Article Analysis : ' Home At Last ' By Herbert E. Meyer

The United States has been a host to a wide diaspora of people. Immigrants have had to transition from their familiar land to a new-fashioned foreign land that they must consider home. They bring with them the essence of their initial homeland such as customs, traditions and beliefs that inadvertently change the dynamics of culture within the United States. As a result the United States is an extremely culturally diverse nation. The continual changes or accretions that Americans encounter have always been a controversial topic depending on the experiences of individuals and communities that have immigrant populations. This essay will critically explore

Simply put, America is the land of opportunity. In the past, immigrants have left most of their family, memories, and familiarities with their homeland in search of a better life in America, where jobs were easy to find and the economy was booming. These immigrants formed almost the entire American population, a demographic anomaly in which people from nationalities separated by land and sea; these people come from countries separated by expansive distances can live within the same neighborhood. Both Anna Quindlen with her essay “A Quilt of a Country” and John F. Kennedy with his essay “The Immigrant Contribution” have documented the story of these immigrants and

The United States has been the land of opportunity for immigrants. It is a place where immigrants from all over the world come to build a better dream and future for their families and leave from poverty, they come with nothing but determination. One thing that every immigrant brings with them is their culture. A person's culture is strongly tied to the country where they grew up. It is tied to their relationship with their family. Many people come to America from so many different places all over the world. For this reason, people call America a melting pot of cultures immigrants are striving for a better future even though when they migrate to the USA they don’t know the consequences they will face and struggle to be successful living in the United States.

Since the dawn of American colonization in the early 1600s, the notion of immigrating to America has long been instilled upon various people as a stimulating opportunity to begin a fresh chapter in their lives. Even now, this possibility has brought many variations of people to America, culminating a society that brims with dreams and aspirations to form the diversified nation of today. When speaking of the current state of immigration, it is easy to conclude that immigration is heavily discussed from political standpoints. Though this current condition is composed of highly controversial perspectives, many of the early-century viewpoints found in literature genuinely embrace reality, for these writers were indeed immigrants themselves, thus adding an authoritative standpoint over immigration. The Americanization of Edward Bok (1921) by Edward Bok and The America I Believe In by Colin Powell, display the perspectives of two authors, who have lived as immigrants, through their own personal anecdotes. Both Edward Bok and Colin Powell convey a sincerely grateful tone and develop the idea of Americanization and the quest for opportunity through the use of connotative diction in contrast to the Immigration Chart and Political Cartoon which have a downright concrete and pessimistic tone and supports the idea that immigration exposes various challenges to incoming immigrants.

In the United States, the cliché of a nation of immigrants is often invoked. Indeed, very few Americans can trace their ancestry to what is now the United States, and the origins of its immigrants have changed many times in American history. Despite the identity of an immigrant nation, changes in the origins of immigrants have often been met with resistance. What began with white, western European settlers fleeing religious persecution morphed into a multicultural nation as immigrants from countries across the globe came to the U.S. in increasing numbers. Like the colonial immigrants before them, these new immigrants sailed to the Americas to gain freedom, flee poverty and

“American Dreamer” by Bharati Mukherjee scrutinizes the problems involved with culture fusion and identity. Within the essay, Mukherjee provides her story of traveling to the United States to expose America’s problem with the fusion of other cultures. Fusion, according to Mukherjee, stands as the idea of multiple cultures uniting together within the context of a country under one supreme set of ideals regardless of previous beliefs and cultural influences. However, both resident countries and immigrants struggle to coexist with their conflicting societal influences. The refusal to accept cultural differences provokes division within society.

Immigrants come to America in search of freedom and acceptance of their cultures. According to America’s title as a “melting pot”, immigrants should be able to come to America and find exactly what they looking for. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Richard Rodriguez covers this in his essay “The Fear of Losing a Culture” when he says, “Hispanics want to belong to America without betraying the past. Yet we fear losing ground in any negotiation with America. Our fear, most of all, is losing our culture” (Rodriguez 94). If there are people from cultures who are scared to belong to America for fear of losing their culture, how can America be a “melting pot”? Rodriguez shapes the American culture in a very detrimental way. He speaks of how America believed its national strength came from diversity, but Latin America is really the bed of so many races and cultures (Rodriguez 94-95). America has turned a blind eye to Latin America, refusing to believe that Latin America is so diverse. Latin Americans have much to offer from their passion and dedication to hard work. Regardless of what America wants, Latin Americans will change America as it forces them to change (Rodriguez 95).

“We are a country where people of all backgrounds, all nations of origin, all languages, all religions, all races, can make a home. America was built by immigrants” Hillary Clinton stated. What she means in this quote is immigrants had a huge influence on America. America would be extremely different without them, without the diverse population here we would not know or be exposed to the different cultures, languages, and religions that we know today.

