Immigration and Assimilation
By: Les Carpenter III Rational Nation USA Michelle Malkin posted an article Friday 7/02/10 on immigration. The main theme was that our founding fathers were very much in favor of legal immigration. Being a nation of immigrants from the beginning it is only natural they would take such a position. That being a given Malkin points out the founders also realized that immigrants must accept our unique American culture and in thereby assimilate into it. To illustrate this point the following excerpt from her article: George Washington, in a letter to John Adams, stated that immigrants should be absorbed into American life so that “by an intermixture with our people, they, or their descendants, get assimilated to our customs, measures, laws: in a word soon become one people.” In a 1790 speech to Congress on the naturalization of immigrants, James Madison stated that America should welcome the immigrant who could assimilate, but exclude the i...