Hello
First of all Sorry for my bad English.
I have a question about the “Diversity Immigrant Visa”. In case you don’t know about it:
More: Diversity Immigrant Visa - Wikipedia
What does “diversity” mean here? Cultural diversity? Genetic diversity?
I’ve read the official website and googled about it but there is no mention about it.
Cultural diversity doesn’t make sense to me. My understanding is that all governments are trying to unite people of their country and make them think the same way to decrease conflicts.
Under section “2012_results” of the Wikipedia article and in the 4th column of the first table it says:
What’s it got to do with circumcision?
What does artificial circumcision even mean? Is there a kind of a natural circumcision?
Why is “circumcised” in quotes?
As the one-time holder of a diversity visa, I think I can answer this. The aim of the program is to increase immigration from countries that don’t send very many migrants to the U.S., so that some countries with high immigrant numbers are excluded. In other words, the aim is to increase diversity among the nationalities of immigrants to the US.
Maybe in most countries at most points in history this would be true, but, in the present day USA, the conventional wisdom holds (rightly or wrongly) that cultural diversity is a source of strength, enabling the nation to draw on the best aspects of many different traditions. This may be making a virtue of necessity, since the USA is, in fact, very culturally diverse, largely due to the fact that it has, from its beginnings, been a nation made up mostly of immigrants from various other parts of the world.
The bit about circumcision is a bit peculiar. Perhaps it is a garbled reference to female circumcision, aka female genital mutilation, which in western cultures is held to e a very bad thing, in need of stamping out wherever it occurs. Male circumcision is the norm in the USA, though perhaps starting to go out of fashion.
That table’s reference was 404’ed. I googled and found the new URL.
Searched for words “artificial” and “circumcision”, found nothing.
Why would anyone do that?
The USA has taken it upon itself to encourage immigration from certain countries, using a quota system as well as an unbalanced set of criteria. The origin of the policy was to, as much as possible, discourage “diversity”, ensuring that nearly all immigrants were of European ancestry.
So, “diversity”, in the sense of the objectives of this program, is defined as “non-Europeans who are officially discriminated against”.
Aside from that, I have a lot of trouble with the hypocrisy of it all. “Diversity” is a word coined by people who say there is no such thing as race, to justify singling people out on the basis of race.
The diversity visa program is aimed specifically at countries with low levels of immigration to the US. That means countries like China, Bangladesh, Pakisan, and Mexico are ineligible, while such “diverse” countries as Ukraine and Australia are. I don’t think you really understand what you’re talking about.
Right. The term “diversity” doesn’t mean that you can qualify for the program by being unique. It refers specifically to country-level diversity. It’s not like you can say, “I’m a German citizen who plays the mandolin, has a fifth-degree black belt in karate, speaks fluent Mongolian, Turkish, Urdu, and Hungarian, and has written three novels set in the jungles of Brazil. That makes me pretty diverse, huh? Can I have a visa?”
You have to admit that would be pretty cool though wouldn’t it? Make the whole immigration process to be a hybrid between a talent show and a college application with the essay and interview portion being the most important. There wouldn’t be anything more American than that. You could even base a reality show around it. First place gets set up in a tony apartment wherever they want, second place gets to farm in South Dakota and last place stays right back at home in the killing fields or sweat shop. That will teach you to try harder on your ukulele and singing lessons.
That would be neat. Go into the visa interview and demonstrate your native dance. The visa officer calls up an professor at Podunk U and asks if the dance he just saw is currently mentioned in American journals of Anthropology, Sociology, or Psychology. If not, you get a visa and a list of cultural associations in the US that would be thrilled for you to stop by and teach the dance to Americans interested in broadening their horizons. If the visa officer has to watch another round of that cliched Cornish farmer jig again, he tells you that the US already has enough Cornish farmers and to go back and become something more obscure and interesting, something that America hasn’t seen before and that would actually make it more diverse.
