February 3, 2003
I'LL STOP THE WORLD AND MELT WITH YOU:
Born in the USA: Like transplanted families before them, Indian immigrants struggle to raise kids in their cultural tradition, even in the melting pot of America (Najeeb Hasan, Metro San Jose)"You have to understand this thing carefully," [Dr. Prithipal Singh] says. "We came here as immigrants with a desire to succeed. By definition, we were outsiders. We were fighting very hard, which left us very little time for our children. And why do immigrants want to succeed? Well, nobody wants to leave their own home. This doesn't mean you have to be poor over there, but when you left the country, by definition, you had goals in your mind, expectations of yourself. Sometimes they were right; sometimes they were disproportionately high."I don't think the goal of any Indian immigrant was to come here and enjoy life. We saved money to buy a house, then a car. The Mercedes was considered a symbol, so you see a lot of us buying the Mercedes and Lexus as status symbols.
"With our children, I think there was a polarization between the Indus culture and Western culture. Like any other immigrant, we came here with the idea that it would be a short stay, and then we'd go back; we never embraced the American culture. When our children who were born here were out of the home, they were totally independent; but when they came home, we imposed upon them our culture.
"In these circumstances, we tended to confuse our children," he adds. "We should have understood American culture more and adapted ourselves so our children would become comfortable."
Now, he acknowledges, to the accepting dismay of the elders, the younger generation is taking it on itself to understand and adapt to the American culture, but after jettisoning the older generation's traditional wisdom.
"When your children are confused," Dr. Singh continues, "you have to fight to keep your identity, but the children don't understand what the environment of the parents was, of their struggles to succeed. Children can't understand this problem. A lot of them are revolting; they don't know whether they're Americans or not.
"And now, we don't understand them. For example, talk about social values--a boy with a girl. That's not common in our part of the world. We always prohibited our children from dating. And the combined family--we still want to be a combined family system; it's difficult to accept that at 18, children have grown up. How many parents wish that their children lived with them? Both my sons have different homes. Why can't they live in my house?"
Kind of amusing that the anti-immigrationists are convinced we'll never be able to assimilate people from non-Western European cultures while the immigrants themselves fret about how quickly their kids have become Americanized. It would be funnier if the same dynamic hadn't been playing out for over a hundred and fifty years, with xenophobes still trotting out the same canards about the unassimilable immigrants. Posted by Orrin Judd at February 3, 2003 3:33 PM
Steven Pinker has a chapter in "The Blank Slate" in which he points out that children are far more influenced by their peers than they are by their parents. This story certainly supports that observation.
Posted by: Jed Roberts at February 3, 2003 5:00 PMAnd, concerning the posts about India, I have been
recalling my college roommate from Gujerat, who
spoke better English than I did BEFORE he came over.
He never did come to terms with collard greens, though.
You're fans of 1) Modern English 2) Valley Girl 3) Nichols Cage, or 4) some combination. Which is it? I'm all 3.
Posted by: Biased Observer at February 3, 2003 5:19 PMYour simply creating a straw man. No immigration restricitionist believes that immigrants can never be assimilated. The problem is that it's far more difficult with non-westerners, and this is doubly so in a world where they can still receive broadcasts in their native language from the homeland. We also have never had so many people come in from a bordering country, to whom many maintain an open and frank allegiance, even dual citizenship. Thus we call for a time-out. Some time in the future, immigration can be re-started, but for now, we've had enough.
In your little vignette of historical Americanization, Orrin, you left out the rather inconvenient fact that this is exactly what happened between 1924 and 1965. The U.S. effectively stopped taking in immigrants and assimilated what it had, and before that wars on the European continent acted as time-outs. If we're to take history seriously, then it's high time we stopped the inflow and allowed the people here to naturally assimilate, instead of continuing with the status quo, which will lead to broad sections of our country doing the opposite: assimilating to another nation.
Modern English!
Posted by: oj at February 3, 2003 6:15 PMDerek:
A Depression, two world wars, and the creation of the Welfare State...I can hardly wait for the next time out.
Actually, there was one world war.
Your statement is a non-sequitur, Orrin. These events had nothing to do with our immigration policy. You waxed elegaic about assimilation. Well, you can't do that without taking into account the relevant part of that history: a forty-year timeout.
Sorry about the wordy sentences below. I hacked out a too quick reply.
WWII and the Cold War.
Surely tit's at least a remarkable coincidence that our worst period of governance, other than just prior to the Civil War, occurred during one of the rare moments when we closed our borders and turned inwards.
The real question is can the US assimilate the numbers of legal and illegal aliens entering the US when Americans have so little knowledge of their history, traditions, and the Constitution?
Posted by: TJ Jackson at February 3, 2003 9:56 PMMr. Jackson:
That's really the point. The problem isn't "them", it's "us".
Worse periods of governance? Didn't we save the world in the forties? Don't you think a united populace (after 20 years of assimilation) had something to do with that? What was wrong with the 20s, or the 50s for that matter? These were some of the best periods to be alive and American compared to what happened before.
If you want to draw specious parallels, let's look at the good times since 1965: Vietnam, Watergate, Stagflation, Jimmuh Carter, Reagan's exploding government growth (yes, under Reagan!), Bill Clinton, The Great Society. And, of course, all this while, as you being a religious person would note, God's place in society has eroded and decayed (Gotta accomodate those Muslims and Hindus). Oh, yes, there were also those two buildings that used to be in New York. You can thank immigration for their disappearance. They even had visas!
Mr. Copold:
Don't you think by the very act of leaving "home" and taking chances that the immigrants are closer to the American character than a lot of people born here. I definately think that more American history and values need to be stressed in our schools and society (its depressing that the only way you would hear the National Anthem was to attend sporting events). But, if someone is willing to take their chances here, and the author of the piece Judd links to still has a lot in common with Americans than he is willing to admit, than I say let 'em come. We want 'em and I'm sure the other countries miss 'em. And we'll assimilate their kids anyway.
Derek:
I'd have taken in Germany's Jews and gypsies and then let the Nazis and commies slaughter each other until they were exhausted.
In 1975, when S. Vietnam collapsed, one governor,
Robert Ray of Iowa, welcomed Indochinese refugees, set up a state resettlement office and Iowa ended up
with the highest proportion of Indochinese immigrants of any state but California.
They had their troubles, especially the Hmong who went from practically stone age to modern overnight. But
they assimilated PDQ.
The non-western business is a red herring. I live in a
county that is about 50% Asian ancestry, 10% Latin
American. And all American.
No one is saying assimilation is impossible; under the right conditions, it is likely. But right now we are actively undermining
those conditions.
Paul:
We, not they.