Press 1 for English

I attended a meeting recently where the main discussion was about ensuring that a welcoming and inclusive atmosphere prevailed in an organization.  Regardless of the noble purpose of the meeting and of the organization itself, I spent the entire time distracted and seething by a T-shirt someone wore which stated something to the effect of "explain to me why I have to press 1 for English."  

Issues pertaining to immigration and the integration of cultures are not a new cultural phenomenon, and are certainly not unique to the United States of America.  However, perhaps due to the unique nature of our geography and history, we have a very narrow and short view of worldwide population shifts and migration patterns.  Mayflower pilgrims came seeking religious freedom; British subjects later came seeking land and successfully usurped it from the Native Americans; and today a myriad of peoples come legally and illegally seeking opportunity- to work, to worship, to live in safety, and to secure a future for their kids.  What brings us here is pretty much what has always taken people to foreign lands- hope and opportunity.  So I just don't get the patriotic vitriol against the immigrants- legal or illegal (the wetbacks, the Hindu engineers, Pakistani doctors and Chinese whiz kids)... particularly when just about every second and third generation American will proudly rattle off their ancestry as some algebraic computation of part Irish, part French, some German, Dutch, Greek, Polish or 1/16th of whatever.  Why is it that there is a certain cachet associated with having familial ties to the Old Country going back two or three generations, but it is shameful if it is your immediate family that just hopped into the melting pot?  People often forget that I am kinda sorta not one of them, so I am privy to conversations peppered with incredibly racist and immensely ignorant commentary, which I try to ignore under a well practiced poker face.  

Is there a huge cost to assimilation? Yes, for sure there is.  But that cost is borne by every developed nation in the world; as is the pain suffered by the souls who can somehow escape dire circumstances and begin anew in a foreign land where they are neither welcome nor wanted.  Except of course, if they happen to do the crappiest of crappy jobs; then our corporations and tax or immigration attorneys will look the other way for the sake of the almighty shareholder and a bottom line printed in solid black ink.  

What ever happened to E Pluribus Unum?  It's still on our currency, right?  And, what's happened to the noble sentiments immortalized by Emma Lazarus' poem The New Colossus on our Statue of Liberty monument?  I hope we are still mostly a nation who proclaims:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

                                                      Emma Lazarus, 1883

If we are no longer this nation, then perhaps we can become one who can recognize out of economic need that it simply makes good business sense to take into account that Hispanics are now the largest minority group with an annual buying power exceeding $1 trillion.  This figure alone makes this American minority, if accounted separately, into the 15th largest world economy...  So we must press 1 for English because those waiting to oprimir el numero 2 are in line to spend their dough on American goods and services.   

Ⓒ 2012 Patricia Vivó-Aucoin