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Camelia Alaoui Ismaili

Miss Holly Batty

English 028

13 December 2018

Immigrants and Cultures in America: Retention or assimilation?

Who has not dreamt of traveling the world and meeting new people? Well living in an

American society with immigrants from all over the world, can make your dream come true

without even moving. America is a well known country for cultural diversity. It is a country built

on immigrants, and where people can express themselves and embrace their culture freely.

Although some people claim that immigrants should abandon their culture and assimilate to the

American culture, many people including myself argue that immigrants should stick to their

culture and embrace it because it makes a better and more open-minded society. And it also has a

positive impact on economy, politics and on the individual.

On many levels, multiculturalism makes a positive impact on society. The majority of

these changes are positive. Whether it is on the individual side, the society in general, the

political, and economical side. Multiculturalism brings many benefits to every aspect of society.

The first thing that we will be talking about is how multiculturalism helps produce an open

minded society. When immigrants enter a new country; they not only come physically but they

also bring with them a piece of their home. Their culture, traditions and/or religion. The native

people of that country starts to be curious about these new aspects. Some start researching about

them because of the unusual appearance that they are not used to. Others become closer to those
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immigrants, and those immigrants start showing a part of their culture in shops, restaurants,

street music. This attracts native people, and this is when cultural exchange happens. If we talk

about americans for example, we would see that the american society becomes more and more

open minded trying new things, listening to new music, tasting new food,learning new

languages, and of course enriching their education by learning about foreign cultures and

religions. Therefore, this blend of all different kinds of cultures, makes people get out of their

routine, and open their minds on many levels and results into making the American culture

richer. In his book, Schmitt Jacob states “​Over time these traditions may merge with the cultural

practices of other native or immigrant groups, producing popular fusion cuisines, such as Korean

barbecue tacos in the United States or currywurst (curry-flavored sausages) in Germany, or

hybrid forms of music, including zydeco (a mix of Afro-Caribbean, French, and American

musical styles popularized in the US state of Louisiana) or grime (a combination of Jamaican

dancehall, British electronic, and American hip-hop styles developed in the United Kingdom)”.

In other words, this multiculturalism and cultural exchange results ​most of the time into an

American-foreign mix or fusion, that changes everything in society.

The second thing that we will be talking about is the positive impact of multiculturalism

on the society, communities, individuals, and the relationships between immigrants and the

natives. In neighborhoods, we can see children from every race playing together learning about

each other cultures and accepting it, in school we can see the same thing, children having the

urge about learning new things, it brings many benefits to have open minded children and seeing

them wanting to learn about new things at such a young age, it expands their imagination and

increases their intelligence, it brings them together and therefore makes their parents closer too,
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and it makes diverse communities, and while many other people thinks about this fact the

contrary, cultural diversity and a heterogeneous society brings mostly a positive impact, i have

seen myself the many benefits of cultural diversity and exchange in school with my cousins in

elementary school, they have friends from many ethnicities, armenian, mexicans, asians, and

whenever they come home they would ask many questions about those countries and their way

of life, they even say “when i grow up, I wanna go to mexico and live there because they have

good food” and it also made my aunt and their parents closer and when they invite each other.

Each of them learn a new thing about the other their culture and make them closer.

Then we find the positive impact on the immigrants themselves, I myself as an

immigrant, I love sharing my culture, I love talking about how Moroccans live, our beautiful and

colorful streets, our delicious and diverse food, and I like teaching my friends some Arabic and

Moroccan words, I love showing our traditional wedding and wearing our traditional dresses, it

makes me feel different and unique especially when I am embracing it, it is a piece of me that no

one has and most people love to learn about, while other immigrants feel ashamed, I insist that

immigrants should always embrace their cultural differences and of course have a piece of the

American culture too. Gloria Anzaluda agrees by saying in her book “ how to tame a wild

tongue”: “I will no longer be made to feel ashamed of existing. I will have my voice: Indian,

Spanish, white. I will have my serpent’s tongue- my woman’s voice, my sexual voice, my poet’s

voice. I will overcome the tradition of silence.”(7). She showed great strength, and is showing

that immigrants should not be ashamed of who they are no matter how they are.and she is

empowering other people in her situation in order to overcome racism and to make immigrants,

especially women to love themselves, and love their differences. The way I see it, it is because
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most immigrants feel ashamed to speak their language or wear their clothes, while its okay to do

so.

The last thing that I will be saying in my argument is about the benefits of cultural

differences and its positive impact on the American economy and politics. When immigrants

bring their culture to America, they also bring new and creative ideas from their homeland, new

techniques, new skills, new talents that are life changing, Schmitt Jacobs also supported this idea

by explaining “The sustained emphasis on ​economic growth​ and foreign trade during the

mercantilist era helped to spark the Industrial Revolution (c. 1760–1840). New technologies such

as the steam engine and mechanical spinning wheel transformed the manufacturing industry by

introducing time-saving machinery, and employment became increasingly centralized in urban

factories”. I think it is because Immigrants help the economy grow, whether it’s on the scientific

and medical fields with new discoveries or new education and teaching techniques or even

authentic street foods, no one can deny that immigrants and their culture have built america, and

have a huge impact on its economy, Bharati Mukherjee shows an example with her sisters Mira

statement by saying: “I've invested my creativity and professional skills into the improvement of

this country’s pre-school system.”. I think that what Mira is trying to say is that she sacrificed

everything she had to come serve this country, and at the end she was not properly rewarded for

her hard work and commitment. Instead she felt betrayed by the USA, and she was really mad

and upset about it, which I think it is a normal reaction to what they have done for legal

immigrants. We can see by all of these statements that I have mentioned that immigrants who

retains their culture have a positive impact on society on all of its aspects.
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Many Americans argues that Multiculturalism makes a negative impact on society and

immigrants should assimilate to american culture. They think that when immigrants bring culture

into the country, they also bring chaos, crime, and barbaric traditions. This leads to many

unpleasant results like racism, criticism, islamophobia and fear.

