significantly below German students in a variety of areas of academic
proficiency. The study concluded, ominously, that students whose parents are
immigrants show weaker performance than native students in some but not all
countries. The greatest gap, of 93 points in mathematics scores, is in
Germany.
In the United States, it's a completely different story. Our record in
educating immigrant students is uneven, to be sure, but it is a lot more
hopeful than the European record. Immigrant kids here win more than their
share of the nation's most competitive and prestigious awards, like the Intel
Science Awards and National Spelling Bee championships. New data show that
immigrant students in the United States have more positive attitudes toward
schools and teachers than their nonimmigrant counterparts. A study of 400
immigrant families and their children revealed that fully 40 percent of the
immigrant students from Asia, the Caribbean, and Latin America who enrolled in
American schools received, on average, grades of A or B over a five-year
period. The fact that immigrant girls in the United States are outperforming
immigrant boys augurs for an even brighter future, for there is no better
return on investment in education than the success of girls. Immigrants and
the children of immigrants--from Ghana, Jamaica, Colombia, Korea--are
overrepresented on every one of the campuses where I have taught over the
years, including Berkeley, Harvard, Stanford, and New York University. The
same, sadly, cannot be said of the leading universities in Europe.
Islamic sensitivities tested
Brahms, beer and Beethoven are German, but can a
Muslim head scarf be German too? Islamic communities in Germany are beginning to
wonder.
Jeffrey Fleishman Monday, April 17, 2006
Brahms, beer and Beethoven are German, but can a Muslim
head scarf be German too? Islamic communities in Germany are beginning to
wonder.
What it means to be German is an excruciating riddle, not something casually
broached in a cafe.
But efforts to sharpen national identity through new citizenship tests have
caused a furor over accusations that Muslims are being unfairly targeted for
exclusion by questions concerning head scarves, arranged marriages,
homosexuality and Israel's right to exist.
The tests are the latest point of contention in a cultural battle over the
integration of millions of Muslims on a continent wary of terrorist attacks,
such as the ones in London and Madrid.
They are another indication that Europe is struggling with how to temper
nationalism and anxiety while defining citizenship for an immigrant Muslim
population restless over what it views as generations of discrimination.
The tests are idiosyncratically German, demanding a breadth of arcane
knowledge that might prove difficult for even the most patriotic Bavarian soul.
Questions include details on German mountain ranges, a 19th century seaside
painting and the discovery by a German scientist who, outside advanced physics
classes, has long since lost his cachet. One can almost hear the collective
riffle of encyclopedia pages in living rooms and study halls across the nation.
But it is the questions layered between the inquiries on German geography,
history and music that have agitated Muslims. A test in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg
and a proposed exam in the state of Hesse gauge Muslim sensitivities in an
attempt to filter out religious conservatives and potential extremists. Baden-Wuerttemberg
requires an education course and a 30-question oral test to determine whether an
immigrant supports issues such as women's rights and religious diversity.
The test is graded at the interviewer's discretion. Some suggest the exam may
be illegal because a provision allows citizenship to be revoked if it is found
an applicant masked his religious or fundamentalist tendencies.
Question 27 is typical of the test's tone: "Some people consider the Jews
responsible for all the evil in the world and even claim they are behind the
September 11 attack in New York. What do you think about such suggestions?"
The Hesse exam - expected to be approved this year - lists 100 questions,
most of them on German history and culture. About 10 queries are aimed at
Muslims, including whether a woman should be allowed in public unaccompanied by
a male relative.
Islamic organizations have cautioned immigrants not to give answers on their
religious and personal beliefs. One satirical German Web site quipped that
Muslims failing the test would be interrogated and flown out of the country on a
CIA plane.
"These tests are presupposing, negative and anti-Islamic," said Eren Unsal, a
sociologist and member of the Turkish Union, a German-Turkish lobbying and
educational organization based in Berlin. "What we're seeing is a more
restrictive immigration policy whose face is anti-Muslim.
"This is rooted in September 11 and the attacks in Europe. I think these
citizenship tests are the destructive result of a wider cultural debate. They're
looking for scapegoats."
Citizenship is granted to immigrants by the German states in which they live.
