Thursday, May 15, 2008

Keep the immigrants. Deport the Columbia faculty.

I'm referring to a story by Jason L Riley on Wall Street Journal. Check out the article at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121080967841993539.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries

Mr. Riley has explored into some serious stuff here. It rings true to the beliefs of most of America. And it points to the extremism that is being promoted by the hard core liberals who are against the concept of assimilation. This absolutely shows how they are out of touch with the reality.

Let me talk about assimilation, the supposedly dirty word. If I may, assimilation is the whole essence of being American. Right from the beginning, with each wave of immigration, the newcomers have tried their best to being a part of the mainstream. This may take a decade, or a couple of generations. But the whole idea is that the immigrants adjust their ways and become one to the melting pot that is America. The first generation may have their own difficulties, but the subsequent generations have always found it natural becoming American in all senses.

The key to this transformation is that there were always opportunities to do so in the past. Or at least, assimilation was always expected. Nobody talked about having Italian language education. There were no German sign boards in the public. Sure enough, the children of Catholic immigrants needed Notre Dame to come up against the odds that were stacked up in the universities then. But fast forward to the twenty first century and none of them is away from main stream America. Nobody bats an eye when a Catholic is running for president.

Again, this is not to say that assimilation is a one way street. No. It works both ways. As much as the immigrants become a part of America, they contribute to the culture, the cuisine and the folk lore: be it Pizza, Mafia or Drinking habits.

So, the pundits are wrong when they say assimilation is a bad thing. We do not need some parallel societies where a lower quality citizens exist segregated by the walls of education in a different language. There is no reason for English not becoming the official language of America. Earlier in history, there was no need for it. But now a days multiculturalists fail to realize that lack of assimilation linguistically and culturally is only enslaving the immigrants against an opportunity to self improvement : Financially and Culturally.

Good traditions never die. It never did in the past two centuries. So there is no reason to think that the sole identity of an immigrant is lost with assimilation. It only strengthens the person in a new environment. It only strengthens the country.

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