At What Point Are You Assimilated?

Recently, President Obama surprised many of us by directly addressing immigration reform. Apparently, the man hasn't had enough criticism aimed at him. In any case, one of the aspects of the president's plan is that all immigrants should learn English.

Certainly, it is in the best interests of immigrants to learn the nation's dominant language. The economic disadvantage of not knowing English is a very real phenomenon.

However, as I've written before, we Americans get more than a little self-serving when it comes to immigrants speaking English. The argument that it benefits them is rarely invoked. Instead, we're told that it's part of the process of assimilation — necessary for them to become part of American culture.

This brings up some natural questions. For starters, who gets to decide what American culture is and how it's expressed? For that matter, even if we could all agree on what constitutes U.S. values, is it necessarily true that they never change or adapt? While we're at it, are new ideas and concepts from a foreign land inherently a threat to those values?

To hear many people, American culture is like the Borg, assimilating everything in its path so that we are all one. This is where the myth of the Great American Melting Pot came from.

However, it should be clear to any citizen that American culture encompasses a wide range of values and behaviors. For example, residents of Manhattan tend to have a very different worldview and way of life than do, say, people who live in rural Alabama. Those respective subcultures are more distinct than the differences between some adjacent countries. Hence, we have mighty intellectuals like Sarah Palin, who are gracious enough to inform us what constitutes "the real America."

Perhaps the insistence that English is our national language comes out of the frustration of trying to reconcile the contradictions and perplexities in American society. However, as I've written before, the United States doesn't have an official language. I've also pointed out that not everyone spoke English in the good old days. I won't rehash those arguments, but suffice to say that myriad German-speaking immigrants in the past didn't undermine America's unity.

In fact, several nations don't have their own language at all. Try speaking Swiss to someone from Switzerland. There is no such language, and the inhabitants of this famously neutral country speak German or French. That's right — having more than one language hasn't caused their nation to splinter.

But many Americans say none of that matters. English is dominant, and Spanish has no place in the United States. To those people, I say good luck ordering huevos rancheros at that restaurant on Santa Monica Boulevard here in Los Angeles, before you drive down La Cienega to catch the freeway to San Diego and La Jolla.

Clearly, you won't have to speak any Spanish at all.

The truth is that at some point in the past decade, Cinco de Mayo became as American as St. Patrick's Day (another holiday brought in by a once-hated immigrant group). Assimilation has always been a two-way street, and that is not changing just because many of us wish it were not so.

Indeed, one could argue that among the most sacrosanct of American values is the right to self-expression. As such, immigrants who sidestep traditional aspects of assimilation may be simply embracing the tremendous freedoms found in their new home. That would be weirdly patriotic of them.

A final question, of course, is what is the point of all this assimilation. Is it really an inherent positive — like good health or a stable family life — that requires no further analysis? Or is it a vague benchmark that only exists to keep undesirables out?

Feel free to speak your mind on the subject. After all, that is your right, privilege, and prerogative as an American.

Photo Credit: Vauvau