The governments in Hesse and Baden- Wuerttemberg are controlled by
conservatives; other right-leaning states are also considering tougher
citizenship requirements. Momentum is growing for a uniform national citizenship
law - a prospect that would ignite partisan debate between the coalition
government of left-leaning Social Democrats and Chancellor Angela Merkel's
conservative Christian Democrats.
Merkel favors more scrutiny of foreigners. "Citizenship can't be granted in
passing," the chancellor has said.
Last year, Germany toughened its immigration law by requiring new arrivals to
attend 630 hours of language, history and cultural courses.
The European Union is contemplating adopting an "integration contract" for
immigrants. The interior ministers of Germany, Poland, France, Spain, Britain
and Italy support the idea.
German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said the continent must lay out
"the rights and obligations" for new arrivals.
"A true Muslim believer can answer these questions and not feel singled out,"
said Eckart von Klaeden, a Christian Democratic member of Parliament who favors
more rigorous citizenship questionnaires.
"These tests are designed to keep the extremists out, not just Islamic
extremists but right- and left-wing extremists too," Von Klaeden added. "Being a
citizen means to take part and live under our laws and share our principal
values."
Most of Germany's three million Muslims are Turks whose parents and
grandparents arrived as guest workers beginning in the 1960s. Failed integration
policies and an insular Turkish population have turned many cities into
multicultural yet demarcated societies, with unspoken borders between ethnic
Turks and Germans.
These lines were being drawn when sociologist Unsal's mother left the
Anatolian plains of Turkey decades ago to work in a German light-bulb factory.
Unsal was a child when she and her father, a tailor, followed.
"I was five years old when I got here. I didn't feel like a migrant back
then," said Unsal, a German citizen fluent in the language of her adopted
country. "But although I've fulfilled all of what this country has asked of me
to integrate, I still don't feel part of society. Germans don't see me as part
of their society. I get these kinds of signals 20 times a day."
The situation has intensified since Unsal's childhood. The surge of radical
Islam coincided with German fears over high unemployment and the shrinking of
the traditional welfare state.
Germany's birthrate is at its lowest since World War II. The nation has one
of the fastest-growing aging populations in the world. It knows it will
eventually need new blood to fill jobs and support social programs, but it is
increasingly suspicious of foreigners.
The hate Islamic extremists have for the "Western way of life has opened
Germans' eyes to the presence of Islam's followers among them," said a recent
commentary on German radio. "Much of what they see is negative, whether it's a
newspaper report about an honor killing in Berlin, schoolyards where more
Turkish is spoken than German or the forced marriage of a young, head scarf-clad
woman."
But some Germans have quipped that although answers to questions on tolerance
of homosexuality might preclude some Muslims from citizenship, they would also
mean that German- born Pope Benedict XVI would flunk.
In a letter to the Berliner Zeitung newspaper, Ursula Hippler suggested that
reaching consensus on what constitutes a German would not be easy.
"Even if I can't answer all the questions" on the test, she wrote, "I have
done more for this country than any foreigner who can answer all the questions
right. I know German fluently. I have learned a profession and for 37 years I
have paid into social security. What foreigner has had such a career?" LOS
ANGELES TIMES www.thestandard.com.hk
Posted on Sat, Apr. 15, 2006 www.contracostatimes.com
KATHLEEN PARKER: SYNDICATED COLUMNIST
Fewer sympathize with immigrants unwilling to
assimilate
Para espanol, oprima el dos.
Even if one does not speak Spanish, most Americans are familiar with those
words. They hear them nearly any time they make a call to the phone, utility or
other company that offers service in two languages. "For Spanish, press two."
Even though I speak and love Spanish, I find myself increasingly annoyed by
this unsubtle notice that the United States is gradually becoming a bilingual
nation. And therein lies the source of much aggravation American citizens feel
as Congress weighs in on illegal immigration.
Welcome to the United States, one and all -- within reason and according to
the law -- but all must become one if we are to remain a strong republic.
That's the single most compelling truth we seem to know instinctively even if
no one is willing to say it.
Whatever one's views in the abstract regarding a guest worker or modified
amnesty program, the concrete reality is that many of those seeking to stay in
the United States are not seeking also to become Americans of the U.S. variety.
Indeed, the clear message from some of those protesting recently -- and the
content of many e-mails that found their way to my mailbox -- is that Mexican
immigrants are taking back what they consider to be theirs.
