Retain or adapt?
Answer:
Because some people have this misguided notion that American has always been some great big "melting pot" which is both ridiculous and historically inaccurate. There has never been a time in the U.S.'s past when we were culturally, religiously, or even linguistically homogeneous. In fact, historically the U.S. has emphasized Separatism (think of the segregation of African-Americans, or the laws created to specifically hurt Asian-Americans). This misrecognition is a tool to avoid admitting that most people are still xenophobic, and don't want to experience "foreign-ness." It lets people pretend they are being welcoming when in fact they are saying "you can come here, and join us, but only if you stop being who you are and be just like us." Even worse, is that we don't just say that to immigrants, but we say it to other countries as well (you all should be democratic, you have to have our same moral principles, if you don't oppose abortion we won't give you money to help your sick children, you're either with us or against us, etc.).
Why shouldn't they adapt?! They are coming here. Let them retain their culture in their homes. They shouldn't expect me to learn their language because they don't want to learn English. If they love their Mexican flag, for example, instead of the US flag, maybe they should go home since they care more about Mexico than the US.
This goes for only LEGAL immigrants. Any ILLEGAL alien criminals should ALWAYS fo back home.
Well people come to America to become american and embrace its culture. If yu want to be MMexican, then stay in Mexico, and practice your own culture. Noone forces you here.
Fine. However, the argument against amnesty and for strictly limited immigration going forward is that we like to retain our own culture, too, regardless of the fact that you think we have none. And therefor, we shouldn't let in so many from one place, period. When people come from all over, we maintain our blend and change slowly. When they inundate from one place they reinforce eachother in keeping separate and in recreating their country here.
Main Street USA is a real place that until 15 years ago you could find throughout most of our country. It is being drowned out now, and that is a fact.
Socially unassimilatable masses are a classic reason for limiting immigration, granted that an individual legally here has a 'right' to retain their own customs and language, within the law.
That is one of the main reasons why the immigration law was restrictively reformed in the 1920s, remember?
Because WE as Americans do it. Were not saying they have to give up their culture, but they should adapt to ours. Not the other way around. One could in fact construe that as an act of terrorism. Isn't that what we are fighting after all?If you live in the United states, you follow our rules of law. If you don't like it you can leave and go back where you came from. We will not force you to stay. For example, if you are from Mexico, move back there. Don't try to coerce us to except it through force of authority, because all that will cause is us REVOLTING AGAINST YOU.
To MissMissy: Thank you dear.
what they mean is learn the language, don't have kids you can't afford becuase children are expensive in this country, pay taxes, do things legally, don't be racist against whites,blacks,asians,,,anyone thats the culture, you can stiil eat empenadas and tamales and listen to ranchero and reggeton ,,,every other ethnic group had the respect to do this assimilation is a good change,,,why not latinos,,,,,,,too much pride and too litte respect
If we wanted to get real specific here about what America is or is not let's take a look at who founded this country and who wrote the declaration of Independence who was there to sign it:
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IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
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The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:
Column 1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton
Column 2
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton
Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton
Column 4
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean
Column 5
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark
Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton
This country was created by a group of Christian Englishmen who decided to create their own country to escape the tyranny forced on them by England. They named that country America- and guess what they didn't call themselves English - Americans either.
You are either an American or not there is no - in American.
As you can see, not once in this great work of literature does it state that America was created to become a melting pot!
ps.What I am saying is this: You came to our party remember be a good guest and show some manners. If you can't dance like every one else sit it out but don't expect everyone else to learn your moves. ( know what I mean)
The immigration information post by website user , MyTend.com not guarantee correctness