Kenny,

I feel that I am at a distinct disadvantage here.  It is clear that you, Mr. Wolf, have the home field advantage being that you run your own little piece of the web and I am merely a passerby.  You can choose to print as much or as little of what I have to say in response to you and then tear it apart until your heart's content.  In that sense, you will most assuredly look right and I wrong (even though *I* know that's not the case! :) )  In any event, I am still going to attempt to rebut your rebuttal of my rebuttal. :)

I respect your intelligence and your fairness and, because of that, I am content in knowing that it may be only your eyes that read what I have to say.  Besides that, the better I know your argument, the better I know my own.  Also, feel free to post my email to you and your response to it.  I'd never have sent it to you in the first place if I didn't feel it was good enough to be read and considered.

You said that you suspect that the author's work appeals to me, but that it bothers me that it does.  I want you to know that that is not true.  If I agreed with it, I would not be ashamed to admit it.  I am never ashamed of my opinions, however unpopular they may be.  The main reason why I included the statement, "Yeah!  Tell it like it is!" was because I wanted people to actually read what I wrote - especially people who DO agree with the piece.

I did not want people to immediately be turned off and suspect that I thought I was somehow better or smarter than them because I disagreed.  I don't think I'm better or smarter because I disagree.  Okay. that's a lie.  I do think I'm smarter than a lot of people, but not because I don't agree with this piece. : )  In reality, when I first started reading it, I started hearing the Star Spangled Banner and seeing the flag waving, but it wasn't long into it that I got completely turned off by it.  By the end of it, I was making all manner of disgusted noises (no, not "disgusting noises", I am a lady after all) and disgusted faces.

I did read your political poem.  It was really very entertaining.  Thanks for sharing it with me.  You can count me as being a moderate. : )  You have a really great sense of humor. that's good to see. :)

Now, on with the debate!!

First of all, I do not think that Americans have to adapt.  I don't think immigrants have to adapt either.  I'm not sure why people are viewing this issue in such black and white terms.  In my original response I stuck to the author's terminology in order to avoid confusion as to whom I was referring.  Let me say this now though:  Immigrants ARE Americans and Americans ARE
immigrants (this comment is not directed to you as it seems clear to me you already recognize this fact).  It's simply that some of us have arrived later than others.  The sooner people start accepting that, the better we will all be.

Dividing us up into two groups, as the original author did, IS what serves only to "dilute our sovereignty and our national identity".  All of our lives, our beliefs, our morals, our practices are different than one another's.  I run my household differently than every other family on my block, native-born American or not, and I certainly do not have to adapt in any way to live in this neighborhood.  Granted, the differences between my neighbors and I who are similar in ethnicity may be subtler than those between newcomers and I, but there are still differences.  So, who is it that will draw the line?  Who is it that decides the degree of difference we are willing to accept?  Personally, I like that we have differences.  What a damned boring place it would be if we were all the same.

Should we all be like the women of Afghanistan?  Should we all wear shrouds that cover our uniqueness?  Should we not be allowed to use our individual voices in public for fear of offending someone else's ears?  Should we be forced to say we agree with things that we do not truly agree with for fear of reprisal?  An extreme analogy, maybe, but certainly, metaphorically speaking, this is exactly the mentality that those who tout "Americanization" seem to have.  Look like me, act like me, speak like me, agree with me, believe what I believe, value what I value, and if you don't, get out of my sight.  Is that really what America is about?

You asked why people immigrate to America.  You point out that they obviously do not love everything about their own countries and cultures or they wouldn't have come here in the first place.  With this I agree.  I am sure that there is a great deal that they find to be better in America than in their native lands.  Are they not allowed to love ANYTHING from their native countries and cultures though?  Are they not allowed to bring any of it with them?  Are they not allowed to identify any longer with those people with whom they've lived most of their lives?

Do you honestly think that if you were to move to Australia, for whatever reason, you would immediately shrug off everything that America was to you?  I doubt it.  America is part of who you are and part of who you will always be, regardless of where you may end up living.  And while you may gain a devotion to and patriotism for your newly adopted home, you will always have love and pride of your roots.  This is human nature and there is nothing wrong with it.

You point out American immigrants "develop pockets" within this country where they live with others like them.  I hear people complaining about that often.  Isn't that ironic though because, in that sense, aren't they exactly like other Americans?  For the most part in this country whites still live in white neighborhoods, blacks in black neighborhoods, Hispanics in Hispanic neighborhoods and so on.  We can break that down ever further still.  The poor live with the poor, the middle class with the middle class, and the rich with the rich.  I think it has little to do with them wanting, or not wanting, others to adapt to their ways of life.  It is more because people tend to gravitate towards those they feel they have the most in common with and that will understand them the best.

Of course immigrants should have to adapt to the laws of the country they have immigrated to.  There is no debating that.  Nothing in that original piece that you so whole-heartedly agree with, however, speaks of any legal issues.  Not speaking English is not illegal, not believing in the popular god is not illegal, and not loving the flag is not illegal.  It is also quite asinine and prejudicial to attribute these qualities to "immigrants".  The perception of things and the reality of things are quite different.  That's often what happens when people start stereotyping.

