Every morning on my way to work I see one of my neighbors, a Muslim mullah from Pakistan, taking his daily walk in his skull cap and khameez. In my local grocery store, I can hear Korean, Urdu, Arabic, Chinese, and Spanish, but rarely English. My banks’ ATM asks if I want to conduct my transactions in English or Spanish. I have trouble understanding the folks at the DMV because the window clerks all speak in really strong accents. I feel like a foreigner in my own country.
I’m glad America is a welcoming country, and I know that all of our ancestors came from other countries to make a new home(except for half of my ancestors;they walked across the Bering land bridge 12,000 years ago.) However, I have some questions:
Can we assimilate these new immigrants? They don’t seem to be willing to adapt to America or learn English.
Is Spanish turning into an unofficial second language?
What are the common elements that make us American?
Should we put a brake on immigration, or are our policies working?
I’d really like to hear from Coldfire, Matt_mcl, and other non-Americans to know how their countries deal with immigrants.
One of the most common elements that makes you “American” isImmigration.
Polish, Irish, German, I could go on. we all built your country.
the pilgrims didnt seem to be too keen on adopting any of the native american languages when they landed.
I cant speak for your policies, as I dont know them
Right now in Ireland, we have a lot of immigrants coming into the country, mostly asylum seekers, some illegally.
I, for one , am glad that we are doing this. I love new and different cultures. The Irish benefited from being Immigrants, and now its our turn to be the host country.
Being in Canada, in Toronto, I can assure you there’s no place around with more immigrants. A much higher percentage of Canadians than Americans are foreign-born. It’s not really a problem, to be honest, though my perception is that Canadians generally like the notion of being multicultural.
That said, virtually all ethnic groups DO assimilate. The ones who come over might not, but their kids will, believe me.
What you said about some of today’s groups is exactly what was said about the Italians, Irish, Germans et al. at the end of the nineteenth century. The Italians were every bit as foreign and insular a culture as anyone today. They assimilated. The U.S. was just as awash in immigrants in 1900 as they are in 2000, and it eventually panned out.
I haven’t done a study on it or anything, but my perception is that countries with a steady flow of immigration seem to be better off than countries that don’t allow much immigration. I may be putting the cart before the horse to some extent, of course.
PErhaps most importantly, demographic trends in WEstern nations like the USA, Canada, the UK, etc. pretty much necessitate immigration to keep the economy going.
In short, the population is aging. The USA’s Social Security system and Canada’s CPP system are basically pay-as-you-go affairs (they aren’t supposed to be, but really are) whereby today’s workers’ contributions buttress the government’s revenue so it can pay out bucks to retired people. The ratio of workers to 73-year-old atrocious drivers is getting lower every day because people aren’t being born as much but they’re taking longer to die. Bringing in younger immigrants helps to keep more people contributing to support the retired.
So unless you want to bring in a plan to knock off Grandma, reducing immigration will result in a fairly severe shock to the nation’s finances. I appreciate that some people are convinced immigrants suck up welfare and blah blah blah, but the reality is that demographics determine a lot more than we often realize, and right now the USA (and Canada, Britain, Australia, etc.) is facing a future wherein the percentage of the population actually being productive is already at an all-time low and is going to keep dropping. Cutting off a supply of immigrants will make that a LOT worse.
It’s worth remembering that in many if not most of the places in America which have a very large Spanish-speaking population - e.g. California, Florida, Texas, New Mexico etc. - the Spanish speakers were there before the English speakers were.
In California? Yes. Anything wrong with that? No. Look at Belgium, they’re doing quite well and they have three official languages and several unofficial ones , including English.
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Being a citizen. Other then that there are no common elements. And nor should there be a requirement for them.
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No, our policies are not working. We should open up immigration. Excluding people is always bad practice. Look at what’s happening in Japan. In what many would consider an overpopulated world(not me), they are paying people $5,000 each to have a kid. Can you imagine getting paid to have kids? Hell, they should just bring in some more immigrants, that will solve the problem.
“Every morning on my way to work I see one of my neighbors, a Muslim mullah from Pakistan, taking his daily walk in his skull cap and khameez. In my local grocery store, I can hear Korean, Urdu, Arabic, Chinese, and Spanish, but rarely English.”
