----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Brin-L" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, January 11, 2002 12:01 AM Subject: Re: Death of the West (L3ish)
> > > Gautam Mukunda wrote: > > > > Doug > > > > What Dan's saying is pretty much a cliche in political science - > > particularly conservative political science. There are even a couple of > > books comparing the assimilation of Mexican immigrants in California and > > Texas, and Texas is usually considered to be much better. > > > Better if your goal is the melting pot. If your goal is > multiculturalism, which is at once more complex and interesting IMO, > then I'd guess California is doing better. If your goal is long term multiculturalism, then you need to keep barriers up between people. Neighborhoods need to be kept segregated. English needs to be the second, not the first language of the ethnic groups, kids need to be kept from playing together. And, most important, people from different ethnic groups must marry exclusively within that group. Thus, even dating people from the other ethnic groups must be taboo, because dating can lead to falling in love and wanting to get married. The reason for this is that, if the barriers come down, and there is general acceptance between people from different backgrounds, they soon start having each other over for dinner, eating each other's foods, and seeing each other's traditions. The trade ethnic recepies, words, expressions, and even traditions. I grew up in a very ethnic town. The second question one asked a stranger, after their name was "well, what are ya." To which one would give their ethnic makeup, down to 32nds if need be. I am half Luxemburger, a quarter Irish, 3/16 German and 1/16 Polish. As I mentioned before, the multicultural nature of the town was so strong that there were 3 Catholic churches within a mile of each other, each serving a different ethnic groups. And, when I was little, I thought there were two religions: public and Catholic...because there were public and Catholic schools. I remember being excited when I heard that the public would have to pay 1c more in gasoline tax because the Catholics wouldn't have to pay. Mixed marriages did occur, but they were rare and frowned upon. There was a clear line between the Catholic working class and their Protestant bosses. Indeed, I grew up a generation or two after the multiculturalism was the strongest. It was starting to break down, because an Italian Catholic could marry an Irish Catholic and no-one would be upset. But, now the barriers are gone. Catholics marry Protestants. People have, as I do, multi-ethnic heritage. As a result, there is a true melting pot. This can be seen the easiest with the Jewish population. For 2000 years, Jewish people have maintained a unique identity under great pressure to convert to the local (usually Christian) religions. But, now that they are simply accepted as part of America, we find that the intermarriage rate has reached a historical high. IIRC, half of Jewish marriages involve non-Jews. Now, having said that, I think it is foolish to push people to drop traditions. We should work hard to ensure that all students master English. If it is not their first language, efforts should be made to ensure that they are as fluent as those who have it as their first language. When kids are very young, this is fairly straightforward. As I mentioned, my mom did not have English as her first language, and now she barely remembers any German at all. If we do that, and are accepting of each other, the melting pot will happen. Multiculturalism will be fed by new immigrants, which is fine, but we will blend when a typical American might be 1/16 Irish, 1/4 Chinese, 3/8 Mexican 1/16 Italian and 1/4 black. At that point, the traditions will blend as the families blend. > I saw one study that stated that 41% of the countries non English > speaking students were in California. This compared with 15% in > Texas. The next closest states had 7%. If true the (educational) > challenge in California is 2.5 times greater than anywhere else. > I'm not sure about the source however perhaps someone else knows > something about them: http://www.elausa.org/issues/bestatus.html > Well, that puzzles me. Let us consider the ethnic makeup of both states: California Texas White alone 46.7 52.4 Hispanic 32.4 32 Asian 10.9 2.7 Black 6.7 11.5 Other 3.3 1.4 We see that the Hispanic population is about equal. The Asian population of California is much higher, but that makes sense. I'm not sure how California has many more non-English speaking people, because I know that there are many multi-generational Asian families in California. Further, since Asians cannot immigrate illegally, the immigration rules tend to favor well educated people who already know English. The only other possibility that I see is that the Hispanics in Texas tend to have a greater fraction of mult-generational Americans than those in California. Or, they learn English faster. > > Honestly, I don't think a comparison of the two states is valid or > even relevant. Why? > > For those who don't fully understand what "bilingual" education has > become, let me explain a bit. Though the intention was to give non > English speaking students a helping hand, what actually occurred was > that they ended up being educated in their native tongue, getting > very little chance to learn English. This ended up isolating them > in a predominantly English speaking society and thus had the > opposite effect of that intended. > I have a friend who was an illegal immigrant and is now a citizen (she got amnesty a few years back). Her house is bilingual. Her daughter, who is now on a M$ scholarship at Baylor, was on the debate team in high school at the time. They wanted to put her younger children in ESL classes, because they were bilingual at home. It was definitely used as a means of segregation. > > I don't think that programs that are more effective at teaching the > native language to the children of immigrants is detrimental to a > multicultural society. To the contrary, an individual that > functions well in a society is more likely to be able to protect > those facets of his culture that he/she wishes to retain. Huh? I don't understand the reasoning behind this. Isolation, historically, has been the easiest way to preserve differences. >To me, multiculturalism doesn't mean cultural enclaves functioning > independently, it means ethnic groups retaining strong ties to their > heritage while functioning effectively in mainstream society. I do > realize that this may differ from other definitions. But, what keeps an ethnic group pure for generations? The only thing I can think of is a taboo against intermarriage. Further, to preserve that taboo, contact with other groups needs to be limited or other groups need to be stigmatized in some manner. > Assimilation, on the other hand, is absorption into the main > cultural body, and (in my mind) encourages cultural homogeneity. > while this may be good for peaceful coexistence, it comes at the > expense of diversity. Is diversity important enough for so that its worthwhile having taboos against intermarriage? If so, why wouldn't the maintenance of those taboos foster a tremendous lack of tolerance? > One of the most interesting things about Jijo to me was its > multiculturalism. Just the idea that races so radically different > from one another could coexist was very cool. Yea, but they _couldn't_ intermarry. Dan M.
