How To Write A Narrative Essay About American Culture

The growth of English language has increased tremendously over the years and has become the most widely spoken languages in the United States. This observation aims to explore why when moving to the United States, many non-English speakers feel the social pressure to learn English and what difficulties they encounter. After my observation, I found that many feel the need to learn English in order to assimilate into a community, and though straddling two languages is difficult, it opens more opportunities, and language privilege.

Language is not the only factor affecting the assimilation of people into American society, but one?s traditions also have an effect on the willingness and on the degree to which one assimilates. Some people have found that certain customs they have are not accepted in American culture and might

This situation is relative to real life instances of immigration, as those moving to America with the hopes of improving their own lives and the lives of their family members are, in some cases, unfamiliar with the English language. Therefore, they must somehow learn the ways of the new people surrounding them in order to be accepted in this environment and also be able to communicate with others so they can attempt to obtain jobs to support themselves and family. Understanding the same language clearly plays an important role in assimilating to new surroundings.

Language is much more than a method of communication. Permeated within it are traditions, customs, and legacies of one’s culture. The identity of an entire population is in the distinct vocalizations of their native language. Unfortunately, as a wave of immigrants enters the United States at young ages, many face language barriers that pose significant challenges. Language barriers affect a multitude of immigrant populations to different degrees. This, in turn, causes many of them to abandon not only their native tongue but a piece of their ethnic identity, as well. In Maxine Hong Kingston’s personal narrative,“The Language of Silence,” she describes the difficulties she experienced throughout her childhood with a language barrier as a

A common joke says “What do you call someone who speaks two languages?” in which the person being asked the question would usually respond with “bilingual.” It goes on to ask about those who speak three or four languages, but then there is a kicker. “What does one call someone who only speaks one language?” to which the punch line is “an American.” According to the 2006 General Social Survey, only 25 percent of American adults are fluent in a foreign language, while only 7 percent cite the source of this education to formal schooling (Devlin 1). Large amounts of evidence point to the benefits of being multilingual. Although the United States has a few laws that help immigrants assimilate through dual language programs, there is little to be

Assimilation is necessary to survive in any culture. This is because there are certain attributes that are embraced (which help to improve communication and understanding). Those individuals who are able to accept them will transform the way that they can interact with everyone. This is the key for having increased opportunities.

Studies have shown how immigrants are located in a certain part of an area of the United States that either resembled or is made to resemble Mexico and their culture, just how Assessing Immigrant Assimilation by Mary Waters and Tomas Jimenez explained that immigrants have allowed themselves to be segregated from the rest of society to their own culture. “Although we focus below on the experience of immigrants in the areas of new geographic settlement in the south and Midwest, the majority of immigrants still settle in the large gateway cities—Los Angeles, New York, Miami, San Francisco, Chicago, Dallas, and Houston. These studies all find that Asian and Latino immigrants have moderate degrees of segregation from with Anglos.” (109) Language is also a barrier that these people encounter which affects their potential job offers or even enrollment into schools. Jay Fitzgerald wrote a short article Changing Patterns in the Assimilation of Immigrants about the effects of the language barrier, “The rate of increase in English language proficiency is significantly slower for larger national origin groups. The author notes that the payoff for immigrants to learn English is likely tied to the frequency with which they use their language skills in everyday activities and that the incentive to learn English is likely to be lower when immigrants find a large, welcoming ethnic enclave in the United States.”

The great thing about America, is that it’s a country that accepts people of all different cultures as citizens of the country. This is a distinguishing quality that no other country in the world shares. By having this unique quality, it drew in nearly every imaginable kind of person to this country, a country with just one primary language, English. With that came hundreds of new languages spoken by the immigrants. To this day there’s still people who isolate themselves within their ethnic groups, instead of learning to speak English, the most prevalent language used in America. There’s something to be said for learning at least a little of a language whether someone is visiting a country for a day or planning to live there for the rest of their life. It shows that person cares about the place they’re in, and that they respect its residents. According to Brice, “Making English the official language would encourage new migrants to learn the language of the country they have adopted as theirs. The end goal is to unite the American people, while improving the lives of immigrants and native born inhabitants.” Speaking and

As Morgen walks into her AP American History class, she notices that there are weird box type tablets on every desk. She’s never seen anything like these before. By the looks on the faces of her ten classmates, she’s not alone. She takes her usual seat in the back of the classroom. While waiting for her best friend to arrive, she listens to her favorite song, Hello by her favorite classic artist, Adele. What are these weird looking tablets? How are you supposed to turn them on? She wondered.

If immigrants were required to learn the English language, it would be beneficial to them in the long run. To begin, knowing two languages can help the students at school. If a new student moved to Butler County High School, it would be difficult to make friends if they could not speak English; therefore, knowing English can help make friends at school. Also, knowing English can make classes easier to understand, and easier for teachers to lecture to the immigrants. If the teachers do not know much about the language, it will make their job of teaching them very, very difficult. Next, immigrants who are bilingual have a better job experience. Working in a care-giving facility, the employees’ job becomes complicated if a patient speaks a

Many people in the United States have a sense of comfort with their own culture and language to the point where they will not abandon those things in order to pick up a new language and lifestyle. In the article named, “Why and When We Speak Spanish in Public,” written by Myriam Marquez, she explains how her family continues to use the Spanish in public in the United States, even though they have lived in the United States for over 40 years. Marquez explains, “For me and most of the bilingual people I know, it’s a matter of respect for our parents and comfort in our cultural roots” (542). People are simply not going to change who they are and where they come from just so they can conform to the normal population of the United States. For the most part, people who come the United States are happy that the country has not implemented a national language law because the people who come here can

Entering a room and understanding everything that is being said is an ability not everyone in America possess. There are bilingual individuals that understand one language better than another and are not able to express or understand fully what is being said causing these bilinguals to compromise the individual within to understand the second language. Furthermore, this leads to a bigger question: does assimilation lead to the loss of individualism?

A possible concern is people can live without using new languages. Because of the the remarkable progress on diversity and communication, the society is able to accept immigrants who speak different languages(AC). The immigrants even can live in their own community, speak with their friends in same languages. However, if immigrants ignore learning new languages, they may not have any solutions when they face problems. According to Thousand Piece of Gold by Ruthanne, Lum McCunn, “She stopped, horrified. How could she have been so stupid? True, Southern speech was still strange to her… Now She betrayed herself, proven her papers false.”(63) Lalu was nervous when she spoke to the officer in Cantonese, which was a totally unfamiliar language to

When people come from other countries to America, they usually come for a better life and they know in the back of their head that they’re going to put some effort fourth to assimilate to their new surroundings. I know it’s extremely difficult for foreigners to try and assimilate to English speaking people and I have experienced some of the struggle between the two parties, one party being myself. For the past 3 years I have associated myself with a Russian family that came from Russia looking for a better life for their two sons.

From the time the Pilgrims landed in this great nation at Plymouth Rock, immigrants have been culturally diverse and have spoken many languages. When the Pilgrims arrived in the New World, they did not know how to communicate with the natives. Through intense study the natives learned the Pilgrims’ language. Even with the common language they were still a melting pot of different culture. Some would say that America has gotten over the language/ cultural barriers and now almost everyone speaks the common language of English, but there are still many immigrants who do not know English. Bilingual education is put into public schools for this reason, so that immigrant children can be assimilated to English gradually. The national language