I would love to live in such a place. There is a fair amount of diversity where I live, but I usually have to seek it out. I can’t think of anything more dull than living where everyone lives the same lifestyle. If I want to hear English and see American life I can turn on the TV.
[rant]
Many tech workers are immigrants. While that is not a problem, if you are hiring people to staff a technical support line please make sure they speak intelligible English!!! Sorry, but I come up against that a lot in my job, and it annoys the heck out of me when I call a company for help and cannot decipher what their technicians are trying to say!
[/rant]
That over, I say let 'em come. So long as they are coming over legally, why not?
Often when you call a tech support you are talking to a guy in another country because it’s cheaper. I know there are companies that subcontract in central America and others in India.
I’m with Gilligan – at first I thought you were bragging about the cultural diversity in your neighborhood.
I live in a small town in Iowa, and am enchanted by “foreigners.” Shoot, I’m Queen of the Hicks when it comes to asking people stupid questions about where they came from. (I failed to do this when I lived in Seattle – it isn’t cool for urbanites to let people think they don’t know everything.)
Let 'em in. Lord knows we could use some fresh thinking.
I work with a lot of immigrants, mainly from India, Pakistan, China and Japan. I have a lot of respect for immigrants. To leave everything behind, your family, friends, life and move to another place where you won’t know anybody and won’t speak your native tongue is bold and ambitious. I think we need more people here like that. Of course, I also think we should ship out half of the existing lazy-ass, citizens, but that would be a tough bill to pass.
As someone said, all you folks have to do is pollute your spacious skies, incinerate the amber waves of grain, level your purple mountains, deforest the fruited plain, and dim your alabaster cities with human tears, and you ought to reach a level of immigration such as currently enjoyed by Bangladesh.
>> I say let 'em come. So long as they are coming over legally, why not?
But, Ptahlis, that really does not answer anything. I guess the question is “should the law let them in?” To say “as long as they come legally” means nothing. What is your annual quota? 2000? 20000? 200000? 2000000?
To say you don’t want illegals is redundant.
The laws keep changing with different sides proposing different things and, in the meanwhile, people’s lives are disrupted… There have been plenty of cases in the news that are just ludicrous. I remember a Japanese woman who had married a US serviceman right after the war and they were married for over 40 years (in Virginia I believe it was). Anyway he died, and the INS found some technicality and deported her to Japan. Only after a local TV station got involved and shamed the INS was she allowed to return, the poor woman. All her family was here and she had nobody in Japan.
And I won’t go into my personal experience because you never know who’s reading…
I tend to say, let’s let some folks in, but not tons and tons…my concern is primarily for overcrowding. IF we get out birth rate down so that we could actually use a few incomers, I could support that.
I do like multiculturalism, although I do not like other languages (learning languages is a weak point of mine, so this reflects my own frustration). Still, as an earlier poster mentioned, it will probably be a matter of time before other ethnic groups become more acculturated. I don’t think we have much risk of having a bilingual country.
I see no problem with allowing any peaceful, honest person to come to this country. No quotas at all. Just enough of a check in to see that you aren’t fleeing arrest, and you’re a resident. A year or two down the line, and you can be a citizen.
An interesting story a friend of mine told me was that in Chandler, Arizona, the police decided to crack down on illegal immigrants. So they rented a bus, and drove around demanding Green Cards from people who looked Mexican. Then they drove them back to Mexico. They weren’t aware that some people of Mexican heritage don’t have Green Cards for the simple reason that the US doesn’t issue Green Cards to its citizens.
I hardly think so. I am not in a position to give you a number of X aliens processed into the country each year, but I do believe it is something that needs to be regulated. Read that as not being quotas necessarily, but people who are part of the legal process. Do you want a policy whereby anybody can just walk in regardless of who they are? Anyone who wants to can just come on in? “Got Criminals? Ship 'em to the US!” What about paying taxes? What about becoming a citizen?
I don’t entirely understand, but I believe you’re saying that if we don’t pay attention to the environment, people won’t want to immigrate here. I think that’s way off the truth-track. People don’t immigrate here to look at pretty trees; they come here because of financial opportunity. They come here because they can have a better life, not because the there were no beautiful purple mountains where they came from.