At least a segment of those protesting consider themselves to be neither
immigrant nor illegal. Signs at one recent rally, for example, read "This is our
country, not yours!" and "All Europeans are illegal." "Reconquista" is the word
they choose to define their mission, meaning "reconquest."
An e-mailer suggested that I get myself ready for the boat back home because
I -- being of European descent -- don't belong in the United States.
Only American Indians have a rightful claim to the lands my family has
occupied since the 1600s, according to the writer's historical yardstick. And
only Mexicans have a right to border states that formerly belonged to Mexico.
Well. Where to begin? More to the point, where to end?
If we're all going back to the nations of our origins, we're going to need a
mighty big fleet and some sophisticated splicing equipment. I don't know about
my correspondents, but I'm a little bit this and a little bit that, though most
of my family names would place me in Ireland. I'm of course happy to reclaim the
kingdom, but I'm not sure the present landowners in Connemara would welcome me
back as the queen I'm certain I deserve to be.
The truth is, I doubt that most illegal immigrants now in the United States
are interested in reclaiming conquered lands. Most just want a good job and a
decent place to raise a family. But the sight of so many who feel entitled to a
piece of the United States, combined with a sense of encroaching bilingualism,
contribute to a spirit of diminishing empathies among even the likeliest of
sympathizers.
The idea of "reconquest," meanwhile, is silly. Human populations have been
migrating, conquering, surrendering and ceding for 60,000 years or so. We're a
rambling sort by nature, apparently, and find national borders annoying
obstacles to the wanderlust with which we were, for good or bad, endowed.
Rearranging borders and rewriting history to satisfy grudges or to right
wrongs would certainly keep us busy, but where would we draw the last line?
In the ashes of human history, most likely. The only unequivocal ending to
unhappy history, unfortunately, has no sequel. Only when everyone is dead is no
one offended.
Barring the final solution, we might ask this: Do illegal Mexican immigrants
really want Texas or Arizona or California without the U.S. economy, or the U.S.
social services, or the inspired government instruments that have made this
country so attractive to so many?
That's the pinch, isn't it? The country's riches and benefits are not free
for the picking -- nor are they all necessarily indigenous to the physical
territory -- but are part of a national package that demands citizenship of its
citizenry.
Mexicans are as welcome as any other group of people -- and we all came from
somewhere else, including the American Indians whose ancestors migrated from
elsewhere -- but reconquering, alas, requires a military action that could get
messy.
A simpler, more civilized course involves taking a number, waiting in line,
and signing on to the principles of assimilation, without which we will not long
be a united states of anything or a worthy destination for immigrants.
Para espanol, meanwhile, Mexico is lovely this time of year.
This is still America – for now
By Darrell Huckaby 4/15/2006
www.gwinnettdailypost.com
I realize that I’m not a super-intellectual, and
I’m glad that I’m not. I know a few of those folks — and a few more who think
they are — and, quite frankly, they bore me to death with their snot-nosed
attitudes and “smarter-than-thou” snide remarks. That’s not for me.
I’m just a plain old Southern linthead who tries to be a good American. I
usually call things exactly as I see them, and sometimes I have the good sense
just to keep quiet about an issue, but not often.
I have been very quiet on the issue of illegal immigrants. In fact, I’ve
probably been too quiet for too long — like a lot of other Americans. Today,
however, I have decided to make a few observations about the subject, and then I
will tell you why.
For a long time I wasn’t sure how I felt about the ever-growing number of
Mexicans and other Latinos flooding our borders. I knew why they were here, of
course.
I, myself, spend a lot of time telling people how great our country is and
extolling the U.S. of A. as the land of opportunity. How could I knock someone
for wanting to live in such a great nation and take advantage of the wonderful
opportunities it offers?
I observed the people who were coming here and, like so many others, marveled at
the fact that they were willing to work so hard. I’ve always appreciated folks
who aren’t afraid to work for a living and, like so many others, I rationalized
their presence in our nation, and our community, by insisting to myself — and
occasionally others — that we needed the Mexican immigrants here because “they
do the jobs Americans don’t want to do.”
Over the past few years, however, I have become more than a little agitated by
certain issues. And, if you are totally honest, I bet most of you have, too. I
seldom mention these issues because, well, heck, I didn’t want to be thought of
as narrow-minded or prejudiced or anti-Latino or whatever.
Well, today I am going to confess a few things that really irritate me and have
for a while now.
