Word: mainstream
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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There are two problems with Clinton's new kinder, gentler immigration policy: first, the idea that immigrants should become part of the mainstream, and second, the assumption that immigrants can become part of the mainstream...
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...
...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) models of American society...
Clinton's statement also brings up the question of what exactly the mainstream is. Judging by the last election, "the mainstream" consists of white, middle-class, heterosexual men and women who watch the Disney channel with their soccer-playing children. If this is indeed the "mainstream," does Clinton want all new immigrants to become Disney parents? Such thinking inherently downplays the contribution of minorities to American society and the value of using minority communities as models. Pushed further, such thinking takes the form of white supremacy...
Second, Clinton's belief that immigrants can enter mainstream American life by learning English and studying America's "democratic" government is naive...