Your thoughts?
IMO the changes to this country are not from immigration, but from a huge ongoing political battle to define the nation's value system. That in turn impacts immigration and its impact on the country by creating a system where immigrants are not strongly encouraged to assimilate.
As far as immigration changing our culture, all I know is it sure has changed it where I live.
We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness -- That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
All our rights, all our power, all our advantages, all our diversity, all our faults come from this statement. This is still a bunch of radical concepts that are antithetical to and confound 3/4 of the governments on this planet.
A nation grown through earning allies, stabilized on the idea of freedom and liberty, flourishing through keeping our word to friend and foe alike.
With the beginnings of large scale immigration from other countries in the 1840s, American culture took on first a Northern European, then an all-European, then a global character. It's worth noting though, that even in the earlier stages, African-Americans were as important to the culture as Scots or Germans or Irish.
So we have British America down to the mid-19th century, Northern European America until the beginning of the 20th Century, European America through to the 1960s and a global or multicultural America since then. Not that non-European groups weren't here in the 19th century and before, but they were peripheral to the dominant culture, and now they are not. Even when they made major contributions to the culture, these depended on adoption by the main culture.
An important question now is whether the existing culture and political system can survive radical ethnic diversity. Will we all be assimilated to the once prevailing American model? Will it be replaced? Or transformed? Or fragmented into separate cultures or even new countries? Can a "multicultural" country can truly claim to have a distinctive culture of its own? Or does it simply become another province of the global market?
Wars, like the one we've just fought, strengthen loyalty to the nation and social cohesion, but we're not out of the woods yet. Multiculturalism, globalism and "postmodernism" are hostile to the nation state, and whether we'll survive this century as one country is uncertain. Perhaps assimilation and intermarriage will prevent fragmentation into ethnic tribes, but we may still find ourselves troubled by just what "American culture." It may be that modern technological and global culture will eventually come to mean more than our own national culture.
Christopher Clausen's "Faded Mosaic: The Emergence of Post-Cultural America" is an interesting look at these questions. Clausen argues that we no longer have "a culture." Nor do we truly have many cultures. For Clausen, culturelessness is our condition. Mass immigration, pop culture, globalization and radical individualism mean that we no longer have those cultural structures that existed before. Whether this is a good thing or not remains to be seen. Clausen's book is thought-provoking, especially on the question of whether our individualism has meant the weakening of the culture which produced it.
That's silly. There is no fixed American culture. Whatever the immigrants
bring, they lose some as they assimilate, but not before such things happen
as (and this was twenty years ago) the largest per capita consumption of
jalopeno peppers is Atlanta, Georgia.
The culture is like a river. You can never put your foot into the same
one twice, because it is always changing. The banks remain, but there is no true river.
American food is: basically slap every thing on a bun or stuff it in a wrap, why? Because you're in a hurry! Maybe you don't stop to smell the roses enough but at least you're going somewhere. Unlike many nations where the tendency is to drift with the current.
America Culture is: accepting. While you may live years in another country and never be accepted in America as long as you are willing to work and pull your own weight you are welcome.
American Culture is: Looking confused when someone tells you, "you should know your place and keep it." Your place? What the heck are they talking about? Your place is as high or as low as you want to go. And if you change your mind about where you want to be then go for it!
American Culture is: Forgiving. You are the fogivingest bunch I have ever seen. Not sure if the national motto shouldn't be, "Get over it! We have!" You are honestly confused by the grudges the rest of the world holds over this little thing and that little thing.
American Culture is: Open. Drive across the country. All of those houses and no fences. People can just walk right up to your door. No iron bars on the windows either. Sure you may find a few in big cities or among the very wealthy but in other countries the first thing you do is build a wall.
American Culture is: Caring. You worry about the world and are quick off the mark to care for someone in trouble.
American Culture is: Stable government. You have rules and you follow them. Things run in a timely fashion and according to a set schedule. You don't think that is a culture? Live a few years in a country that doesn't have it. Learn to jump at loud noises. Never know as you go to bed at night who will have the running of your life tomorrow. You remember the 2000 election? Try living like that for years on end.
American Culture is: Choices. You can be you. So simple yet in many countries who you will be is written from birth if not before. It does not matter what you want. Family and culture bind you. To reject those bindings is to be an outcast. The most beautiful words in any language, "I choose."
Just a few bedtime thoughts.
And now I choose to shut up and get some sleep.
In fact- all of modern American politics could be boiled down to those who want one American culture and those who don't.