I think that people should speak English if they live in the United States.  In order to survive and prosper in any country, one should know the native language.  People in the United States have a horribly skewed view about who speaks English here and who doesn't though.  The fact is that most people, immigrants and native-borns, DO speak English.  According to 1990 U.S.  Census data, only 13.8% of the total population speak a language other than English. And, what is especially important to note, is that less than 5% of this group did not speak any English at all.

For some reason people think that most foreigners can't speak English.  Not true.  And they think that they don't have a desire to speak English.  Also not true.  And they think they don't want their children to learn English.  Definitely not true.

According to the The National Center for ESL Literacy Education (NCLE) in the year 2000, 1,102,261 adults enrolled in ESL (English as a Second Language) programs that received funding through the U.S. Department of Education.  Not included in that number are the hundreds of thousands of additional adults who took ESL classes without federal funding.  The NCLE goes on to say that "waiting lists for class space attest to the overwhelming demand for ESL instruction. Some immigrants who want to learn English may have to wait for months or years to get into ESL classes.  The exact number of adults on waiting lists is hard to establish, because no national system exists for keeping track. Some programs have even stopped keeping such lists, because the wait has become so long."

So, what are we really having a problem with here?  That many immigrants speak their native language in their homes?  That they speak their native language to one another in public?  That they speak with an accent?  That they don't always conjugate verbs properly?  What exactly is it?  Just how picky are we going to get here?  Hopefully not too picky because the grammar skills of most kids coming out of high school these days is atrocious.  Or are they automatically exempt from ridicule because they're native-born Americans?  Of course, that is total hypocrisy because if someone is going to set them, shouldn't we all be held to the same standards?

I am not sure what "Christian overtones" you are talking about within our culture that people want to remove.  In reality, most of the religious arguments that arise in this country are about keeping things the way they are.  Non-Christians and atheists (like myself) want to keep church and state separate.  That is the way this country began and the way it should remain.  Christians are constantly fighting to bring prayer and religion into schools or to put religious symbols on state and government buildings.  I, along with many other people, will continue to argue that they have no place there.  I respect other's beliefs completely.  I am not so arrogant to think that what I believe is absolutely right and that everyone else is absolutely wrong.  It's a shame that many religious folks can't show that same respect.

When I was talking about what this nation was founded on in my last correspondence I mentioned that "In God We Trust" was not adopted until 1956.  That is not the only phrase that was added during the cold war in the 1950's.  The phrase "under God" was added to the Pledge of Allegiance, and "so help me God" was added to the oaths of office.  I think it's safe to say, though, that prior to the 1950's there were still patriotic Americans in this country.  The addition of those phrases did not make people any more patriotic or any more American.  Too many people confuse Christianity and patriotism.  These two words are not interchangeable.  And one CAN be present at the absence of the other.  I, along with thousands of others, am living proof of that fact.

I am not sure why you believe newcomers to this country are offended by the American flag.  I am quite certain that there are more people who were born and raised in the U.S. that are offended by it than there are immigrants.  The fact that Americans started the flag burning issue in this country will speak to that fact.  After all, it was an American man from Texas named Gregory Johnson that brought this issue to American courts.  And it was the Supreme Court in 1989 that ruled in favor of Gregory Johnson.  The court ruled that burning the American Flag is an act which is protected by the First Amendment right to free speech.  I have yet to hear of one case of an immigrant being brought to court for defacing an American Flag, but I have heard of many of other Americans who have.  Should we revoke their citizenship?  And, since this is their native land, where will we send them to?  Loving and respecting the flag is not a requirement of anyone who was born in this country.  Therefore, we shouldn't attempt to make it a requirement of anyone who immigrates here.  I'd be willing to bet that more immigrants than you know DO love the American Flag and do have respect for it.  Believing anything else is just stereotypical nonsense.

What all this boils down to is that there are some people in this country who don't believe in the popular god or any god at all.  Some are immigrants and some are not.  There are people in this country that don't respect the flag.  Some are immigrants and some are not.  There is a small minority of people in this country that don't speak English.  Some are immigrants and some are not.  What we all DO have in common though is that we are all Americans.  We might not all be the kind of Americans you or I would like us to be, but that's going to be true whether or not we ever let another immigrant into our country.

Okay. I'm done for now.  I'm just plain burned out and am going to start talking complete nonsense any minute now!  And now I have to get to my homework. I have gotten so far behind in the last couple of days with all this debating going on!  Ugh!  More writing.

Kara

I have written Kara back and told her I felt she has fully expressed her position and to use the rest of her time on her college school work.  She also knows that if I misprinted anything she said or if she wants anything she wrote reworded or removed that I would do it.  In my opinion, this was a good example of how we need to express our differences in opinion and do so in a "civil fashion".  I may have been a little rough in my reply to her and in my defense of the original article, but sometimes "passion" does cause us to say things in a way that triggers another's true innermost thoughts.  In this case, I think I now understand a little more how the other side thinks on immigration issues.  Thanks Kara!  And welcome to Only One Person Opinions.  Your opinions are now on the Internet.