Acculturation, about the children

Yesterday Shrinkwrapped looked at Neo-neocon's assertion that profound cultural change is ordinarily not a fast process, and posted that "Ultimately, immigration is About the children":

Here we begin to see how the pernicious ideology of multi-culturism and political correctness has been slowly disarming our population of their intellectual weapons. Neo mentions the "melting pot"; yet our elites, even more so in Europe than here, have actively striven to destroy the concept of the "melting pot" in favor of such ideas as "a mosaic" or a "quilt." If America remains a "melting pot", the immigration question devolves to how best to ensure that the children of the current generation of immigrants can make the transition from being Mexicans to being Americans. If we are living in a mosaic, then the question is an entirely different and more dangerous one.
. . .
I believe that much of the discomfort about immigration relates to this sense that we are allowing non-Americans who do not share our values to gain a toe hold in our country and have no confidence that our leaders will do what they should or could to encourage these people to become Americans.

Just a year ago I was pointing out that

Prior generations of immigrants, once they arrived in the USA were taught, by the public schools and by other civic organizations, traditional American values; more specifically, middle-class, Protestant values, within a Judeo-Christian tradition. People learned to read English by reading the King James Bible. The Protestant work ethic was promoted through Horatio Alger stories, and the value of delayed gratification was spoken of. School curricula stressed discipline and the "three R's", and included famous sermons, such as Governor John Winthrop's A Model of Christian Charity. People were taught and encouraged to serve their communities through volunteering, a most American trait. In short, immigrants were directed towards what it meant to live in an American culture; no one assumed that simply knowing the language meant one was acculturated.

If the mosaicists would wake from their non-judgmental multi-culti PC slumber, they'd learn that most Latin American immigrants share these traditional American values:

• loyalty to one's family as demonstrated by the large portion of earnings sent to their native countries as remissions
• the desire to improve oneself socially and financially by leaving their poor situations for the expectation of a better condition
• faith, as shown in the much-touted Dia de los Muertos, Dia de los Reyes and other celebrations that otherwise-unchristian public schools hype in the name of diversity
• a strong work ethic, with many illegal aliens working 12-14 hr days
• patriotism and loyalty to one's country, including the fact that Hispanics comprise the largest ethnic group represented in the Marines

Directing these children towards what it means to be American would not deny them their heritage, but instead strengthen their values and their own selves, while opening their futures to the myriad opportunities that attract immigrants to our country.

Shrinkwrapped concludes (emphasis mine),

Any politicians and/or political party that can find a way to re-frame this debate as about assimilation and Americanization, rather than illegal immigration, without a knee jerk reaction from the MSM condemning them as racist, will have a powerful message indeed. Once again, our elites will attempt to polarize the discussion but there is hope; their power to determine the parameters of discourse are failing (too slowly for my taste, but failing surely). We need this debate to be about creating more Americans and not about empowering illegal immigrants.

And the sooner, the better.

(technorati tags Immigration)