Do you remember, as a child in grade school, being told that America was “the great Melting Pot of the World”? Does this still hold true today?
Are people still coming to America in droves? Look at this article from the USCIS website:
o U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Acting Director Lori Scialabba will help USCIS celebrate our nation’s 238th birthday as the agency welcomes approximately 9,000 new U.S. citizens during more than 100 naturalization ceremonies across the country from June 30 to July 4th.
Where do all these people come from?
According to the U.S. News:
o In 2009, about 38 percent of foreign-born people in the United States were from Mexico or Central America; the next-largest group came from Asia and accounted for 27 percent of the total foreign-born population.
o About one-fifth of naturalized U.S. citizens were from Mexico or Central America; more than one-third were from Asia. About half of the noncitizens living in the United States in 2009 were from Mexico or Central America, and about one-fifth were from Asia. An estimated 62 percent of noncitizens unauthorized to live in the United States were from Mexico.
o From 2000 to 2009, more than 10 million people were granted legal permanent resident (LPR) status in the United States. Legal permanent residents are permitted to live, work, and study in the United States. Over the past two centuries, the main areas of origin of legal permanent residents in the United States have changed from primarily Europe and Canada to Asia, Mexico, and Central America.
E Pluribus Unum (From Many, One)
Many communities are feeling the effect of immigration and the strain and drain of resources. Can the United States sustain this? The largest number of immigrants is found in California, Texas, Arizona, Florida and New York. Lately it appears it is not the melting pot that is transforming our new citizens but rather it is they who are transforming us.
America had become irresistible but now the immigrants resist. What has caused that to happen? I am going to use the word assimilation from here on out. Dictionary Online states the definition is, the merging of cultural traits from previously distinct cultural groups, not involving biological amalgamation.
Assimilation used to mean that the immigrants were to conform to the Anglo way of thinking and that doesn’t seem to be happening anymore and isn’t a positive experience for the immigrant (my thoughts here are “tough toenails” to them). In the world today, we are forcing our society into ethnicity and diversity and that makes it a whole bunch easier for the immigrant to avoid the melting pot. Sadly, today the words “melting pot” and been replaced with “mosaic” and “salad”. Does this mean they are wanting the establishment to change to meet their ideals?
This assimilation can’t go both ways. Resentment appears to be coming from the native-born Americans about this process that is playing itself out on the American scene. With the large influx of Mexicans and from South American countries we are finding they are binding together to create their own culture and not needing any help from the mainstream. The 29 million Hispanics, mostly from Mexico, has become a brewing concern in this country.
In many places, new Hispanic immigrants have tended to cluster in “niche” occupations, live in segregated neighborhoods and worship in separate churches. In this behavior they are much like previous groups of immigrants. But their heavy concentrations in certain parts of the country, their relatively close proximity to their native lands and their sheer numbers give this wave of immigrants an unprecedented potential to change the way the melting pot traditionally has worked.
Tomorrow’s Blog- Does God Care About Football?
The opinions in this blog belong to Tom Knuppel