[lit-ideas] Re: Long Live the Evolution
- From: andy amago <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 4 May 2004 11:54:02 -0400 (GMT-04:00)
-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Geary <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: May 4, 2004 10:25 AM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Long Live the Evolution
A. Amago:
> The point is that today's wave of immigration differs from past waves in
their unwillingness to assimilate.
M. Geary: Is this accurate? From my admittedly very narrow perspective, I
should
think that the Latino immigrants today assimilate at the same rate as all
the past generations of immigrants. Not the immigrants, but their children
and their children's children do the assimilating, but at the same time they
change the larger culture -- life's not a one way street, you know. Every
experience of difference changes you -- or should.
A.A. That's my point with the students saying "As a Latino American I feel
..." rather than "I feel ..." If the parents have no desire to assimilate and
become a part of their surroundings, then the children are necessarily tainted
with that brush.
> They come not to America but to a new and better Mexico.
You're being a bit ethno-centric there, don't you think? How about we
settle on "a new and wealthier Mexico?" It'd be a damn hard job to pass off
the violence and crass materialism and Jerry Springerism and Reality TVism
and Christian fundamentalism that's so much 'America' (as Speranza would
have it) in this country as "better", I do think.
A.A. Good point. Still, I'd say that if you've ever watched (and I do mean
watched, since I don't speak Spanish), Spanish television, it's hard to miss
the nearly continuous boobs and micro minis. I suspect that we're still a few
notches above. Most importantly, though, is that not assimilating in this
country doesn't change Mexico at all.
Andy
Mike Geary
still erin go braghing
in Memphis
(2nd generation American on my mother's side)
> Given the emotionality in this response, it's clear you know nothing at
all about the book. No one is deploring multiculturalism. We are a country
of pizza parlors and Chinese restaurants and St. Patrick's Day parades and
Columbus Day parades and all the rest of it. The point is that today's wave
of immigration differs from past waves in their unwillingness to assimilate.
Where the Italians and the Irish and the whoever came over with the thought
of becoming Americans, staying here, learning the language, making this
their country, today's largely Hispanic immigrants come to our shores not as
would be Americans but as Mexicans, etc. who never really left Mexico, etc.
They come not to America but to a new and better Mexico.
>
>
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