In the first article, “The Significance of Immigration in the Formation of an American Identity” by Rudolph J. Vecoli, the author focuses on how the American Identity is always changing due to the large waves of immigrants that have come from all over the world to America, the most recent one starting in the late 1960s. He talks about the different views on being a “nation” that have come over time and what it means to belong in a nation. The majority of the original colonists were Protestant Englishmen that, through Enlightenment ideals, formed the United States of America. Those that were born on American soil would have the birthright of being an American citizen, and foreigners had the option of becoming citizens through naturalization. Although this is a new and progressive idea, it was also unprogressive in the fact that these ideals only corresponded to only “a free white person.” In reality, America, from the first day, was a nation divided in groups by culture, religion, and race.
The article makes me uneasy with the fact that there have always been nativist movements that try to prevent immigrant influence on the American identity. There has been a constant cycle of hate towards new immigrants because the native’s feel that the immigrants don’t bring any good qualities with them. This happened the Irish Catholic when they came, the Chinese, Southern/Eastern Europeans, and now Latin Americans. It baffles me that people fear change in the American identity when it began as just a concept of sovereignty towards the American government. Breeding this hate towards the newcomers just increases racism and discrimination without actually trying to solve the problem. In present time, there is a lot of hate towards Latinos for taking jobs, but instead of hating Latinos, there should be a movement to prevent corporations from being allowed to abuse the workers’ legal status to acquire cheap labor without providing them any benefits.
The studies done in “Immigrants In New York City in the New Millennium” and “The Next Generation Emerges” also interested me because of the responses that some of the 2nd generation Americans gave. In both they stated that they wouldn’t want to work where their parents worked because of the bad conditions and bad pay. They also did not want to work in the same field because it was stereotypical for a person of their race to work there. There is a feeling of resentment to that job because it has a negative association with their race. There is also some interpersonal racism for some of African ancestry. It is painful for them to be identified by the public as “black” instead of African, Jamaican, or West Indian. It is unsettling that being perceived as this causes lackluster opportunities in education and employment. New York City may not have the most nativist ideology, but it still has prejudice and discrimination in its street, and fortunately the newest generations of Americans have been able to use this ethnic diversity to further themselves, and, at the same time, improve the city.
Through all this hate, many of these foreigners of different backgrounds have been able to rally their communities to participate in local government so that they have a voice in how they are treated. The 2nd generation Americans are more accepting of each other and they see that having a foreign background is a positive thing. I hope that fellow children of immigrants are able to learn from the past to improve the nation that we call home, and to escape the cycle of mistreating the newest waves of immigrants. In the past, attempting to force an American identity has resulted in bad situations for whole generations of people.
