Cultural shock is one of inevitable problems for each international student in US like the author. Not only it is a different country with different language and culture, but it is the most complicated culture all over the world. As we all know, USA is an immigration country. The founders of USA immigrated to this continent for many reasons from Western Europe and Africa. History has gone through almost 400 years from 1620 when people arrived in east coast of America by “May Flower”, there are a large group of people immigrated to USA from many ethnics and different races. Even in today when the population of USA is almost appropriate, USA still is one of most popular countries for immigration from all around the world on the circumstance that American immigration policy is extremely strict. Immigration will affect the native culture on both positive and negative effects. But the question is that which aspect is more. As far as the author concerns, the process of legal immigration give positive effects more than negative effects to American culture becauseitwill make the cultural mix by combing cultures from all around the world.
Before the argument, the author would like to discuss why the author restricts“immigrants” to “legal immigrants”. As we all know, illegal immigrants cannot own normal life as legal immigrants in many aspects including work opportunities, political interest and social welfare. So because of this, illegal immigrants cannot have a lot of important experience in USA such as presidential election. So, their social network will be much smaller than normal Americans because they are restricted by many aspects such as residence and work. And most of time they will stay in the network of their own ethnic. And because of this, they have less chance to communicate with people from other ethnics which means the opportunities for them to make cultural conflict will be less. Even in today, there are a lot of people do not speak English who stay a long time in USA. So that’s why the author mentioned legal immigrants because not only these people are mainstream of American society but they are the majority to create cultural mix.
First of all, legal immigrants lead cultural mix by leading American to combine cultures from all over the world. The author has a friend who has immigrated to USA when she was 12. The author was astonishing by her intellectual values during the conversation. She remains some of Chinese cultures such as prudent and she also owns other cultures such as adventure. She told the author that she leaned a lot from her Hispanic friends, white friends and Indian friends. Although they are similar because of the main stream American cultures, there are still somespecial brilliant cultures from different ethnics. Diversity is akey impression that USA give to other parts of the world. Her sentence reminds me article of Amy Tan named “FISH CHEEKS”. “You want be same like American girls on the outside, ……,but inside, you must always be Chinese. You must be proud you different.”(Seeing and Writing, 218). According to what the author’s friend said and article of Amy Tan, the author realized that the process of be different and be the same is process of cultural mix. It is easily to see that students who are different races having fun on the campus of University of Oregon, they discuss customs of each family, political and social events from different perspectives based on their values created by their family and experiences. During these process, each student has made change on many aspects even they don’t realize it. This is the process of cultural mixed. As one of most multi-nation countries, USA gathered people from all over the world. And because of this, these immigrants from different nations inject fresh blood to USA. Rigorous from German, study ability from Japanese, and adventure from Spanish, these immigrants provide their good elements to USA to create most powerful national spirit all over the world.
What’s more, the negative effect of immigration is less than the positive effect becauseAmerican people not only will respect difference about religion, culture and life-style compare to other countries but American people can analyze solutions to these negative effects by various perspectives. As the author saw the 24 images from Jesse Gordon named “What Is America” on the book Seeing& Writing on page 220~221 which shows how people think about USA by demonstrating it with one word or phrase. Words and phrases with different have highest frequency including freedom, choice, diversity, open-minded, ignorance, plastics and everything. All these words have different exact meaning, but they have a similarity that is “difference”. USA is a country which respect different, so people have freedom of choice, different opinions, ignorance, plastics, and diversity. As the national spirit of respecting difference, minority have less possibility to be discriminated by their difference with mains mainstream compare to other countries. On American, these are less prejudice on difference of religious, cultures, and life-style with main stream. Because of these different perspectives, American is a nation which tolerant counter argument more than other nations. What’s more, American people can solve these problems by a wilder perspectives compare to other nations. Sometimes it will be a dilemma when people face a strange challenge that it is impossible to solve the problem by main stream perspective. At this time, people will usually choose the perspective they do not usually use. However, it is hard to change the perspective in a very short time because of the emergence of problems. So the advantage of American cultural mix is more effective. Just think about how much contribution the Jewish immigrants to American economy, technology and military. As the elites of American, Jewish add their spirit of “awareness of unexpected development” to American people so USA always have specific pretend hostile power. Over half century ago, intelligent American leaders president Roosevelt and Truman made the strategies of creating territory dispute between China, Korea, Japan and Russia in order to prevent the unity of Far East country. As the perspectives of American presidents in that time, they had very strong worry about potential danger and made the solutions. So, this is the reason that the process of immigration provide positives more than negatives effect because the cultural mixed lead American to solve the solutions for various perspectives.
Nevertheless, some people argue thatimmigrants who grow up in USA cannot remain their own culture a lot so they will not contribute a lot to American cultural mix. For example, the poem of Pat Moramentioned that “Will they like our boy, our girl, our fine American boy, our fine American girl?”(Seeing &Writing, 225) So we can find out it is true that immigrants who grow up in American won’t remain lots of their own culture. However, we should notice that they will get the cultural inherit. But just like what Amy Tan writes on her article, her mom said “But inside, you must always be Chinese.” Even though Amy did not agree with her mom, but she finally understood many years later. As the Amy suggests, whatever the how young immigrants move to USA, they still remain the most valuable part of their cultures. So because of this, while it is true that immigrantespecially very young immigrant cannot remain their own culture a lot, it does not necessarily means they cannot remain their most valuable original cultures to promote the cultural mix of American culturebecause their parents will let immigrants keep them because of the cultural tradition.
In conclusion, the process of immigration give more positive effect than negative effects becausenot only it will cultural mixed which is good for American to close to perfect culture but could lead American solve problems in different cultural perspectives. Just think about how immigrants studying, working and living with people from different cultural background and how Jewish provide the value of “awareness of unexpected development” Some people provide counter argument that immigrates especially very young immigrates cannot remain lots of their original cultures. It is true that they will lost some of their native cultures on the land of USA, but it does necessarily means that those immigrant will not remain their most valuable cultures because it will be taught by their parents and relatives. The national spirit is one of the significant soft powers for a country, culture is the key factor. So because of the cultural mix lead American culture to perfect culture closer and closer, USA will keep it status of Superpower. Just like Jewish people add their value about worries to unexpected challenges, American are always trying to find their opponents like Japan, China, and India. But the author think US will keep their No.1 position as well as they keep the cultural mix. One nation cannot beat the whole world.
“FISH CHEEKS.”Seeing and Writing 4. Ed. DonaldMcquadeand Christine . 4th ed. Boston: Bedford/St.Martin’s, 2010. 218-219.
“IMMIFRANTS.”Seeing and Writing 4. Ed. DonaldMcquadeand Christine . 4th ed. Boston: Bedford/St.Martin’s, 2010. 225.
“What Is America? 2000.” Seeing and Writing 4. Ed. DonaldMcquadeand Christine . 4th ed. Boston: Bedford/St.Martin’s, 2010. 220-221.
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