"THE alleged involvement of two ethnic Chechen brothers in the deadly attack at the Boston Marathon last week should prompt Americans to reflect on whether we do an adequate job assimilating immigrants who arrive in the United States as children or teenagers."
I have read and heard a lot of foolish statements about the Boston bombing brothers, Tamarlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in the past two weeks, but this op-ed in the New York Times by Marcelo and Carola Suarez-Orozco is right up near the top. Marcelo is the Dean of the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies and Carola is a professor. Their thesis is that America needs to do a better job of assimilating our immigrants. See if you can get through this without gagging.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/23/opinion/immigrant-kids-adrift.html?_r=0
Yes, folks. Once again, it is our fault.
I am perfectly willing to acknowledge that young immigrants coming from strife-torn countries tend to be traumatized and this may affect how they do in their new country. Salvadorans and Cambodians are two examples I have observed myself living in the Washington DC and Southern California areas..
I also note that the quoted 1997 study did not include immigrants from Muslim countries. What kind of research is that, Dean and Professor Suarez-Orozco?
"They were not part of our study, but they fit the demographic profile of the subjects of our research: birth to families displaced by war or strife, multiple-stage (including back-and-forth) migration, language difficulties and entry into harsh urban environments where gangs and crime are temptations."
They have overlooked one other factor-Islam. Or have they?
"Among some of the distinctive features of their case are family estrangement, multiple relocations across countries and, possibly, religious radicalization."
Possibly.
And how are we supposed to effectively assimilate immigrants when all the liberal intelligentsia in academia are so busy celebrating multi-culturalism while denigrating Western culture and trashing America to their students?
"Taking in what Emma Lazarus called the “wretched refuse,” including asylum seekers like the Tsarnaev brothers, without providing a scaffold of support undermines the promise of America."
Hopefully, Dzhokhar Tsarbaev will be provided that "scaffold' soon.
I agree. Hopefully a scaffold will be prepared soon, but I doubt it.
ReplyDeleteI like that last line. Zing!
ReplyDeleteWell, we did do a good job of assimilating millions of Germans, and while there were mob actions against some of them during WW I, during WW II we didn't even find it necessary to put them in concentration camps. We didn't NEED to put Japanese Americans in concentration camps either. (Is it true that the officer in charge of Pearl Harbor said the main danger was sabotage, so get the plains out from under camoflague netting and park them in the open where we can keep an eye on them? Paranoia can be so costly...)
ReplyDeleteI'd prefer to make the kid an orderly in a hospital ward where trauma surgery is done, for thirty years or so.