Along with its economic classes, American is known for its freedom, its liberty, and the melting pot of ethnicity. This ethnic diversity comes form the immigrant population in the country. However this perfect country is a major falsehood. These untrue ideals of harmony, freedom, success, and equality are deceptive and do not show the struggles that immigrants face when coming to this class dominated country. The immigrants of today do not come from just Europe, but overwhelmingly from Asia and Latin America. “They are driving a demographic shift so rapid that within the lifetimes of today 's teenagers, no one ethnic group – including whites of European descent – will comprise a majority of the nation 's population’ (Colombo, Cullen, Lisle). These immigrants challenge the social myth that everyone has an equal chance in life. They

In Assimilation, American Style, by Peter Salins, he argues that assimilation has nothing to do with banishing the emigrants and everything to do with a sense of national unity. Salins goes on to talk about the problems associated with bilingualism and multiculturalism, the views of the nativists, the maintaining of ethnic harmony, and the rules immigrants need to abide by for “ethnic harmony” to exist.

     America is an idea, a set of beliefs about people and their relationships and the kind of society which holds the best hope of satisfying the needs each of us brings as an individual. For countless immigrants, the struggle to arrive in America was rivaled only by the struggle to gain acceptance among the population. Immigrants say they came to America seeking economic opportunity and freedom for themselves and their children, and at the same time they have all, at one time,

Many different individuals can view immigration in many distinct ways. Some view it as a chance to improve ones life and as a way to secure a bright and prosperous future for their children and loved ones. While others refer to immigration as the downfall of this country, and with the continuous increase will cause the unanimous destruction of pure American ideologies and life styles. The most obvious way for me to start this essay is in a way to relate to the topic of immigration. In order to speak for myself I must first clarify, I was born in the United States but I am as Hispanic and very connected with my roots as is possible for someone born in this country. From a very young age I was always told how my parents traveled to this country in two different ways, my mom came with permission to enter the country and become a resident; this was something that was considered very rare at the time, and my father had to travel various different countries using fake passports with a different identity in order to reach our beautiful country. While their paths to the United States where different their goal was the same, freedom, liberty, and the hope for a bright and prosperous future. Like my parents there are millions of immigrants who come to this country to achieve there dreams and provide a stable and secure life for their families. In my personal opinion I do not believe that the right of migrating to this country should be removed, that being said I do consider that as it

Within the United States the rate of the foreign-born population—i.e. those who are not a U.S. citizen at birth (US Census Bureau, 2016)—has been steadily increasing over the past several decades. Since the 1970s, numbers have increased from 9.6 million foreign born immigrants, to more than 40 million foreign born immigrants in 2013 (Pew Research Center, 2015, p. 65). Another change also shows the variating demographics of the immigrants. In the 60s and 70s, many of the immigrants came across from Europe, whereas in 2013, most were from either Latin America, or South or East Asia. In addition to this, fifty percent of U.S. immigrants label themselves as speaking English “less than very well,” with only 16% claiming to speak only English within their home (Pew Research Center, 2015, p. 70). This sort to twist in the language learning behaviors can have profound impacts on scholastics, as well as community and social involvement, leading to the creation of conclaves of different immigrant populations. Many ethnic groups tend to cluster together in specific locals, with the states of California, Florida, Illinois, New York, and Texas having the counties with the largest foreign-born populations in 2013 (Pew Research Center, 2015, p. 16). With them, they bring their own ideals, dreams, hopes, and ideations about what life in the United States would be like.

Immigration has always been a contentious issue in the United States. Benjamin Franklin thought that the influx in German immigration would flush out the predominately British culture in America at the time. (5) Furthermore, a continual wave of foreign cultures began pouring into the American metropolitan areas at the turn of the 20th century. The migration of Italians, Poles, and Jews across the Atlantic Ocean began a mass assimilation of cultural ideology and customs into the United States, yet many people thought that these migrants could not adapt. Today, the American society has become a melting pot of foreign influence; however, many cynics remain skeptical about the incorporation of Latin American people and their influences.

The United States is often called a melting pot because of the vast array of cultures that all live in the country. People have come from every corner of the world to settle in the United States. In recent years, the influx of immigration has become a contentious issue. Some people believe that the US is overpopulated and that further immigration poses a danger to the country while others contend that the US was built on immigration and that it is un-American to prohibit people from living here if they so wish. The articles "5 Myths About Immigration" and "The Challenge of Diversity" detail the different issues which are related to the immigration issue, both discuss the amount of immigration that occurs, the fear of immigrants taking jobs from American citizens, and the idea that immigrants are reluctant to assimilate into the American culture.