What Does It Mean To Be American?

The most important thing in having people integrate into a society is not the immigrant’s attitude, but instead the attitudes of the receiving country and the people of that country; are there means for integration in the country? Unfortunately in the U.S. there are not because of this widespread belief that anyone that enters the U.S. Illegally is a threat; the main threat being Latinos, especially Mexicans . They are looked at as terrorists that are here to take Americas land, jobs, and basically anything they can grab. This ideology of the Latino threat is very real and many of the beliefs from it continue to this day. These beliefs include that Latinos do not know how to assimilate, that they don’t learn English, that they are immutable, and that they reproduce at a very high rate. These ideologies have made it impossible for a complete immigration reform to be achieved, and because Latinos are such a huge threat then treating them as subhuman becomes ok.

     There are many fears that make up the Latino threat; an example of this fear is a study that the Southern Poverty Law center conducted in which the studies showed an increasing rise of Militia groups in the U.S after the election of President Obama. There were two reasons for the rises of these militia groups: One, because of the election of a black president, and two, because talks about immigration reform were rampant and the belief of these militia groups was that there was an ongoing huge, secret, Mexican conspiracy plan to reclaim the southwest of the US. Another fear is that Latinos do not assimilate. They don’t take in the culture and also they are immutable, never changing.  Above all though, the biggest fear involved in the Latino Threat is one of Latino women not being able to control the ability to have babies. The reason for this fear is this belief that babies of the illegal documents (anchor babies) will eventually cause a demographic shift, which will eliminate white people, due to the 14^th amendment of the United States, which allows anyone born in the U.S. full citizenship rights. Many politicians have advocated for change in the 14^th amendment because of this fear with the central idea being that illegal undocumented people are dropping babies in the U.S. for their own perverse plot, which will grant them benefits, and legal status twenty-one years down the line.  

     None of these ideas are true, as there have been many studies that prove that immigrants can create their own hybrid culture, for example having carne asada for the Fourth of July instead of burgers. Also, studies have shown that people that have migrated here who are 1^st generation, 2^nd generation, and 3^rd generation Americans prefer to speak English, and finally another study shows that Anglo women have a higher fertility rates than Mexican women.

     The 1.5-generation is the generation of kids who have migrated from the US at a very young age. This generation of illegal immigrants is allowed to go to school by law, but they are not allowed to work or do much else. Many of them are torn because they have lived here for most of their lives and have adapted to the American culture and American life, but yet Americans don’t want them here.

     The Latino threat is a fallacy, but yet this perception of terror that these illegal immigrants bring with them once they migrate into the U.S. is very real, and important because it creates this dogma of fear which is then instilled onto the whole nation by mainstream media outlets, thus making it impossible to have a comprehensive immigration reform that will treat everyone fairly and end the dehumanization of illegal immigrants.