Melting Pot

A CNN Article is written by Christian Lander. A Canadian immigrant, he shares his opinion on our view of those that enter our country. He states that immigrants started as white Europeans but today are from all over the world. He hints that we should be more accepting of immigrants because everyone here was an immigrant to begin with.

                        “In the popular myth, immigrants arrive as huddled masses yearning to be free and most of the women wear scarves around their head. They move to the Lower East Side or some other suitably "ethnic" community, they change a last name, they learn English and within one generation they are welcomed into the country as ethnic Americans and granted that wonderful privilege of checking the white box on the census.

                        The reality is that America has a long history of welcoming immigrants who will never be able to check that white box on the census, and unfortunately that means America also has a long history of discrimination against those people regardless of their status in the country. Just one example would be the treatment of Japanese-Americans during World War II contrasted against the treatment of German-Americans.

                        But all of that was in the past right? Well, ask yourself this: Who is more likely to get pulled over and forced to show his papers in Arizona today? A first generation Canadian immigrant, or a 10th generation Mexican-American?

                        What I hope this census will force the country to deal with is the fact that white immigrants like me will never again make up the majority of people that come to this country...”

                       The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Christian Lander.

I most definitely agree with this opinion. Every person living in America besides Native Americans is an immigrant. We all came from someplace else. There shouldn’t be discrimination of any kind just because some of us were here first. What difference does that make? It shouldn’t make any at all.

My ancestors were from Germany. If I am considered American, then so are the people whose ancestors came from Japan or Mexico. And if my ancestors were allowed to make a home out of America, then others should be allowed as well. America is a melting pot of cultures, let’s keep stirring.



Article Source:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/04/29/lander.who.am.i/index.html?eref=rss_topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_topstories+%28RSS%3A+Top+Stories%29

Picture Source:

http://iron.lcc.gatech.edu/~ntrivedi6/blog/?tag=melting-pot