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Legal Immigration - Assimilation

Traditionally, immigrants to the United States sought freedom from oppression, intolerance, tyranny, lack of religious freedom, and poverty. They came to the "Land of Opportunity" to build a new life for themselves and their families. Although they brought with them their cuisines, their trades, their religion; they held few loyalties to the countries from which they fled. They were eager to adopt our language, our culture, our freedoms, and our way of government. They brought with them grit and determination and honor, and they flourished in their new country.

America was truly a melting pot.

Immigrants came in numbers which were not so great as to overwhelm our resources, our social systems, our infrastructure, and our economy. They did not travel back to their country of origin frequently and did not maintain close ties - partly because they had fled from oppression there and partly because ocean travel was long and slow and costly.

In 1907 Theodore Roosevelt made the following statement. It is a good look at the attitude toward immigration at the time:

• "In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in every fact an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people." - Theodore Roosevelt 1907

Today many in our society embrace multi-culturalism blindly - without understanding its divisive nature. Today many people have lost the sense of belonging which comes from a shared language, common culture, shared pride of participation in our society and government. We must return to our immigration roots if we are to preserve the integrity of our nation.

• Washington Post: Immigrants Shunning Idea of Assimilation
• Washington Post: One Nation Indivisible: Is it History?