An Iraqi man living in Arizona runs over his daughter in a parking lot because she has become too “Westernized.” There are places in this world where “honor killings” are still acceptable. Fortunately, the daughter survived. The man allegedly believes the action in justified because the daughter was “going against” the customs and traditions of his household. In Dallas, police ticketed 39 people in 3 years for not answering officers’ questions in English. Police Chief David Kunkle has said that there is no such charge, and that reimbursements and fixes will be made. To New Mexico…a hotel owner decides that his Hispanic employees could not speak Spanish in front of him. Interesting…but the situation got stickier when he demanded that Hispanic employees modify (Anglicize) their names while working at the hotel. Marcos would need to be Mark.
I remember studying about The Great American Melting Pot. My great-grandfather’s name was Otto Svenson. My grandfather’s name is Larry Swanson after the last name was “Anglicized” upon arrival to the United States. The battles between personal freedoms versus societal rules continue. The Michigan Supreme Court has ruled that judges can require Muslim women to remove their veils in court, and the Florida Court of Appeals upheld the ruling that women must remove their veils for their driver's license photos.
I could be wrong, but it seems to me that “back in the day” assimilation was not aggressively questioned. In some cases it was strongly endorsed. This is 2009.
Where should the balance be with regard to cultural tolerance?
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Once upon a time it was an honor to to be an American, but now it seems that people want to be here for the benefits, but don't seem to want to BE American in any way. I love cultural diversity, but when Honor Killings and punishments for being too "Westernized" are happening, something is clearly wrong.
ReplyDeleteI also believe that if we or anyone for that matter choses to live within another culture, it's our responsibility to asimilate. This includes learning the language and customs. If I didn't want to do this, I wouldn't chose to live there.
We should respect our heritage, but not to the extent that we refuse to asimiate to the country that we have chosen to live. To me that doesn't makes sense. Why would I chose to live somewhere and not like it enough to learn to live as they do? I know that there are countries that there are no way I would chose to live the way they do and because of that I wouldn't consider living there. It only makes sense. Why live somewhere that clashes with your beliefs and lifestyle?
I don't believe that names need to be changed and I don't honestly think anyone can control the language that their employees speak around them and that seems more of an internal issue than anything else.
I spent my childhood around friends from all different ethnic backgrounds and loved how their lives reflected it, but they all still made the effort and were thrilled to blend in and live as Americans.
Respecting ones heritage is important, but if there are concerns and a desire not to asimilate, then why would anyone want to live here? If they are happy with their lifestyles, why chose to live somewhere different?