From: Cub Driver

we seem to be taking the stance now that we *don't*
integrate newcomers, but instead do our best to elevate them (if
that's the right verb) to the status of a specially-aggrieved
minority.

True, if you define "we" as certain segments of the educational/political
class. But in the great teeming mass of the population, it doesn't seem to
have much significant effect, "significant effect" being defined as, among
other things, exogamy rates (marrying outside your ethnic group) which have
continuously been on the rise through the century. What is particularly
interesting is how smoothly--and frequently-- "Hispanic" immigrants' children
engage in exogamy. There is no evidence of permanent ethnic blocs forming,
other than the standard types we have had all along. The big exception is
blacks, which still have low (but increasing) exogamy rates an order of
magnitude below other ethnic group exogamy rates.
What's interesting in this is that it points to how little influence official
policies have on the evolution of the "real" American civilization erupting ad
hoc from the population.

This is a huge change over my childhood, when the teacher
made fun of me in class because I pronounced "pen" as if it were
spelled "pin". "You sound like you just came over from the Old Sod."

I really don't see it as a negative if today's teachers don't ridicule their
students for their ethnicity.

(That's Ireland, in case your knowledge of ethnic jibes has been
weakened in the current wash of racial gentility.)

Well, I grew up in Montana, where the only "ethnics" I was aware of were
Indians and Mormons. We got along, although our grandparents had killed each
other with skill and enthusiasm.

I became a Yankee
as fast as I could, which was pretty fast.

Did you become a yankee because you were ridiculed by your teacher or because
the greater society opened up to you? No matter how much your teacher
ridiculed you, had society closed its doors to you, with "No Irish Need Apply"
codified into law, might you not have retreated into your ethnic identity and
made no effort to assimilate?

Being an American is like riding a unicycle.

So you are saying Americans are circus clowns? (couldn't resist)


You are always on the
cusp of a remarkable journey, the outcome of which you can't possibly
know. Just because you haven't fallen off yet doesn't mean that it
can't happen. But if you get off the unicycle you stop being an
American.

I just don't see American identity as being that fragile. It appears to me to
be enormously powerful and attractive. Ben Wattenberg, examining statistical
population data from the century has remarked that the clearest fact these data
make clear is the "de-otherization" of America. Wattenberg is, of course, a
real Democrat from the days when Democrats were optimistic progressives rather
than today's anxiety ridden Luddites. See such works of his as "The Good News
is the Bad News is Wrong," "The First Universal Nation," and "The Real
Majority" among others.



Chris Mark