ipl-logo

Essay On Cultural Diversity In America

625 Words3 Pages

Cultural diversity flourishes in the United States even though the golden door are no longer as open as they once were. Americans’ doors have rusted shut through disuse. It doesn’t matter how many people come to the United States looking for freedom and opportunity there will always be groups of people who voluntarily discredit immigrants. Despite Emma Lazarus’s optimistic view, immigrants have and will almost always be looked upon with a predisposition of judgement and shame. With this they will most likely have a harder time reaching the freedom they aspired for. America is “supposedly” home of the free, but with racism still existing legal immigrants can find it hard to find housing and work. Americans tend to have a harder time accepting …show more content…

But yet, this is not the case for most immigrants in the United States. When immigrants come over to the U.S. they carry over new traditions that can be side-eyed by American citizens. An immigrant may have an accent or practice religion not common here and will stick out of what is considered normal in America. In the day, immigrants can “wrap their babies in the American flag, feed them mashed hot dogs and apple pie” to fit in and avoid conflict with patriotic citizens. At night they can “whisper in Spanish or Polish when the babies sleep” (Mora, 132) to hang on to what little pieces they have left of their original selves. This shame of having to hide who a person is stems from harassment received with an immigrants’ so called “freedom”. Pressure created to fit in causes most people to completely change who they are, like in the short story Two Kings by Amy Tan. Jing-mei’s mother belief is “you could be anything you wanted to be in America”. (Tan, 133) Jing-mei’s mother heavily believed this and through the story saw famous or talented Americans and tried to turn her daughter into what she saw. It wasn’t enough for the mother to have a simple daughter, so she took every opportunity she had to mold her daughter into a American prodigy that she saw on the

Show More
Related
1731 Words | 7 Pages

Introduction Informative, contemplative, and different are three words to describe “How Immigrants Become ‘Other’” by Marcelo M. Suárez-Orozco and Carola Suárez-Orozco from Rereading America. “How Immigrants Become ‘Other’” talks about unauthorized immigration. More specifically, this source talks about the other side of the issue of unauthorized immigrants; the human face of it all. “How Immigrants Become ‘Other’” depicts the monster from one of Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s thesis in the article, “Monster Culture (7 Theses).” The monster seen in the source “How Immigrants Become ‘Other’” is the one that Cohen talks about in his fourth thesis, “The Monster Dwells at the Gates of Difference.”

Read More
941 Words | 4 Pages

Immigrants, fleeing their homeland to escape oppression for religion or to find better opportunities for employment, were drawn to the booming American land of industrialization and urbanization. Old immigrants from Western Europe entered the country prominently in the 1880’s. But from the 1890’s to the outbreak of World War I, New Immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe flooded the country. These immigrants, bringing with them lesser-practiced customs and religions that could shape the culture of America, mainly congregated with people of similar nationalities in ethnic neighborhoods in the growing cities, thus limiting their assimilation into American society. Another factor limiting the influence of immigration on America was the resistance of the “native” Americans to the New Immigrants.

Read More
1001 Words | 5 Pages

Emma Lazarus’s poem suggests that America welcomed “huddled masses yearning to breathe free” (Doc. C) and Document A suggests that America shielded newcomers from anti-immigrant slander; however, the American government was alarmed at the large rates of immigration and also regarded foreigners as burdens. The government passed legislation that severely restricted the numbers of immigrants and made immigration exclusive to certain ethnic groups. In the Emergency Immigration Act, as referenced in Document J, the American government prohibited the numbers of incoming immigrants from exceeding 3% of the total immigrants of that nationality currently in America. To further discourage immigration, the government also required literacy tests, as Document I illustrates, for entry to America. Also, the American government viewed certain immigrant groups deemed as undesirable.

Read More
1400 Words | 6 Pages

Richard Rodriguez’s memoir Hunger of Memory’s illustrates the identity dilemma that many minorities have to endure when they come to the United States of America and how them being a minority affects their chances of success. There are numerous ways that people for a person to lose his or her identity; the main one is when they immigrate to a new nation. Most immigrants suffer from personal disorientation which is common when one is unfamiliar with the environment that surrounds them and how to adapt to this new social atmosphere. Many minorities feel discriminated towards because they are being labeled their race, gender, cultural background, and religion. Most people when they view these traditions that the minorities practice comes to them

Read More
505 Words | 3 Pages

This population shared common interests and challenges along their journey. They were all interested in seeking freedom, economic opportunity, religious tolerance and a better quality of life for their children. They all faced the challenges of poverty, over-crowded communities, and discrimination. It seems just as much as America redefined them, the new immigrants reshaped the nation by bringing their customs, traditions, cuisine, religion, languages, and to share with the American people helping to make the United States of America the “great melting pot” it is

Read More
1401 Words | 6 Pages

immigration-today-3/ Immigration can be viewed as something that has forever blessed or plagued this country. Perspective plays a big role in the discussion of illegal immigrants that enter America daily. With American society becoming more and more prejudice in each decade since Martin Luther King had his “I Have a Dream” speech Blacks are not the only ones on the discrimination list. This problem has since began to come to a head under President Trump and his term. Unbeknownst to many who support the deportation of illegal immigrants wholeheartedly, immigrants add to the society just as much as people fear they’ve been taking.

