It’s not cute, it’s a bunch of shit. No offense to you Perciful.
Where do you live that jobs (any jobs, even menial ones) are still plentiful in this economy? Being a native of metro Detroit, I know some pretty desperate unemployed people that I can start sending your way.
I would argue that the reason that some people in this thread don’t recognize America as having a “culture” is the same reason that most people don’t think that people who talk like they do have an accent. Being an American does have an influence on someone’s perception of the world, values, etc. even though we are large and diverse enough to have many sub-cultures within the larger culture.
While it may seem like not that big of a deal if culture changes when it comes to taste in music or fashion, what about issues like cultural differences about the value of women? There are cultures where women who are raped are blamed for it, and where adultery is considered a crime worthy of the death penalty.
I’m not saying it’s likely that those particular examples would occur here. I’m just pointing out that being indifferent about protecting the good things in our country’s culture and values is not necessarily wise.
I’m assuming that you are a native Indian ? 
Oregon. Yep, we have huge unemployment, but it’s largely in forestry, construction, and white-collar jobs. Know what kind of work we still need people to do? Fruit picking. Hazelnut factory work. Or go to the South: Pork-processing plants. Yes, it’s incredibly menial and often unpleasant. That’s why most Americans won’t work those jobs. Latin-American immigrants, though, will. Just like most of our ancestors did upon immigrating to the US.
I bet Cubsfan wouldn’t mind some select Cubans immigrating to the North side of Chicago to help those godawful cubbies this year…
My ex works in Immigration.. one thing people may not know is is that American companies advertise and in some case facilitate people illegally crossing the border.. example being the carpet and chicken plants in North Georgia..You would be wrong. The reason we don’t recognize America as having a “culture” is because nobody can define American culture.
It’s not any one place (perhaps you’ve heard the term “migrant workers?”) but the issue is agricultural work: fruit picking, etc… It’s back breaking, transient, menial, dangerous at times, and they don’t have to pay minimum wage.
http://www.flcitrusmutual.com/news/sentinel_labor_051010.aspx
Most people I know in the Detroit area have this bourgeois attachment to living in one place, rather than a series of farm shantytowns.
Meat processing is pretty bad too, but they do have to pay minimum wage. More dangerous though.
They certainly do have to pay minimum wage. They just don’t.
No, they don’t. There are exemptions for Agricultural employers from the FLSA (Fair Labor Standards Act)
Additional exemptions from the minimum wage and overtime provisions of the Act for agricultural employees apply to the following:
–Agricultural employees who are immediate family members of their employer
–Those principally engaged on the range in the production of livestock
–Local hand harvest laborers who commute daily from their permanent residence, are paid on a piece rate basis in traditionally piece-rated occupations, and were engaged in agriculture less than thirteen weeks during the preceding calendar year
–Non-local minors, 16 years of age or under, who are hand harvesters, paid on a piece rate basis in traditionally piece-rated occupations, employed on the same farm as their parent, and paid the same piece rate as those over 16.
I stand corrected.
We should significantly increase the number of legal immigrants and make it much easier to come here legally. We make it nearly impossible for many people to even visit the US as tourists, for the fear that they might decide to stay here (the horror!). I support some theoretical limit on low-skilled immigration, but I don’t think we have reached that level yet. My main issue is that there are millions of well-educated people who have little chance of ever immigrating to the US besides through marriage or possibly family sponsorship (which takes forever).
The idea that “our culture” is being wiped out is ridiculous. If hordes of misogynistic homophobes were crossing the border, then yes, I would prefer to prevent them from entering. But even if they are, they don’t seem to be any worse than native-born Americans.
I would much rather have your average immigrant in America than a person who is afraid of seeing a non-English language on a billboard. If the US were to limit immigration to the levels they were 50 or 80 years ago, I would likely leave and find a more dynamic and interesting place to live.
Option 5: We have too many who are unskilled and undereducated. There’s a certain limit at which you just don’t need any more potato peelers and bed turners, or else you’re just pushing native-born people out of the only work they’re qualified for. We should definitely have a limit there. But in terms of bringing in the best and brightest from China, India, or even Mexico, with degrees in the sciences or whatever, I see no reason to have a limit. The US has the resources to let those people’s ideas come into reality and in doing so the world becomes a better place for everyone.
The children of those potato peelers and bed turners generally do just as well as those born to “native” parents, even if the potato peelers themselves generally labor in low-end drudgery for most or all of their lives.
It’s what makes America great - and it’s probably how you got to where you were.
I have exceedingly well-educated friends - educated in the United States - who still need to struggle to find work visa sponsors to stay here. That’s nuts, in my view. If other countries produce smart people who want to come here and be really, really productive - well, that’s all to the good. Or, as Nelson Muntz would put it to these other countries:
“Ha ha! Brain drain!”
It may be harder on American workers - but, hell, if they can’t compete in the professions that just means they need to be better.
We were doing just fine in the '50s and '60s when we were getting roughly 200,000 immigrants a year. That number was few enough that they could assimilate fairly quickly. And yet dishes got washed and lawns got mowed back then, without the immense hordes of poorly-paid newcomers that our economic elite would have us believe is necessary to run the economy!
The pre-1964 limits should have stayed in place, IMHO.
We’re doing just fine now, too.
More accurately, majority cultures tend to be viewed as the norm, while minority or foreign cultures are described in comparison to them. I’m sure nobody would claim that American blacks or Latinos have no culture, or that we cannot describe their culture. But that’s because they’re minorities, so describing their culture basically means saying where it differs from mainstream American white culture. But what is the culture of American whites? They most definitely have one, but it’s hard to describe because it’s really the norm. Basically, it’s “the way things are”.
One characteristic of the American culture is it doesn’t require or even desire government documents be translated from English into something else.
I don’t even know what that means.