cyphur wrote:jimlongley wrote:North America has always been a melting pot, but until relatively recently people came her to be assimilated, not to be different. Vast oversimplification to be sure.
At no point in time can I recall in the history of the US do I recall immigrants shedding all cultural identity just to come here, except perhaps out of fear of persecution as they experienced in the old country.
And my recall is a little different from yours, but I have not been here for the whole of the history of the US. Note that I pointed out that it was a vast oversimplification. My grandmother's brother is a good example, he wanted to shed not only his national heritage, but obtain citizenship as soon as he possibly could. To that end he used his own slight seafaring experience to advantage and joined the US Navy almost as soon as he set foot on US soil. He eventually was made an officer and was quite successful, but you would never have known that he came from another country for talking to him. He wrote to my grandmother, then a young teenager, about the wonders of the US and encouraged her to do the same as he and shed home and family and go adventuring here, and she did, and like him, you could hardly tell that the drawl was actually an accent.
cyphur wrote:At a time where so many have such limited historical memories, and have forgotten their roots, I think it is refreshing to see people so proud of their heritage and want to share it with others and educate them about it. You always will have the bad apples and the folks who give their culture a bad name, but every group has those.
And I don't mind, and even enjoy people celebrating their roots and remembering their histories, but that does not include impressing them on the rest of us. Once again a vast oversimplification, but if your objective in coming to the US was change, why stay the same, unless your objective was actually to change the US, which I suspect is happening in some cases.