I get really irritated, for instance, when I call a business and get a recording
that tells me that if I want to talk to someone who speaks English, press one.
Maybe that’s little of me, but if it is — oh, darn.
I am an American, and our language is English, and when I call a business
here in this country, I don’t want to have to do anything other than dial the
phone to talk to someone in my native language.
And while we are on the subject, I also resent the fact that we are spending
extra tax money — today is April 15, you know — to print government forms
and provide government services in Spanish. Call me backward, ignorant and
unsophisticated, but if you come here to live, I think you should assimilate
into our society and culture and not expect those of us who are citizens to
adapt to yours. And what’s with all the Spanish signage that’s beginning to
proliferate in certain areas?
See, to me, the key word in the phrase “illegal immigrant” is “illegal.”
There is a process to follow to live here legally, and the process was created
for a reason. And the process is more than a process — it is the law of the
land, and I think the laws need to be enforced.
Of course, if you go by the process, you are “in the system,” and if you are “in
the system,” you have to pay taxes and contribute your fair share for the goods
and services you use. It’s tax day, remember?
Twelve million illegal immigrants live in our country. They drive on our
highways. They are protected by our armed forces and our policemen. They send
their children to be educated in our schools, and we feed their children a
couple of meals a day while they are there, and we hire extra teachers to speak
to them in their native language; and we at least toy with the idea of requiring
all teachers to learn their language — to assimilate into their culture.
They treat the emergency rooms of our hospitals as their own general
practice MDs, and we pay the bill. They have babies who are immediately
citizens and receive instant Medicare benefits, at our expense, and now,
when the government finally decides that maybe it is time to secure the
borders and take action against people who are here illegally — that word
again, illegally — they pour into the streets in protests, waving Mexican flags.
They protest the fact that we would dare to enforce our own laws,
while waving the flag of their native country. And then, fearing a backlash from
people like me — and many of you — the protest organizers hand out
American flags to wave — flags that were tossed in the trash can at the end
of the day. Our politicians waffle back and forth and refuse to act until
they can determine which way the political wind will blow on Election Day.
Well, I’ll tell you which way we need to make sure the political wind blows. We
need to make sure it blows south. And gale is not strong enough. We need to make
it a Category 5 hurricane.
Darrell Huckaby is an author and high school history teacher who lives in
Rockdale County. Visit his Web site at
www.darrellhuckaby.net. His column appears on Saturday.
U.S. way of life
threatened
I am watching with great interest the rallies from all over the country and,
in particular, the ones in California. I resided in California for 50 years and
am glad I relocated to Clarksville, for too many positive reasons to mention.
I am stunned to see, while our politicians debate the destiny of 11 million
illegals, they are still coming in droves over the border and waving their
Mexican flags and refusing to learn English and assimilate.
So many people, as I see it, have broken our laws, and I consider it an
invasion, and we better do something about it before our way of life and what
America stands for is destroyed.
I am a naturalized American and never had the need or goal to maintain a dual
citizenship, push my heritage or fly the flag of my birth country.
On the contrary, as soon as I was able to apply for the American citizenship,
I did and got the process started. From day one, after my arrival, I started the
process of assimilation. It was not easy for me because I had to adopt a totally
different culture and language, but I had a lot of help from people who accepted
me for the person I was and how hard I tried. The classes I took to enhance my
education, language skills and living up to the laws made me an American this
nation can be proud of.
I hope our officials in Tennessee and the rest of the elected officials of
this great nation for once think ahead of what price we, the people, pay if this
problem is not resolved to the satisfaction of the people of this great country
of ours.
I suggest to them to stop pushing their political spin and get the job done
and not to secure a re-election. Yes, I support a works program — just think if
all those now illegals will pay the income tax, state taxes, federal taxes and
pay into Social Security Administration, start to assimilate and learn to
communicate in English, how much better the country would be.
ELFIE MARSHALL
Clarksville 37043
Published Apr 15, 2006
LETTERS
www.theleafchronicle.com
THE CONTINENTAL DIVIDE:
When Those Who Immigrate Don't Assimilate
By
Eric frey April 7, 2006
Rather than berating Europeans for their failure to assimilate
immigrants, Americans would do well to learn from what is happening across
the Atlantic
The current political row on Capitol Hill and in California
about immigration policy notwithstanding, Europeans look with admiration and
envy at American society's ability to absorb people from all over the world.
