08 June 2006

Whose values are we talking about?

Bush is trying to save his immigration policy ass, insisting that immigrants assimilate. As if that hasn't happened with every immigrant community thus far, excepting perhaps the Amish. Here's a brief snippet of the miserable failure's speech:
"One aspect of making sure we have an immigration system that works, that's orderly and fair, is to actively reach out and help people assimilate into our country," Bush said. "That means to learn the values and history and language of America."

Aside from the hilarious non sequitur definition that allows Bush to define "actively reach out and help people assimilate into our country" as "to learn the values and history and language of America" (yes, to assimilate can mean to learn the values etc., but it puts the onus on the learner, i.e. the immigrant, whereas his first clause puts the onus on the U.S. immigration system), Bush is really treading on some dangerous ground here.

I mean, do we really want immigrants learning U.S. values as Bush understands them? What are these values? Many people might say hard work, or the "puritan work ethic," is a core value, but certainly that's not in Bush's values toolbox. Or how about duty. Is duty an American value? Well, it might be for some, but Bush's National Guard history kind of puts the kibosh on that...How about honesty. Um, not really one of Bush's priorities. Fairplay? Wrong again.

Here's what a recent immigrant might learn about American values by emulating our President:
  1. Perception is more important than reality.
  2. Lie. If caught, blame the people who caught you.
  3. No morals should get in the way of getting what you want.

I suppose those are good values to learn in today's America. It's certainly Bush's way, and he made it all the way to President.

4 comments:

m.a. said...

I think that a lot of immigrants have an incredible work ethic--better than mine. But assimilation is such a difficult process, don't you think?

cs said...

Absolutely, and besides assimilation eventually changes everyone -- our culture was transformed by the influx of Italians in the early 20th century, by the Vietnamese in the 1970's, by the Salavadorans in the 1980's (thank you for El Tamarindo). Etc.

I think assimilation has more to do with navigating the dominant culture than in identifying with it.

Megarita said...

Wow. I was attempting to formulate something along these lines, but then you said it perfectly:
"I think assimilation has more to do with navigating the dominant culture than in identifying with it."

Damn, that sentence of W's is such a travesty. I mean, dangling shite everywhere. Antecedents and what not! No wonder recent immigrants throw their hands up about English.

Wicketywack said...

When Bush says, "learn American values", doesn't he just mean "learn English"?

You're correct that assimilation is really about "navigating the dominant culture", but learning the language not only shows respect for the culture the immigrant lives in, but can make a new immigrant more successful in life. When I'm in other countries---even for a few days---I try my best to learn the some of the language, even if it's just a few words. When I do, I find that doors are opened to me that would be closed otherwise. I know everyone's not good at new languages, but I've met some immigrants who've been in the US for many years and still cannot speak English. There's simply of no excuse for that.