Immigrants Live With Uncertainty

Today, the whole universe has become a global village. Since 1960s the United States has become more culturally diverse than at any time in history. Between 1970 and 2000, the foreign born population significantly increased in the U.S. In 1970, according to the U.S. census, about 27 per cent of the foreign populations were from Latin America and Asia. Since 1960, the US government has supported cultural diversity by developing a policy of multiculturalism. Its Bilingual Education Act of 1968 and 1978 provided funds to educate the children of non-English speaking immigrants and committed to the idea that all citizens had the right to preserve their cultural inheritance. 

However, multiculturalism has not yet been free from controversy. In 2003, small majorities of California, Arizona and Massachusetts had voted against the provision of providing funds to be spent on bilingual education. There are numbers of factors about why multiculturalism is such divisive issue. Those who oppose multiculturalism point out that this will ultimately weaken the United States growing various diverse communities within the country. The immigrants are supposed to be the polluters. They opine that the immigrants need to adapt to the culture of their country. Their common sense tells them that people cannot be full members of a new society unless they are willing to adapt and use the new society's cultural rules.

Benefits from immigrants 

The 2002 polls showed that large majority of Americans (about 75 per cent) believed that immigration of people to the U.S. from diverse backgrounds has so many benefits. They realise that greater portion of new immigrants are well-educated, skilled, better trained and hard working. This is what a country needs for its prosperity. Immigration of skilled people has given it a golden chance to engage these people to strengthen America. In spite of the strict provision of immigration law, people from different nations are continuing to flow into U.S. In the 1990s alone, over 3.9 million settled in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami and Chicago. 

In 2003, the San Francisco Report stated that forty-five languages other than English were spoken natively by students in the country's schools. Interestingly, only 3 per cent of the students were of European origin. The majority students were from Asia and Latin America. The presence of such groups, according to the opponents of multiculturalism, could, over time, cause social disorder and ultimately the disintegration of U.S. society. They argue that the US needs to look at recent history in the former Yugoslavia, where a once multicultural society disintegrated during the years of ethnic hostility, violence and civil war.

The American-born citizens who fear the arrival of large number of immigrants to their country have other reasons to oppose the U.S. immigration policy. Some portion of public opinion says that the immigrants look with disfavour on Catholic tradition. Another recurrent fear is that the immigrants take jobs away from native-born workers because immigrants are willing to work for lower wages in whatever working conditions of the work places. Another charge directed at immigrants is that they are not willing to assimilate and become the part of the U.S. society. They continue to use their native languages in their ethnic neighbourhoods and thus seem to be demonstrating their unwillingness to learn English. 

In the eyes of some American-born citizens, the immigrants are opportunity graspers and they sway out the U.S. economy. David Cisneros describes that America has always been in fear of immigrants in spite of the fact that it welcomes hundreds of brave souls. It cannot celebrate the migration of such beautiful people due to human related problems like crime and war. It is not untrue that the new arrivals to the United States continue to use their native language. They also tend to settle in the ethnic neighbourhoods. Again, it is improper to conclude that they have no interest in becoming the part of American society. It is also wrong to say that their children and grandchildren will live outside the mainstream English speaking society. 

Researches have shown that immigrant communication typically takes three generations to complete language shift. Susan K. Brown and Frank D. Bean state that full assimilation into mainstream American society, like language shift, takes time to complete from the point of view of imperfect English use of first generation immigrants, it is wrong to conclude that their children and grandchildren will lead lives separate from the mainstream American society. Although American-born children and grandchildren of European or Asian immigrants have retained some parts of their nature society, they are now fully integrated into American life. The United States for its part has been enriched by the immigrants who have contributed to it.

Prejudices

The fear lies not only in the mind of native-born Americans, it is more severe in the immigrants' minds, too. The immigrants are facing prejudices in every walk of life in the new society. The first prejudice they face is of their colour of skin. The Americans have an inner hatred towards those people with brown or black skin. They openly use derogatory words to such people. The immigrants also find themselves humiliated due to their language inefficiency and the U.S. accent. The U.S. citizens judge the Asian or Mexican-American children's English to be less standard. The cultural beliefs and practices of the immigrants also irritate the Americans as these practices are not in tune with the Christian values. 

Hundreds of students from across the world aspire to study in the American universities. The postgraduate students from outside the U.S. have to spend further a year or two in the U.S. to be eligible to get admission in American universities for their further studies. In this respect, both the U.S. universities, immigration policy and immigrants should work together to make an all- acceptable understanding to resolve immigrants’ uncertainties.

(Dahal is an Assistant Professor at TU)