Americans clearly do not return that compliment.
On April 5, two top State Department officials openly
attacked Europe’s poor record in assimilating its immigrant population.
Daniel Fried, assistant secretary of state for European affairs, and Henry
Crumpton, the department’s counterrorism coordinator, warned the Senate
foreign relations committee that unemployment and discrimination among
Muslims in Europe has created fertile ground for Islamic radicalism and
poses a direct threat to American national security.
Even though they might be loath to concede the point to
Americans, a fair number of Europeans would agree. Still, Americans would do
well to learn from what is happening across the Atlantic. In the
post-September 11 world, the day may not be so far off when Americans will
wake up to find Islamist terrorists in their midst, as Europe has over the
last two years.
Unlike the September 11 hijackers, who entered the United
States for the sole purpose of committing their ghastly deeds, the
perpetrators of the terrorist attacks in Madrid and London came from
Europe's immigrant population. The London bombers were the children of
fairly successful Pakistani immigrants who in theory should have long ago
joined the economic and social mainstream.
Had they been in the United States, they probably would have
been for the most part assimilated. Young Latinos in Florida, Texas or the
Southwest may on average be poorer and less educated than their Caucasian
peers, but there is little doubt that they very much regard themselves as
Americans.
The same cannot be said across the Atlantic. Simply put,
European societies are failing their second- and third-generation
immigrants. The Turks and North Africans who moved to France, Belgium or
Germany a generation ago to take up menial jobs are today often out of work.
Their children grow up with extremely poor job prospects, and learn to be
dependent on welfare. Many feel discriminated against, and alienated from
society at large.
Such is the experience for far too many immigrants,
regardless of whether they live in countries like Germany, where there are
huge hurdles to naturalization, or France, where everyone born on French
soil is considered to be a citizen. After France was convulsed last year by
rioting youth, experts across the continent hastened to point out why
conditions in that country made it a singular case.
Yet even in the Netherlands, which has long prided itself on
its tolerance and multiculturalism, integration has largely failed. The
murderer of provocative filmmaker Theo van Gogh was born in Amsterdam to
Moroccan parents. On paper, at least, he looked like a model citizen.
The causes of integration failure are manifold. Unlike the
United States and Canada, European societies were never explicitly open for
immigration.
At least in the continental economies, rigidities in the
labor market have prevented the creation of low-skilled jobs that would give
minorities a chance to join the work force and move up the socioeconomic
ladder. It is also much harder to start one's own business in Europe than it
is in highly entrepreneurial America.
Home ownership, another key factor for successful
integration, is not widespread outside of England, which usually results in
ethnic minorities living in rented housing and never quite feeling at home.
And tellingly, not a single European country has adopted the kind of
affirmative action programs that have worked so well in the United States
for a generation of minorities.
Furthermore, a sharp rise over the last five years in the
number of Middle Eastern and African asylum seekers has led to an
anti-immigration backlash that has made the integration of those already in
Europe even more difficult. It is no coincidence that populist parties with
xenophobic platforms have risen in France, Austria, Belgium and elsewhere.
And when it comes to the job market, French or German employers have plenty
of leeway to discriminate against minority applicants. In the United States,
such discrimination would land a company in court for unfair labor
practices.
All that is Europe's fault and could be remedied, at least
in theory. But geography is also a major factor, and that cannot be changed.
In Europe today there are between 12 and 15 million first-,
second- or third-generation immigrants from developing countries. Most of
them originally hail from the Muslim world, be it Turkey, the Middle East or
northern Africa. They bring with them some of the same problems that have
made the Muslim world a permanent crisis zone, among them low levels of
schooling and a general absence of women's rights.
Often these problems are even more pronounced in Europe than
they were back in the home countries. Turkish immigrants in Germany and
Austria, for example, mostly come from the least developed provinces in
Eastern Anatolia, which is a world apart from cosmopolitan Istanbul. Their
numbers are large enough to form a critical mass that can easily resist
integration. Many Turkish immigrants in Germany get their information not
from German newspapers or the local immigrant press, but from Turkey's main
daily, Hürriyet.
