I’m pretty sure the attitude in this letter from a conservative to National Review. is pretty typical on the right. The writer says we’re not an immigrant nation because his family has been here for generations so we shouldn’t even talk about the issue like that. Hmmm. Of course what I hear from that, really, is "America is closed". And that’s a heck of an anti-American attitude.
I’m a proud American, but I’m also a first generation American (my parents both came to America in the early 1970s from Jamaica). I don’t sever my ties with my family’s home country, Jamaica, but neither do I reject my Americanism. That’s kind of the point of America, I think. This country’s culture and traditions didn’t just spring out of the ground in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Our family cooks fried plantains, curry goat and jerked pork at the same time we grill hamburgers and hot dogs on the Fourth Of July.
Somehow that’s supposed to be wrong? I don’t think so.
There is only one message in the column: There is an America to which immigrants can belong. No one said “America is closed”.
You decsribed it somewhat yourself: The July 4th barbecue (from the Caribbean) where we cook hot dogs (from Germany) and hamburgers (from 19th Century America) is American. Italians cook sausage and pepper,too.
But there is an America, not a Balkan like aggregate of ethnic enclaves. I believe that was the image the author of the letter was evoking.
Oliver, you are trying desperately to paint the Republicans as “The Xenophobe Party”. That is just too simplistic.
The Republican Party may not be the Xenophobe Party, but it sure as hell lets a lot of Xenophobes have a seat at the table and a turn at the microphone.
It took a Republican to come up with “Freedom Fries,” remember.
Tom Tancredo isn’t running as a Republican, last I checked. And the Tancredo sentiment is pretty strong on the right.
I lean towards the “We’re closed, go away” interpretation myself. If recent Republican rhetoric isn’t both racist and xenophobic, it’s the closest thing to it since the nativist movements and the heyday of the KKK in the 1920s. The letter writer also makes the mistake of presuming that because he is now thoroughly assimilated into American culture, the first generation of his family to arrive in this country dropped everything German about their identity as soon as they stepped off the boat. It doesn’t work that way. Assimilation takes time.
And this Tancredo business about “No longer pressing 1 for English and 2 for another language” flies in the face of American history. Does anyone care to take a guess as to how many Yiddish language newspapers there used to be in New York City alone? How many Italian language papers were in circulation? What about the German-speaking communities of Pennsylvania and Ohio? If anything, we’re less linguistically diverse than we used to be.
Calling the GOP the xenophobe party IS too simplistic, Frankie. It’s actually the xenophobe-racist-corporatist-authoritarian-incompetent party.
“What about the German-speaking communities of Pennsylvania and Ohio?”
I remember reading that early in American history, German was considered for the official language.
Maybe I’ll respond to the person whose comment was related to the point
fried plantains, curry goat and jerked pork at the same time we grill hamburgers and hot dogs on the Fourth Of July.
Wow, can I come to your barbecue?
“I’m a proud American, but I’m also a first generation American (my parents both came to America in the early 1970s from Jamaica).”
That makes your parents 1st generation Americans; you’re 2nd generation.
Between this:
my family came from Germany well over a century ago. But I’m not a German, never been there, don’t really want to go.
And this:
And I don’t buy Andy McCarthy’s saying we have a ‘”nation of immigrants’ self image.’ I certainly don’t. I don’t know anyone who does.
It’s clear that the letter writer doesn’t get out very much. I mean, really, he doesn’t know anyone who has a “nation of immigrants self-image”? I wonder where he grew up…