Assimilation Breakdown

Fire of Liberty

Peggy Noonan has a good column out today over at OpinionJournal which makes a good point about the one issue of immigration (Illegal immigration is a big problem)that seems to be swept under the carpet during the whole debate is our lack of properly assimilating the immigrants to our society's history and philosophy. Now its true that the folks entering our country from places like Mexico and other southern points of departure are generally Christians who value family, hard work and tend to stay law biding(Except the 11 million who crossed the border illegally) but after you see the kids running around in the streets with Mexican flags you realize that they still haven't learned enough about their new home and what makes it so great. I'd say that Noonan handled it best when she notes the following:

We are not assimilating our immigrants patriotically now. We are assimilating them culturally. Within a generation their children speak Valley Girl on cell phones. "So I'm like 'no," and he's all 'yeah,' and I'm like, 'In your dreams.' " Whether their parents are from Trinidad, Bosnia, Lebanon or Chile, their children, once Americans, know the same music, the same references, watch the same shows. And to a degree and in a way it will hold them together. But not forever and not in a crunch.

So far we are assimilating our immigrants economically, too. They come here and work. Good.

But we are not communicating love of country. We are not giving them the great legend of our country. We are losing that great legend.

What is the legend, the myth? That God made this a special place. That they're joining something special. That the streets are paved with more than gold--they're paved with the greatest thoughts man ever had, the greatest decisions he ever made, about how to live. We have free thought, free speech, freedom of worship. Look at the literature of the Republic: the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Federalist papers. Look at the great rich history, the courage and sacrifice, the house-raisings, the stubbornness. The Puritans, the Indians, the City on a Hill.

The genius cluster--Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams, Madison, Franklin, all the rest--that came along at the exact same moment to lead us. And then Washington, a great man in the greatest way, not in unearned gifts well used (i.e., a high IQ followed by high attainment) but in character, in moral nature effortfully developed. How did that happen? How did we get so lucky? (I once asked a great historian if he had thoughts on this, and he nodded. He said he had come to believe it was "providential.")

We fought a war to free slaves. We sent millions of white men to battle and destroyed a portion of our nation to free millions of black men. What kind of nation does this? We went to Europe, fought, died and won, and then taxed ourselves to save our enemies with the Marshall Plan. What kind of nation does this? Soviet communism stalked the world and we were the ones who steeled ourselves and taxed ourselves to stop it. Again: What kind of nation does this?

Only a very great one. Maybe the greatest of all.

So maybe if the folks who are running in the streets would return to class and the teachers could find it in their minds to start teaching about the greatness of the United States, the folks protesting would understand what their display of the Mexican flag in our streets this past weekend bothers a lot of native and naturalized citizens of this country.