The contrast with situation of immigrants in the United
States, warts included, is telling. Immigrants from Mexico and Honduras may
be poor, but their Catholic faith gives them a natural link to mainstream
America. Places like Los Angeles may have plenty of trouble with rough
Latino drug gangs, but not with imams preaching the killing of civilians as
a ticket to paradise. And many of the Asian immigrants who have settled on
American soil over the last few decades have become model citizens whose
children have made it to the top universities — much like Eastern European
Jews a century ago.
It is telling that in Western Europe today, the many
immigrants who have come from Eastern Europe and the Balkans since the fall
of the Iron Curtain have fared far better — even taking into account the
prejudice and discrimination they still face — than those from the Middle
East and Africa. One need not buy into Samuel Huntington's belief in a clash
of civilizations to acknowledge that Europe's dismal record on immigration
reflects the difficulties Western societies are having in dealing with large
Muslim populations.
At the moment, the Muslim immigrant population is
proportionally much smaller in the United States than in Europe. Yet it
would be fair to assume that if it was Morocco and not Mexico on America's
southern border, the American government might very well face many of
Europe’s problems right at home.
Eric Frey is managing editor of the Vienna daily Der
Standard.
April 12 2006 www.dailypress.com
The problem with illegal aliens
The problem with illegal aliens streaming across our southern border is not a
new one. However, it has come to the forefront lately because our nation's
identity is at risk now more than ever.
Many don't fully understand the real problem. It has nothing to do with racism,
white supremacy, Republicans or Democrats. It has a lot to do with the
exploitation of cheap labor, which drives down wages for American citizens. Some
say this will lead to cheaper products for the consumer. This is not quite true
either. Because companies who hire illegal immigrants don't pay taxes for these
employees, taxpayers end up subsidizing illegal aliens' benefits through
providing services while corporations pocket record profits.
Democrats won't speak up either, because they want a larger voting base in the
future.
Immigration is not bad in itself. The influx of moral, hard-working, ambitious
people created the strongest nation in the history of the world. The immigrants
of the past came for the same things the illegal aliens of today are looking
for: opportunity.
However, past immigrants wanted to fit in, assimilate and adopt our culture,
values and language. Now, because of the high rate of illegal immigration from
Mexico, what we have is an outright invasion where there is no incentive to
assimilate.
Let's be heard and show that all of us - white, black, red, brown and yellow -
are proud of who we are, Americans first, and that we won't tolerate an illegal
invasion of our nation and the disrespect of our laws, common interests and
shared values.
John H. Elder III
Newport News
Religion and freedom
I wrote a while back voicing my distress over the York County Schools removing a
picture of George Washington in prayer and the attempt to remove all religious
connections linked with holidays. Our Founding Fathers were deeply religious men
and that was part of their sacred honor. When it came time to write our
Constitution they, in their infinite wisdom, made the right of religious freedom
paramount among our freedoms. Why? They had the wisdom and foresight to protect
our nation from the bloody history of religious conflict in nations that had
established religions - for example, the Crusades, the Inquisition, Bloody
Mary's reign, Oliver Cromwell and the 1685 revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
We have no established religion in the United States; we have not had a
religious blood bath. We are not taxed by our federal or state government to
support an established religion; we are not denied the right to vote or own
property because of religion. The federal government has no money from religion
to help pay school taxes; therefore, the government is not supporting religion,
but allowing religion to be available, as guaranteed by our Constitution. If
someone objects to the offering in the school, they are not forced to
participate nor are they punished for not doing so.
Regardless of beliefs, or nonbeliefs, all of us should be grateful to these
Founding Fathers, because they were religious men who had the foresight to
protect us and our nation from senseless mass murders over religion. Page
Laubach Warden
Williamsburg
The Long Death of
Multiculturalism
By
Christopher Orlet
Published 4/17/2006
www.spectator.org
Not since Russian President Boris Yeltsin officially pronounced Soviet Communism
dead in December 1991 ("The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, as a
subject of international law and a geopolitical reality, is ceasing its
existence") has Europe gotten into such a bother over the demise of a cherished
idea. This time the god that failed is multiculturalism and the latest to
pronounce it
DOA is Germany's leading thinker Arnulf Baring.
