We must assimilate....

as seen in the GNP...

Some words from former president

Theodore Roosevelt had some great ideas on immigrants and being an American in 1907. I think that they are as apropos today as they were then.

"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 an exact equality with everyone else, for it is outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed or birthplace or origin. But this is predicated upon the person becoming, in every facet, 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, isn't an American at all.

We have room for but one language here and that is the English language … and we have room for but one sole loyalty to the American people."

DOUG AITKEN

La Crescenta


How hypocritical! Perhaps Aitken is also a fan of manifest destiny!

But since we are setting as to culture and language...

Its amazing how easily the average "American" forgets that the term "Indian" actual refers to the "Native Americans." There is a reason they are called "Native" Americans as opposed to... i dont know... "Native Indians."

Native:

adj 1: being such by origin; "the native North American sugar
         maple"; "many native artists studied abroad" [ant: foreign]
  2: belonging to one by birth; "my native land";  "one's native
     language" [ant: adopted]
  3: being or composed of people inhabiting a region from the
     beginning; "native Americans"; "the aboriginal peoples of
     Australia" [syn: aboriginal] [ant: nonnative]
  4: as found in nature in the elemental form; "native copper"
  5: normally existing at birth; "mankind's connatural sense of
     the good" [syn: connatural, inborn, inbred]
  n : a person who was born in a particular place; an indigenous
      person [syn: indigen, indigene]

My point? The truest definition of an American is those people whom Teddy Roosevelt and his like banished to live on miniscule plots of land... "Americans" were those people that we forced to become Protestant and Catholic (religions carried over from the "Old World")... we forced these people to change everything... from lifestyle to eating habits to language. And now we have the audacity to claim that English is the only language that should be spoken? Why don't we send all those who speak "English" back to "England" instead?

Nice to see that nothing has changed in the last 400 years!

Of course, those of you with extreme short term memory probably don't recall that most of Western American BELONGED to those "darn" Mexicans. But yes, I guess we won fair and square and now we must continue converting...

On a side note - Kermit Roosevelt - grandson of Teddy - was the key figure in the 1953 Coup in Iran. Here is my brief overview - America gets upset because our best friends - the Brits - are not getting their oil with the new DEMOCRATICALLY elected leader... so, we send in a few people to cause a giant mess and overthrow the leader to replace the Shah (king)... And, of course, we do this all under the cloak of "Promoting Democracy and Freedom" - um? Did I miss something?