The whole issue of immigration is difficult.
Even illegal immigration (which I attempt to address "here." )
I say that, because we're in the midst of something called National Hispanic Heritage Month, which runs from Sept. 15-Oct 15 - not a true "month,'' which makes me wonder if the creators of this celebration refused to stay within the accepted definition of what a "month'' is and had to create their own.
I'm not against this. I celebrate my own heritage of being white trash. After all, I'm from Georgia, founded as refuge for people who were headed toward debtors prison; and one side of my family goes by the name "Smith."
Heritage is interesting. It's not hard, even today, to go to neighborhoods in the northeast that are still identified by their cultural background - the Irish neighborhood, the German neighborhood, the Jewish neighborhood, the Italian neighborhood, etc.
But in the South, you didn't really find that. At least not as commonly as you did in the north. I think that's because when people came off the boat in the heavily populated north, they went to stay with people who spoke their language and prepared their foods and understood their culture. But when you moved to the more rural South, you mixed out of survival and your non-American background wasn't nearly as what you could bring to the community at large.
Today almost every community has its Hispanic neighborhood. In fact, according to some stats I read recently, something like 40 percent of the children in this country are Hispanic.
But if the theory of the melting pot holds true, eventually - within a generation or two - the Hispanic influence should lessen and these children should become "American."
I mean, if people want to remain completely surrounded by their old culture, they could have stayed where they were and not come to America. The whole point of immigrating, it seems to me, is to pursue something better for yourself than what you have; to seek better opportunity and a better life.
And they have kept coming, despite the hardships they have always faced - from the early settlers at Jamestown right on through today. They come because this is still seen as "the land of opportunity,'' a phrase that might seem out-dated to people who are struggling right now to find jobs, keep homes, get medical care, and so on.
But people do keep coming. Because this is still the most likely place in the world for people to come with nothing and be able to leave something to their children, and their children's children.
Because every wave of immigration is really two parts: the immigrants - the people who cross the borders (legally or otherwise); and their children who are born in this country.
The key to being "American" is not trying to impose the values of the old country on the new, but rather in celebrating the culture of the old country while embracing the opportunity of the new.
And again, if you say "what opportunity," I say, "if there isn't opportunity, why do they keep coming?"
But America is not made up of "groups." At least, it's not supposed to be.
The basis of this country, if I read history correctly, is individualism. The whole "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights," which means rights that belong not to groups but to individuals.
The concept of looking after the right of the "group'' is basically un-American. In fact, I'd say groups tend to look backwards - where are you from? Who are your grandparents? What language do you speak? - while individual rights look forward - where do you want to go? What kind of life do you want for your children? What do you need to learn to get there?
Looking after "groups'' means the need to figure out how to carefully allocate limited resources to cover the most people, a job that winds up being left to the government.
Looking after the "individual'' means adapting, developing resources, thinking outside the box, being free to try and fail and suffer the consequences while learning the lesson. It's like Thomas Edison who, when someone asked him about all the failures he endured while trying to invent the light bulb, replied with something like, "those weren't failures. Each was a lesson that brought me closer to the idea that worked!"
Here's the really crazy thing that just doesn't make sense: the more peple see themselves as individuals, the more they appear to be willing to help other individuals, regardless of what "group'' they came out of!
Dr. Martin Luther King's best known speech includes a line where he dreamed of a world where people could be measured by the content of their character and not the color of their skin.
That sums up the historical essence of America, and what seperates the idea of America from just about every other country in the world.
Not that it's easy or clean and neat. It's not.
It is important to remember and celebrate the past. And those of us without a clearly defined past love to take part of Greek food festivals and Italian weddings and Hispanic celebrations and German beer fests!
But it is also important to remember that those things are "in the past."
And as long as we do that, the idea of America remains strong.
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