Read More
1610 Words | 7 Pages

III. Achieved Identity of Undocumented Immigrants The achieved identity of an individual is the way in which one feels about his or herself. The way in which one understands his or her belonging. For the case of many undocumented immigrants, their identities vary depending on the time that they have spent living in the U.S.

Read More
994 Words | 4 Pages

As a result of their emigration, America was now viewed as “multiethnic and multiracial” and “defined in terms of culture and creed” (Huntington 1). On the contrary, when people traveled across the border from Mexico, their culture was not so widely accepted. Mexican traditions and values were seen as a “serious challenge to America’s traditional identity” (Huntington 2). The “original settlers” of America were incredibly open to people travelling from Europe, but when people came from Latin America, they were

Read More
301 Words | 2 Pages

For many new immigrants coming to America, it is difficult to adjust into the new society. Many come to America without the basic knowledge of English, the new immigrants do not have the ability assimilate to American society because of the lack of possible communication between the immigrant and an native. Non-English speaking immigrants that come to America face harsh challenges when trying to assimilate to U.S. society because immigrants are often segregated into ethnic communities away from natives, Americans do not know basics of words of other well known languages, and the lack of government funding education programs. Assimilation into a new society is difficult enough, but when the society pushes any new immigrants to separate part

Read More
787 Words | 4 Pages

America’s Diverse Population In the nineteenth century, rates of immigration across the world increased. Within thirty years, over eleven million immigrants came to the United States. There were new types of people migrating than what the United States were used to seeing as well. Which made people from different backgrounds and of different race work and live in tight spaces together; causing them to be unified.

Read More
481 Words | 2 Pages

So as you have read, immigrants have had an impact on America for a long time. Some have proved that you don’t have to be from America to be an American. “They proved that being an American is not just for some people. They expanded what it means to be an American, including Japanese-Americans who were feared and suspected and hated.

Read More
1267 Words | 6 Pages

Immigrants are often viewed in a negative perspective in their new country. Currently, 41% of U.S. citizens believe immigrants are a burden to the U.S. because they take jobs and limit health care and housing (Pew Research Center, 2015). Additionally, many Americans believe that immigrants are not providing to the economy, instead of taking. This has led to discrimination in different environments toward immigrants such as in school and work. In Abu-Lughod’s (2002) interview Attitudes Toward Muslim Women of the West, she discusses how there are different aspects of other societies that Western people are not capable of understanding.

Read More
1414 Words | 6 Pages

The United States of America, is known to be one of the richest and most powerful countries in the world. It has often been referred to by many as a global melting pot or as locals may say callaloo, due to the amassing of diverse ethnicities, cultures and nationalities. Within its borders, resides immigrants or descendants of immigrants from almost every region in the world, and each has in some way added to the American culture and way of life. America is known for its stance on freedom, it is a nation that values equality and justice, this can be noted in the last few words of their national anthem ‘indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.’ However, for many, high levels of economic and social inequalities are daily struggles, a battle that has been fought for decades to claim the most basic rights, in the pursuit of achieving the American Dream.

Read More
683 Words | 3 Pages

Over thirty years ago, White America believed that all people who immigrated to the United States of America, whether by force or of their own accord, wanted to assimilate into America’s culture and become a member of a homogenous society (Chronicle 1). During this time, many immigrants decided to assimilate into the White America culture, fearing the consequences from the majority. However, today most millenniums believe that this antiquated way of thinking is out of touch with reality, especially since the globalized world of business is constantly changing (Chronicle 1). In fact, today many immigrants will prefer acculturation over assimilation to retain their primary identity and culture (Chronicle 1).

Read More
616 Words | 3 Pages

“The Immigrant contribution” and “The Quilt of a Country” are two essays that share a similar focus, however, they cover two drastically different sides of the topic. Both of them share the main idea that America is a country made up almost entirely of immigrants. Kennedy’s essay, “The immigrant Contribution”, focuses on how immigrants have affected our country, whereas Quindlen’s essay discusses how people of many different cultures coexist and work together. The essays both concentrate on immigration in America and how immigration has shaped and molded our culture. The two authors describe the many different aspects of immigration in immensely different ways.

Read More

More about Essay On Cultural Diversity In America

Related Topics

Open Document