Immigrants and Immigration - We Are a Nation of Immigrants

We Are a Nation of Immigrants

The United States is a nation of immigrants, a melting pot of the worlds people. The argument of immigration and whether it enhances or threatens life in the United States is ongoing. Having been through the immigration process, because my wife is a immigrant from Germany, has caused me to know immigration enhances life in the United States. Diversified cultures have strengthened our social fabric and have molded our national morals and social values. Thru the years every new immigrant brought with them the best ideas of their society and together with guts and hard work they turned a rugged wilderness into flourishing towns and cities creating opportunity for the next generation of immigrants. Our society was founded with the idea that each individual is important, honest labor brings rewards, and each individual is guaranteed the right to be free.

Peter Martin wrote "Towards Something American" in Harpers Magazine (July 1994), and asserted he is not sure we even have a American culture. Sure we do, American culture can not be defined in the traditional sense and has slowly evolved from the European culture of the initial immigrants to a vast vat of the world's cultures and traditions. We've adapted the best of the world's cultures and traditions to fit in with American society, molding our social values. Not that each American thinks and acts the same way, that makes Americans special. We have many ideas of what our culture should be. The Germans have October Fest, the Irish have Saint Patrick's day, and the Jew's have Hanukkah. In many instances it is based on our geographic location within the United States and the people who settled there. Oth...

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... possess similar job skills as natives. Mr. Simon writes, "Immigrants typically arrive when they are young and healthy. Hence new immigrant families use fewer welfare services than do average native families because immigrants do not receive expensive Social Security and other aid to the aged". This allows the immigrants to contribute more to the system then they use.

The immigration issue will not be solved in the near future. The debate will continue and both sides will argue tainted statistics that are bent to conform with their ideas. Since the United States is a nation of immigrants and the most powerful nation in the world, we've been doing something right. Can we deal with the immigration issue smarter, with more hard facts, and with less emotion? I say yes, but in the meantime lets not fix something that may not be broken.