Multiculturalism has been, for the past four decades, Europe's principal
therapy for assuaging its vast
and profound guilt, as well as a convenient
pretext for ignoring its minority
immigrant populations. Whatever its original intent, the word has come to
signify an uncritical respect and toleration for differences, regardless of how
intolerable those differences are. Thomas Sowell said it boiled down to this: "[Y]ou
can praise any culture in the world except Western culture -- and you cannot
blame any culture in the world except Western culture." Obviously any such
celebration of diversity and cultural differences was bound to place an emphasis
on factors that separate people, not those shared by society at large.
There were two reasons multiculturalism became so important to European
thinkers. Subsequent to a half century of forced decolonization, two world wars,
and a Holocaust, many in the West had lost confidence in their cultural
superiority and traditions. Europeans no longer believed they had a right to
judge other cultures. Thus, if Europe's immigrants wanted to hold onto their
uncivilized traditions -- whether it be polygamy, honor killings or misogyny --
who were we to judge? Naturally the New Left, which detested old-style Western
civilization and its bourgeois trappings, was only to happy to facilitate its
demise. The best way to accomplish this -- it was seen -- was through the
proliferation of the multiculturalist idea.
Multiculturalism also came in handy as the need increased for foreign (read Arab
and Turkish) guest workers to take on Europe's many unfilled jobs, itself a
result of cultural euthanasia and liberated Dutch and French and Italian women's
reluctance to be mere baby factories. Muslims' high birth rates and subsequent
payroll taxes were supposed to replenish the cash-strapped welfare system. But
as jobs moved to China or Mexico or Eastern Europe, few employers relished
hiring the dusky foreigners, due in part to the noxious labor laws French
students are currently demanding be saved, laws that prevent employers from
firing ne'er-do-wells.
Despite its pretensions as a multiculturalist promised land, Europe remains a
rather xenophobic place. States like Germany have kept their blood laws --
vestiges of its old ethnic purity days -- on the books, thereby preventing the
children of immigrants from becoming citizens. In Germany, foreign-born
"workers" are today twice as likely as native Germans to be unemployed. Not
surprisingly, many guest workers and their offspring end up on welfare,
languishing in public housing in suburban ghettos. Left to their own devices
many immigrants do not bother to learn the native tongue. Some judge it wrong to
send their children to the infidel's schools. Naturally these kids, locked
outside the mainstream culture, have been easy prey for drug gangs and radical
imams. Second and third generation guest workers fill Europe's prisons, which,
as everyone knows, are popular centers for radical Wahabbist proselytizing.
IN CONTRAST AMERICA, for two-plus centuries, has largely been getting it right.
The great metaphor for America has been the "Melting Pot," with its stress on
unity, assimilation and integration. The U.S. hasn't the same ethnic purity
hang-ups found in Europe. Yes, there has been a history of bigotry toward
non-Protestant non-Anglo-Saxons, which to some extent persists today, here as
elsewhere. However, in the U.S. an illegal immigrant born in an Arizona dry
creek bed automatically becomes an American citizen. Until recently, everyone
was encouraged to learn English, the first rung on the ladder to success. Those
groups that assimilated well, Jews, Chinese, Koreans, and Hindus, were
successful beyond their dreams. Those that resisted naturally fared less well.
The U.S., however, seems not to have learned much from Europe's missteps. The
President is now talking up a guest worker program, with foreigners to do the
jobs American employers are unwilling to pay Americans to do. As in Europe these
guest workers will become permanent residents; some will end up not working at
all, but sucking on the public teat. A number will come from Arab and Muslim
countries, which means the need for assimilation will be even greater in order
to avoid the dangerous Islamic fundamentalism so prevalent in Europe. Breedy
Hispanic immigrants are still encouraged to celebrate their diversity and
language rather than adopt the dominant culture, so the poorest and often least
educated learn only an unintelligible barrio Spanish, and are thus unable to
advance beyond grade school. Welfare, despair, and drug gangs await.
Is it racist to tell Nicaraguans and Hondurans that they must become
English-speaking Americans (not Anglos, mind you, but Americans), that they must
integrate or else? Only if it is racist to resist a failed idea that has proven
highly destructive to Western society.
Americans would do well to recall the words of President Woodrow Wilson: "You
cannot become thorough Americans if you think of yourselves in groups. America
does not consist of groups. A man who thinks of himself as belonging to a
particular national group in America has not yet become an American." It is the
duty of every immigrant who arrives on these shores to become a thorough
American. The alternative is the mess Europe currently finds itself in, and
trust me, nobody wants that.