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When people say someone is or isn't assimilated, what are these qualities that are inherently American that you want to see? And please don't say, "if you don't know, you aren't it." I have my own ideas, but I'm curious about what YOU think. And give some background around which part of the US you live in, and any other info that you think contributed to your ideas.
When people say someone is or isn't assimilated, what are these qualities that are inherently American that you want to see? And please don't say, "if you don't know, you aren't it." I have my own ideas, but I'm curious about what YOU think. And give some background around which part of the US you live in, and any other info that you think contributed to your ideas.
Doesn't matter if a person (or their ancestors) came from Asia, Europe, Africa -- wherever. They can still love their ancestral culture (in fact, I think that's pretty cool), but they also need to love America. That's it for me. People who come here, live here, make their living here but hate America -- that is not cool with me.
personal freedom
equality
personal responsibility
hard work
for examples.
I was born and raised in Texas, worked in Houston in my early career and transferred to Manhattan for next 25 years. Until I retired back to Texas to a city of about 1 million, I had never lived in a city of less than 2 million people.
It must be hard to assimilate into a culture that has so many borrowed features. Learning English is hard enough but then there are layers of cultural contributions from different countries or ethnic groups. Everything from food to music to sports to art or clothing has cultural roots that might be from somewhere else. Regions have different cultural aspects. Day of the dead is a bigger thing where I live than Halloween and tamales are a thanksgiving tradition. In the south there would be regional differences in culture from the northeast.
I met a Mexican restaurant owner last night who was ethnically an East Indian and Muslim but born in Kenya and came to the USA as a teenager -- golf is his favorite sport and he is as American as anyone else. English is his first language but it is a different sort of English than what you might hear in your neighborhood. Culture is a funny thing and it changes all the time.
Western clothing, speaks English, Christian/Jewish or agnostic, not demanding/requesting religious dietary customs or prayer customs be met (the former largely takes care of that), patriotic, likes America, it's native people and isn't anti-white..doesn't bring their customs, traditions and likes and foreign disfunctions with them in general.
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