The first thing is that, some americans are scared of how other cultures can influence

them and their children. They all have this wrong idea of how immigrants poorly live in their

countries and refuses to have any contact with them. They do not let their children play with

them, and they teach them to hate them instead. This hatred results from fear and often translates

to racism, which leads us to our next argument.

Racism is one of the major issues in all nations in general, but it’s more frequent in a

multicultural society like america. This hatred and misconception about immigrants and their

culture, creates a lot of social conflicts. Immigrants starts to live in fear, because they encounter

racist comments and are sometimes assaulted. My grandmother for example has been called a

terrorist multiple times because she was just wearing a Hijab while doing her groceries, and this

is just a case of many others. Some people were stabbed, shot, beaten, kidnapped, and even

tortured for being different and retaining their culture. Children were bullied because some

Americans say that immigrants should leave their culture behind and become american when

they enter the american territory, the crazy part about that is that they blame immigrants for them

being racist, and that they should abandon their “gypsies culture” for them not to be racist. I have

witnessed many cases of family members being called gypsies or terrorist or rapists or “dirty

muslims” and were told to not to talk in arabic because we are in America. The least that those

racist people could do is give you dirty looks. Gloria Anzaluda has also encountered a similar
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situation when she said: “I remember being caught speaking Spanish at recess- that was good for

three licks on the knuckles with a sharp ruler. I remember being sent to the corner of the

classroom for “talking back” to the Anglo teacher when all I was trying to do was tell her how to

pronounce my name. “If you want to be American, speak ‘American.’ If you don’t like it, go

back to Mexico where you belong.” this really shows that immigrants have suffered from this

issue at least once in their lives, and it shows how sad and miserable it is to not be able to

embrace your culture in a “free” country like America.

In this part of the essay we can see all the issues that are caused by people who think that

immigrants should assimilate to american culture and abandon thousands of years worth of

heritage.

Another issue that encounter immigrants is discrimination. Some American employers

require that no immigrant can work unless they speak in english. A lot of people in general think

that immigrants are not worth living in America unless they Assimilate to the American culture,

and fluently speak english. I have seen few people who would refuse to employ an Immigrant

not only because they could not properly speak in english, but even if they have a foreign accent,

or because of the way they look or dress. The only excuse that those people give is that, if they

do not assimilate it would not help in the growth of their business, or of the American economy.

Linda Chavez argues in her essay "The United States Should Encourage Assimilation of

Immigrants." that: “We should give priority to immigrants who already speak English, since this

is a key factor in their successful integration into American society.” This quote shows that the

only way to have an active life in america is by assimilating to its culture. Linda Chavez later

adds: “​But why not give incentives for learning English before they get their green card?”.
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Honestly this part got me mad. This also pushes the government to put an immigrant law that has

to make them study english to even be considered as a resident, not even a citizen. And that

immigrants have to give up their true identity in order to make a living for themselves.​ In general

some Americans believe that immigrants who do not give up on their culture, nor assimilate to

the american culture are useless and do not deserve any position or job in the USA. I find it not

fair at all. Because the majority of the time, immigrants leave their country so that they can find

job opportunities that they do not find back home to help support themselves, their family in and

out of the country. Or they have an unstable political situation in their country like war, and they

were forced to go to another country, and they need a job in order to survive and help their

family survive.

To conclude our essaye we can say that even though multiculturalism can lead to many

conflicts between members of society, families, and even with people themselves. I personally

think and insist that immigrants should keep their culture and embraces it because it’s what

makes them themselves, and our differences is what built America, by exchanging and

introducing foreign ideas, and my idea of assimilating to the American culture is by respecting

individuals, the law and working hard to make a change and help the country grow.
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Bibliography:

Schmitt, Jacob. "Immigration." ​Immigration and Migration​: ​In Context,​ edited by

Thomas Riggs and Kathleen J. Edgar, vol. 1, Gale, 2018, pp. 410-419. In Context Series.

Opposing Viewpoints in Context,​

http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/CX3662200085/OVIC?u=lavc_main&sid=OVIC&xid=5d

8e27a0​.

MUKHERJEE , Bharati. “‘Two Ways To Belong In America’ by Bharati Mukherjee -

WriteWork.” ​WriteWork - Essays & Writing Guides for Students,​ 1996,

www.writework.com/essay/two-ways-belong-america-bharati-mukherjee​.

Anzaldúa, Gloria. “Gloria Anzaldúa – How To Tame a Wild Tongue.” ​Genius,​ 1987

Chavez, Linda. "The United States Should Encourage Assimilation of Immigrants."

Multiracial America​, edited by Noah Berlatsky and Lynn M. Zott, Greenhaven Press, 2014.

Opposing Viewpoints. ​Opposing Viewpoints in Context,​

http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/EJ3010884213/OVIC?u=lavc_main&sid=OVIC&xid=b32

ed676.