National Review<\/a>, Jonathan S. Tobin wrote, in defense of immigrants, that, as was the case throughout our history, the next generation of immigrants would just as surely adopt American values of \u201cliberty, democracy, and the rule of law.\u201d \u00a0(Yes, this is old news but it wasn\u2019t when I started drafting this post.)<\/p>\nNow, it seems to me that there are a couple issues here:<\/p>\n
In the first place, the operating assumption seems to be that \u201cliberty, democracy, and the rule of law\u201d (plus, sometimes, also equal rights for all, tolerance, and non-discrimination) are assumed to be universal human values that \u00a0all people will ultimately gravitate to once they are themselves liberated from the oppression they may have experienced in their home countries, or (as Tobin does to a certain degree) that immigrants to the U.S. are attracted by these values because they share them. \u00a0But is that necessarily the case? \u00a0It\u2019s my understanding that if you took a typical Chinese student studying in the U.S. and asked them about the lack of free elections, they\u2019d defend their country and say that democracy is unnecessary and what\u2019s more important is economic growth, national unity, etc. \u00a0You might say that they\u2019ve been brainwashed by their system, but if they, in turn, stay in the U.S., there is no immediate reason to think they will be lovers of democracy and liberty as we perceive of them. \u00a0Or consider Mexican immigrants: though their country is nominally a democracy, it is not, so far as I understand, a true participatory democracy with respect to the experiences of peasants and the poor, and \u201crule of law\u201d is very weak there. \u00a0Corruption is the norm, and, as much as illegal immigrant advocates like to say that they have \u201conly\u201d broken laws regarding forging of ID or working under the table, this still speaks to ideas of laws as optional that come from a country without a strong \u201crule of law\u201d tradition.<\/p>\n
Now, every time we see naturalization ceremonies, there\u2019s a narrative of being able to, finally, be able to vote and participate fully in our democracy. \u00a0But how thoroughly are other notions extinguished \u2014 the idea that some groups have more rights than others, or laws don\u2019t always need to\u00a0be followed if you don\u2019t like them? \u00a0And, too, there are a large percentage of permanent residents who do not become citizens, and, in fact, maintain ties to the home country and vote in their<\/em> elections, and don\u2019t necessarily see themselves as Americans (having sought naturalization for its practical benefits) but who primarily identify as their former\/original nationality.<\/p>\nWhat\u2019s more, there are other \u201cAmerican values\u201d that are much more in dispute \u2014 chiefly the \u201cvalue\u201d that education and hard work brings success. \u00a0The new \u201cvalue\u201d of progressives is much more that the right government policies, including generous government spending, bring success, and this is much more in line with what many of these immigrants might have experienced in their home countries. \u00a0The ideals of human rights to liberty, free expression, and free exercise\u00a0of religion for all, are replaced by \u201crights\u201d to education, housing, etc. \u00a0And the ideal of nondiscrimination and equal treatment risks being supplanted by tribalism, in which everyone looks out for their \u201cgroup\u201d first and foremost.<\/p>\n
And what of American culture? \u00a0No, this is not just \u201cliberty, democracy, and the rule of law.\u201d \u00a0I mean the question of whether football and baseball are replaced by soccer. \u00a0Whether the Irish dancers on St. Patrick\u2019s Day fade into the past, or turkey on Thanksgiving or ham on Easter. \u00a0Backyard cookouts, and Fourth of July parades, and so on. \u00a0Country music, apple pie \u2014 and Boy Scouts are struggling to recruit (and find leaders) from immigrant families who have no similar traditions. \u00a0It seems to me (though I can\u2019t find a link to back this up) that some time ago I read in the paper that there was a back-up as the Von Steuben Day Parade in Chicago (made famous by Ferris Bueller\u2019s Day Off<\/em>) finished off just as the much larger Mexican Independence Day parade was about to get started, and afterwards the Von Steuben Day Parade was moved northwards to the Lincoln Square neighborhood.<\/p>\nNow maybe this doesn\u2019t matter. \u00a0After all, plenty of elements of \u201cAmerican culture\u201d have disappeared without much of anyone noticing \u2014 who square dances any more?\u00a0And it\u2019s not as if immigrants forcibly prevented people from square dancing. \u00a0But it still is perfectly understandable for native-born Americans to feel it as a loss if\u00a0someday it won\u2019t even make sense\u00a0to say \u201cas American as apple pie.\u201d<\/p>\n
https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File%3AApple_pie.jpg; By Dan Parsons (http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/dan90266\/42759561\/) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>And looking at Europe, where there are battles over whether traditional meals with pork in them are to be dropped from school cafeterias, and where new immigrants come from countries that have no tradition of democracy or of equal (or even non-abusive) treatment of women, its easy to fear that their present will become our future.<\/p>\nHaving said that, I\u2019ve sat on this in draft form for a while. \u00a0I don\u2019t have concrete information on what percent of new immigrants maintain dual citizenship, or report caring more about elections in their country of origin than here, or, conversely, report adopting American traditions and, indeed, eat apple pie, for example, and without data to support or reject the reasonableness of these concerns, this piece can\u2019t be anything other than a conversation-starter. \u00a0But I\u2019ll post this anyway, and start that conversation.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Can we preserve American culture, and American values, with \u201cother people\u2019s babies\u201d? \u00a0Representative Steven King found himself accused of white supremacism for a tweet in which he said, in part, \u201cWe can\u2019t restore our civilization with somebody else\u2019s babies,\u201d\u00a0and in an article at the National Review, Jonathan S. Tobin wrote, in defense of immigrants, that, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":6316,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[46,497],"class_list":["post-6271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-immigration","tag-multiculturalism"],"yoast_head":"\n
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