Word: america
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Praising new immigrants for "energizing our culture" and "building up our economy," he said that they "must be part of our one America." "We have a responsibility to make them welcome here," Clinton explained, "and they have a responsibility to enter the mainstream of American life. That means learning English and learning about our democratic system of government." He then asked Congress to support his budget that earmarked funds to help immigrants to meet this "responsibility...
Saying immigrants have a responsibility to become part of the mainstream implies that America should be homogeneous. This not only contradicts Clinton's general policy of encouraging diversity, but also assumes that sameness is a good thing...
Clinton's statement strikes me as an outdated model of the "melting pot" in which everyone who enters America can assimilate himself or herself into one, uniform identity. Other models have lately come into vogue: the "salad" model, for instance, in which different people can be tossed together in the same bowl without dissolving into one another. One of my friends likes to think of America as a "chunky soup:" Cultural sharing occurs, but the borders of individuals or groups remain intact, though permeable. Clinton's statement that immigrants should join "the mainstream," however, obscures these more recent (and better...
Second, Clinton's belief that immigrants can enter mainstream American life by learning English and studying America's "democratic" government is naive...
Historically, a command of language and understanding of American politics has not necessarily meant everyone in America has been treated as an equal citizen...