Amara Zulfa Claudia Izzak

English Literature/2211419031
American Studies

American Identity: A Personal Commentary

First of all I believe that the alternate notion “American mosaic” should be more
commonly used as opposed to “melting pot” because the idea that immigrants need to
be stripped of their cultural identity and claim themselves as “fully American” to fit in
and be accepted in the American society is very hypocritical considering Caucasians
literally colonized and stole the land from Native American tribes thus the “American
culture” talked about in the article isn’t even American culture, it’s European culture
growing over stolen land. Also I was a little bit (a lot, actually) concerned with the
number of white Americans basically saying that immigrants pose as a “threat” to
their country when it’s not even their country to begin with. The way white
Americans refuse to accommodate the language barrier by rejecting school courses
provided in other languages also doesn’t sit right with me. I personally believe that
everyone deserves to have equal opportunity in life and being immigrants in America
means that they don’t start at the same point as American-born and as they have
legally entered the country they should be provided with sufficient accommodations
as a citizen (although I, at the same time, also believes that illegal immigrants also
need to be treated better than how they are currently being treated in America). My
point is, white Americans need to stop treating other cultures as something that needs
to be suppressed just because they want everyone to do the “American way”, that’s
just shallow.