Thread: What is American identity

www.rgj.com

What is American identity

Terri Choate

8/18/2005 11:39 am

Last week I looked at the way the London subway bombings have affected British national identity, how the attacks are tightening the UK’s tolerance of extreme behavior and opinion. Of course world events also affect American national identity.

However, the change most likely to affect American national identity is not the war on terror or our Muslim population, but the recent (since 1970) large increase in foreign-born Americans and the numbers of illegal aliens coming from Mexico. They constitute what many would call our “immigration problem.�

But not everyone.

I asked students to write about American identity this summer. That’s an amorphous topic, and I received a variety of takes, from the recent immigrant from Iran who had waited for 13 years with his family to receive a green card to come and who listed America’s advantages, stressing freedom, to the middle-aged student who longs to move to England to enjoy socialized medicine to the more typical 20-something mother who wrote:

“I am an American. But, I’m only two generations away from being one of the immigrants that some people in our country say we need to keep out. I wonder how many of those people are two or more generations away from being immigrants themselves. I’m not one of those who think that everyone but the American Indians doesn’t belong here. War and conquest have always been a part of human nature. To the victor belong the spoils.

“But this country was founded on the principle that everyone deserves freedom and equality. Apparently, some people think that [others] need to find those things anywhere but here. They want the doors slammed shut, and the heck with freedom for all; we got ours: you get your own. Let me tell you how I got mine.�

She recounts that her dad’s parents were born in Mexico, and her mother’s mother was an English war bride who married an American Indian born and raised on a Nevada reservation.

She concludes by saying: “This is my American identity. I am thankful I am here, and I think I have things to contribute to our country. I can’t imagine being selfish enough to deny the things most of us take for granted to anyone because of where they [sic] were born. I still think we should be a haven to anyone in the world who wants the same things that lots of other countries cannot offer their people. I think we owe it to those who sacrificed everything to found this country. They, too, were immigrants until they became Americans.�

My class had a student born in Mexico and the sons and daughters of immigrants from Mexico and the Philippines. No one supported “closing the borders.� Most were uncomfortable with the designation, however honest, of “illegal� aliens. They believe grit and hard work entitle a person to be here and to become a citizen. I imagine that’s how my German grandparents and English/Irish great-grandparents felt as well. I’m also uncomfortable with “sealing� the borders.

But I’m even more uncomfortable with those who press for diversity over integration. I agree with Tony Blair that immigrating to a country implies a responsibility to accept and adapt to that country’s culture, to assimilate. That may or may not require abandoning one’s native “culture,� but it certainly means becoming functional in English and being loyal, here, to our constitutional government and when it is occurs, abandoning dual citizenship. It means being law abiding, and it means working, not living off the American taxpayer. If immigrants can’t accept that, I think they should stay home.

America’s immigration problem is focused on the Mexican border because of the tremendous numbers of illegals who pour across it: that’s both a social and a security problem. Mexicans cross the border in large numbers mostly to find a better life, to work in the United States. In an interesting discussion on the US State Department’s e-Journal USA website, Michael Barone, a senior writer at US News & World Report and author of “The New America: How the Melting Pot Can Work Again,� and Victor Hanson, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and author of “Mexifornia: A State of Becoming,� discuss the issue.

Hanson points out that in central California only 20 to 25 percent of illegal aliens work in agriculture (the work Americans don’t want); most find higher paying jobs in construction and the service industry. In 2004, at the time of this conversation, unemployment in the area was as high as 16 percent, with most of it, Hanson noted, occurring among older illegals and second-generation teenagers who are unable or unwilling to work as hard as the newcomers.

Hanson believes that 60 to 70 percent of illegal aliens find work and assimilate into American society, but the 30 to 40 percent who do not are a huge absolute number that strains health and education services. Worse, the tacit acceptance of illegals breeds contempt for the law and fosters crime.

Barone wonders about a “tipping point,� a point at which Mexicans cease to find emigration to the United States desirable. He says this occurred with Puerto Ricans coming to New York in the early 1960s, about the time the typical Puerto Rican’s income rose to about one-third that of someone in the US.

But Mexico presents a different picture. Hanson points out that Mexico benefits from the $12 billion sent back each year by immigrants. Hanson says this is Mexico’s second largest source of foreign exchange after oil. Also, emigration to the United States is a safety valve for successive Mexican governments that do not solve their economic and social problems at home.

In addition to actively encouraging emigration, the Mexican government also discourages immigrant assimilation by offering dual citizenship and courting not only its emigrants but their American-born sons and daughters. Certainly some official cooperation from our southern neighbor seems in order, and one wonders what pressure might be applied to achieve it.

Nevertheless, there are positives. Stephen Moore points out in the pro-immigration Wall Street Journal (7/17/05) that economic growth and prosperity after 1980 have coincided with the arrival of some 20 million immigrants. Both median US income and the income of the lowest social strata have risen in the same period. Last month’s unemployment rate was a low 5 percent.

Looking at security, the threat from fanatical Muslim terrorism is seen here, as in Great Britain, more and more as a murderous assault on core Western democratic values. When bombs hit home, people stiffen and see the stakes more clearly. Last week Michael Barone wrote, “Multiculturalism is based on the lie that all cultures are morally equal. In practice, that soon degenerates to: All cultures are morally equal, except ours, which is worse.�

In the US as in the UK, ordinary people are challenging the academic model of ethnicity over unity and reclaiming their positive national character. This isn’t a slamming of the door on immigrants, but rather a sign over the threshold announcing the house rules.

Historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. wrote in “The Return of the Melting Pot� that “We should take pride in our distinctive inheritance as other nations take pride in their distinctive inheritances. Certainly there is no need for Western civilization, the source of the ideas of individual freedom and political democracy to which most of the world now aspires, to apologize to cultures based on despotism, superstition, tribalism, and fanaticism. Let us abjure what Bertrand Russell called the fallacy of ‘the superior virtue of the oppressed.’�

I say amen.

Quote:
I agree with Tony Blair that immigrating to a country implies a responsibility to accept and adapt to that country’s culture, to assimilate.

Quote:
Historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. wrote in “The Return of the Melting Pot� that “We should take pride in our distinctive inheritance as other nations take pride in their distinctive inheritances. Certainly there is no need for Western civilization, the source of the ideas of individual freedom and political democracy to which most of the world now aspires, to apologize to cultures based on despotism, superstition, tribalism, and fanaticism.

ENOUGH SAID

. I think we owe it to those who sacrificed everything to found this country. They, too, were immigrants until they became Americans.�

these "immigrants" gave their lives and shed their blood to obtain freedom, they didn't send the King of England a "thank you" note . . .

these "immigrants" won their war for INDEPENDENCE and formed a nation and a Constitution for THEMSELVES and THEIR PROSTERITY --- NOT for the world


these "immigrants" gave Congress the power to "establish a uniform rule of naturalization" for LEGAL IMMIGRANTS coming to this country

these "immigrants" vested Congress with the responsibility to "repel invasions" from ''FOREIGN NATIONALS" to secure OUR sovereignty and liberties

these "immigrants" established a Constitution that included a provision for TREASON agains the STATES -- a act identifed as adhering to "our enemies"


these "immigrants" earned their right to freedom and freedom isn't a RIGHT that can be given or stolen just because somebody covets it . . .

the "TRUE" immigrants in search of freedom are those that abide by the laws of ANY country . . .