The New America

Developments in both transnationalism and education for immigrants over the past hundred years almost perfectly embodies the changing nature of the terms “Americanization”–and, to some extent, the very nature of America itself. Where immigrants were once punished for speaking their native language in school, and thrust into English-speaking classes with inadequate preparation, many today are taught science, math and history in the same languages they speak at home. Where immigrants were once chastised for keeping ties to their countries of origin on the grounds that this represented a lack of identification with the United States, transnational ties are now thriving and are fully acknowledged by everyone from the politicians who campaign for their votes to the cable TV channels that set up programming designed to appeal to them. As I read about how the country had tried far harder in previous decades to get immigrants to assimilate, whether through social pressure or even force, my first reaction was that this country was never really designed to have a distinctive identity that everyone “must” assume. The country was founded on the principle of giving everyone the freedom to conduct their own lives more or less as they wished, and to practice their own culture and religion as they saw fit. If anything, then, our national identity should not be a mold which we try to force others to fit. Instead, to be true to the principles that the U.S. was designed for, it should be the wide gamut of ethnicities, languages, and ways of life that the America of today seems to encourage far more through its acceptance and assistance of immigrants and their ways of life.