Essay 4448

One more comment responding to Alberto J. Ferrer’s perspective posted under The Big Tent at AdAge.com (see Essay 4426)…

In an ideal world, immigrants would be able to seamlessly adapt and learn the host country’s language and traditions, and the host country’s citizens would be patient and learn something from them too--so they can all live and work together in peace. But we are far from UTOPIA.

At the earliest stages of the US, the new Utopian English colonies’ policies ended up obliterating many a cultural heritage of older “established” groups in this territory. There was a brief peaceful interlude, but then they saw a vast, rich territory for the taking. After the Dutch, French and even the Spanish, the continental English ended up the stronger, more technologically advanced FOREIGN culture that stuck. It’s telling how many English “native” speakers disavow this traumatic history of cultural conquest.

In present day, America is again the host country but now it is a firmly established world power. The bigger, technologically advanced nation. Thus, many of these fears of losing our heritage are unfounded since America’s heritage IS THE MIX OF MANY. To most historians this has always been a strength.

And American culture is alive and well, thank you. It is EXPORTED everywhere, quite effectively, and in the process edges out native long-standing traditions around the world. American culture absorbs from other cultures, like a sponge. Yet it also has amazing VIRAL qualities--unstoppable when it spreads. And we recognize what is AMERICAN, don’t we? So does the rest of the globe.

Indeed, when it is from here out to the world, we happily embrace, and in fact, DEMAND multiculturalism. Isn’t that what we want in Iraq, in Africa, in Bosnia? But when it is the other way around, some of our American citizens treat this communion and acceptance of other languages in a cultural or commercial context as if it was the plague. What paranoia is that, if we hear 2 Latinos talking Spanish in a Wal-Mart, or 2 Chinese ladies chatting in the Subway? Or God forbid, another language in our mailbox.

Do we really want to live in a bubble of our own making, surrounded by border walls of cultural superiority and self-delusion? Don’t we see the inconsistency here, and the dangers?

Look, the world is tiny and ultra connected today. There is no going back. We need to coexist, and the sooner we realize it the better we can plan for it so that our country can continue to flourish and be ready for dramatic changes ahead.

Once upon a time languages, cultural exchange, knowledge and pluralism were cherished values by no less of a figure than Benjamin Franklin. Many of our founders took many wondrous ideas of thought from the French and European thinkers of the time. Even then we could not afford to be an isolationist country.

If we stifle our ability to engage, change and mix in our unique American way… If we let these baser fears take hold of our governments, our companies and our neighborhoods… even of these discussions about marketing and selling products in a language that the actual target consumer might just feel better in--then we will self destruct and it will be by the terrorism of intolerance.

That is the real tyranny. —Conchita Funcia, Brooklyn, NY