America As One Immigrant Sees It (The American Street)
Hey everyone. Do me a favor and go read this by Suman Palit, then be sure to leave him a comment and say, "Welcome home!"
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Dean's World Defending the liberal tradition in history, science, and philosophy. |
Dean,
Thank you for linking to this. It was truly inspiring.
I love immigrants and can testify first hand to their patriotism. I spent a little time as a volunteer teaching ESL (English as a Second Language). I had more than 30 students from all over the world - Asia, Eastern Europe, South America, and the Middle East. Every damn one of them LOVED their new country.
I am haunted by a question one of them (a young woman from Jordan) asked me in her beautiful broken english. "Why do so many people here say such bad things about America?" The entire class perked up as if to say, "Yeah, why is that?"
This was well before 9/11. I am haunted by it because I don't think I did a very good job of answering her question. Then again, how does one explain such a thing to someone who can barely speak english?