A liberal failure
One side effect of opposing the far right in the United States is the labeling of one's own position on the political spectrum. Once opposed the far right tends to label any attacker of their views as "liberal". And why not? The word has been redefined and maligned for the last 25 years. At one time it meant open to change, broad minded, free from bigotry and fairly modern in their views. Due to a non-stop campaign from the far right by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and a host of right wing celebrities, the word has come to mean a person who is a communist, God-hating, gay-loving, tree-hugging, flag-burning, French-wine-swilling America hater. It's ashame the word has been deprived of it's original meaning. But that's where we are in this country right now. To oppose the far right doesn't just make you a political opponent, it makes you the enemy. The down side of all this is that once you've been labeled as liberal it becomes your duty to redefine yourself before the opposition defines you. If there's an issue out there where you don't fall along liberal lines it doesn't hurt to point it out, no one is going to take away your official membership card to any part of the political spectrum as far as I know.
I remember sitting in my college anthropology class, Cultural Anthropology it was, while the professor was explaining patterns of assimilation in American culture. In this case it was non-assimilation as he pointed out that our notion of the "melting pot" was no longer applicable. Huh? I was surprised. We've always thought of America as the melting pot where immigrants came to lose themselves in American life. He continued to tell us that the quaint old notion of the melting pot didn't apply very well to explaining how new Americans deal with becoming "American". No, the melting pot had been replaced by another dynamic called the "tossed salad" where immigrants hang onto their language and customs and reside in tightly knit ethnic communities where they can speak their language and avoid the kind of problems that new arrivals usually have. This notion of not being a melting pot anymore disturbed me a little as my professor thought it was really neat that these people were hanging onto their heritage. So we have these tossed salads all over, neighborhoods where ethnic minorities can function for years without speaking a word of English or interacting with the natives. One of the cooks at the restaurant I worked in was like this. He worked, he functioned, he got by. They spoke Spanish at work so he didn't need to learn English and when he went home he was surrounded with people from his mother country so he didn't need to adapt there either. In the 16 years I knew him his English skills didn't improve, he hadn't really progressed from the first day that I'd met him. He didn't need to, he had the protection of the "tossed salad". He didn't particularly love this country or it's history, culture and ideals. He was just here to work and I found this both sad and distasteful.
This all came flooding back to me during the last couple of days as the news media digests the pathology of the London bombers, young Arab men who apparently are British citizens are strapping bombs to themselves and blowing themselves up in a misguided jihad. Some commentators are pointing out that these young men are living in ethnic communities, not assimilating and when confronted with a society with which they cannot relate, they turn to terrorism to strike out at British society. The young Arab men lived in lower-middle class neighborhoods made up primarily of other Arabs, the homes are enshrouded with satelite dishes to receive Arab language broadcasts from Saudi Arabia. Once again we have a situation where people cannot, or will not, relate to the country they have chosen to inhabit. Instead of immersing themselves in British culture they have taken the easy way out, they cling to their homeland and slowly after a period of years they begin to resent their new country. It doesn't accomodate them as it should so they rationalize their plight as an oppressed people who must rise up against their oppressors. This is the kind of incubator that they have created for themselves, their own little plastic bubble, their "tossed salad", their albatross.
Is the whole notion of the tossed salad a liberal failure? Is tough love what is needed? Have we been too accomodating? Too tolerant? Is this a case of biting the hand that feeds you? I'm beginning to think so. I think we should not only expect but we should demand that the new immigrant speak English fluently, understand the history and culture of our people and immerse themselves in it rather than hide behind the curtain of their ethnic sanctuary. I realize that this sounds like a conservative notion, I guess that comes with the territory of being a political moderate. Well, on this issue anyway.
I remember sitting in my college anthropology class, Cultural Anthropology it was, while the professor was explaining patterns of assimilation in American culture. In this case it was non-assimilation as he pointed out that our notion of the "melting pot" was no longer applicable. Huh? I was surprised. We've always thought of America as the melting pot where immigrants came to lose themselves in American life. He continued to tell us that the quaint old notion of the melting pot didn't apply very well to explaining how new Americans deal with becoming "American". No, the melting pot had been replaced by another dynamic called the "tossed salad" where immigrants hang onto their language and customs and reside in tightly knit ethnic communities where they can speak their language and avoid the kind of problems that new arrivals usually have. This notion of not being a melting pot anymore disturbed me a little as my professor thought it was really neat that these people were hanging onto their heritage. So we have these tossed salads all over, neighborhoods where ethnic minorities can function for years without speaking a word of English or interacting with the natives. One of the cooks at the restaurant I worked in was like this. He worked, he functioned, he got by. They spoke Spanish at work so he didn't need to learn English and when he went home he was surrounded with people from his mother country so he didn't need to adapt there either. In the 16 years I knew him his English skills didn't improve, he hadn't really progressed from the first day that I'd met him. He didn't need to, he had the protection of the "tossed salad". He didn't particularly love this country or it's history, culture and ideals. He was just here to work and I found this both sad and distasteful.
This all came flooding back to me during the last couple of days as the news media digests the pathology of the London bombers, young Arab men who apparently are British citizens are strapping bombs to themselves and blowing themselves up in a misguided jihad. Some commentators are pointing out that these young men are living in ethnic communities, not assimilating and when confronted with a society with which they cannot relate, they turn to terrorism to strike out at British society. The young Arab men lived in lower-middle class neighborhoods made up primarily of other Arabs, the homes are enshrouded with satelite dishes to receive Arab language broadcasts from Saudi Arabia. Once again we have a situation where people cannot, or will not, relate to the country they have chosen to inhabit. Instead of immersing themselves in British culture they have taken the easy way out, they cling to their homeland and slowly after a period of years they begin to resent their new country. It doesn't accomodate them as it should so they rationalize their plight as an oppressed people who must rise up against their oppressors. This is the kind of incubator that they have created for themselves, their own little plastic bubble, their "tossed salad", their albatross.
Is the whole notion of the tossed salad a liberal failure? Is tough love what is needed? Have we been too accomodating? Too tolerant? Is this a case of biting the hand that feeds you? I'm beginning to think so. I think we should not only expect but we should demand that the new immigrant speak English fluently, understand the history and culture of our people and immerse themselves in it rather than hide behind the curtain of their ethnic sanctuary. I realize that this sounds like a conservative notion, I guess that comes with the territory of being a political moderate. Well, on this issue anyway.
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