In today’s liberal New York society, you would be hard pressed to find a person who considers himself open-minded but would admit to being a racist. Yet it is easy to hear people of all ages degrading immigrants, joking about the Mexicans taking over our country or looking displeased upon meeting someone who does not speak English. “You’re in America now – speak English or get out!” is a sentiment that many Americans, whether or not they are willing to say it out loud, have felt at one point. There is some validity in this gripe. It can be frustrating to speak to someone with whom one can barely communicate, and even more so if the person is an employee who needs to understand but cannot. The legitimate response to such a situation is frustration, but that often turns to anger and prejudice. Many assume that because one has not mastered English, he is intellectually inferior. They are not considering the possibility that the immigrant has only recently arrived in the United States, that he did not have the opportunity to learn English or that he speaks three other languages, but has not yet picked up the native tongue of his new home.
Nancy Foner does an excellent job in pointing out the hypocrisy of those who deplore immigrants, though their own families have only been in the country for a few generations. She sets up a comparison between the turn-of-the-century immigrants and those of today, and shows that they are not as different as they are made out to be. The immigrants of the past are looked upon as heroes, people to aspire to, hardworking individuals who came from nothing and made their own success. Somehow, the immigrants of today are not afforded such a respectful reputation. Many see immigrants as low class, uneducated, unintelligent and generally lower caliber than those who were born in this country.
In reality, the immigrants of the past were not as educated as those of today. Many of the people who come to this country have college educations or more from their home country, even if they are working a more menial job here. Additionally, given the hoops that people have to jump through in order to gain entry to the United States, those that do make it here are often intelligent, at least on some level. Although people complain about the vast number of illegal immigrants swarming the cities, Foner points out that there really are not that many immigrants here illegally. She also remarks that illegal immigration was not an issue for turn-of-the-century immigrants, so it is unfair to exalt the immigrants of the past for making it in America legally. Ultimately, the immigrants of today are not so different, and only time will tell if they are one day praised as highly as those who arrived a century ago.
