The following is my answer to a comment posted by "Bauta" in the blog of Andres Oppenheimer from The Miami Herald. It touches some of the points of my previous two postings but here again, it does provide further insights as to my thoughts on the immigration issue. Enjoy!
Bauta said...
When you have millions of people coming from the same region, the result is that they don't feel the need to assimilate to the new society and they don't learn the language. Hispanics in America and Muslims in Europe don't want to assimilate, they want to impose their culture. Now the US is going to bring 7,000 more Muslims from Irak. Wonderful ah? Bauta
Mousqueton said....
Dear Bauta:
That is not quite true. Let me explain.
1) At a certain point in our history over 74% of the New York population was foreign and they eventually assimilated. Further, in the 1900’s the foreign born population of the United States was higher than in the year 2000 and they have assimilated as well.
In the process we also assimilated some of their customs and traditions. A token of that is the Saint Patrick's Ball held in the White House and certainly the bagpipes that are today an American tradition at the funeral of any policeman and/or firefighter who dies in the line of duty.
2) While numbers do have an impact on the assimilation process, it is the endurance and fortitude of the principles that eventually determine which culture prevails.
If you make a list of everything you believe to be American and do some research you will find that none of it, except as I mentioned before arguably Baseball and certainly Rock and Roll, is indeed American.
The logical question then is; how can there be an American culture if everything we regard as American is indeed foreign?
Bauta said...
When you have millions of people coming from the same region, the result is that they don't feel the need to assimilate to the new society and they don't learn the language. Hispanics in America and Muslims in Europe don't want to assimilate, they want to impose their culture. Now the US is going to bring 7,000 more Muslims from Irak. Wonderful ah? Bauta
Mousqueton said....
Dear Bauta:
That is not quite true. Let me explain.
1) At a certain point in our history over 74% of the New York population was foreign and they eventually assimilated. Further, in the 1900’s the foreign born population of the United States was higher than in the year 2000 and they have assimilated as well.
In the process we also assimilated some of their customs and traditions. A token of that is the Saint Patrick's Ball held in the White House and certainly the bagpipes that are today an American tradition at the funeral of any policeman and/or firefighter who dies in the line of duty.
2) While numbers do have an impact on the assimilation process, it is the endurance and fortitude of the principles that eventually determine which culture prevails.
If you make a list of everything you believe to be American and do some research you will find that none of it, except as I mentioned before arguably Baseball and certainly Rock and Roll, is indeed American.
The logical question then is; how can there be an American culture if everything we regard as American is indeed foreign?
