According to the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey (CPS) published in March 2018, there are 45.6 million immigrants, legal and illegal, living in the United States. This means that nearly 14% of our population or one out of every seven people walking our sidewalks and driving our streets is an immigrant (foreign-born). For those of us who have been born here and inherited the benefits afforded by our country of liberty and freedom those data need not raise pride or shame in our minds. What it should bring to mind of all of us living in the confines of our 50 states is the economics of such an overwhelming influx of new residents.
In addition to the costs of such movements of humanity, cultural aspects are important also. For example, many to most Europeans are bi-lingual while many probably speak three or four languages. For the more than 240 years of our existence, most immigrants have adopted our English (slang) as their discourse for personal and business conversations. However, over the past couple decades Hispanic migration growth has been the equivalent of migrations of caribou in Alaska. Some public schools in California and perhaps other states teach Spanish and other languages. This requires the expense of additional teachers with additional language skills.
Here are some of the challenges of mass migrations: many of these migrants due to language, kinship and religion will create ghettos that regrettably often unwittingly limit interactions with residents of other political, ethnic, educational and religious backgrounds. In such situations, several generations of marriage, travel, education and job locations may be required for societal integration. Many of these changes have led to divisiveness in our great nation. Divisiveness however is embellished and amplified by the guile of the media.
Media is directed by the invisible hand of ‘The Nielsen Ratings’ for TV and radio while newspapers are guided by organizations that report biases and readership. Using the common sense logic of profit and loss, most media yield to the systemic bias related to big headlines about bad news and the small print on page 7 for good news items. One of the most venerable newspapers in the United States is ‘The New York Times’ that floats high in the tide of innuendo, intimation and insinuation, hoping that their claims progress into solid evidence while the news item is at its apogee of reader interest.
The solution to our nation’s resolution of divisiveness is extremely simple to explain but virtually impossible to achieve. Here is the magical and practical approach to reducing our divisiveness from elephantine size to entomological earwigs: Stop the use of all abbreviations and acronyms of human variations. Why do we need such acronyms as LGBTQ; all members of these groups that legally live in the United States are citizens, whether a person is Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual, Trans-Sexual or Queer should not determine where that person can live, work, study, drink beer, dine or assemble as long as it does not infringe upon what other citizens are doing or where they are going.
Discard the prefix of African or Hispanic in front of the word American. If a Black person is a citizen of the U.S. there is a good chance they have no direct connection to Africa except by heritage. Even recent naturalized citizens from any foreign country are citizens because the moment they pledged allegiance to our nation and its flag, they are American (U.S.) citizens plain and simple. Those zealots who insist on using acronyms and abbreviations that define someone are simply fomenting further distance between the amalgam of colors, sizes and profiles of our ‘melting pot’ of precious citizenship.
Regarding Atheists, Baptists, Buddhists Catholics, Jews, Methodists, or Presbyterians; what does it matter what your neighbor is as long as they are courteous and stay on their side of the property line and live within the basic laws and customs of the community, the state and the nation? Has anyone (ANYONE) ever heard of a Catholic killing a Baptist because of her/his religion? Or vice versa?
We can live in harmony with an obeisant citizenry and a compliant media that tells true news stories and lifts the spirits of a diverse tribe of human beings called United States Citizens/Americans.
Dick Baynton
