For many in the Latino community, a process that began decades ago, is strengthened by the Executive Actions President Barack Obama announced in order to bring some temporary relief to several million undocumented parents who will be free of deportation fear and will get working permits. It’s not the whole enchilada, it’s not a complete solution, and it’s not even the much-needed new law that fixes the broken immigration system. But still, it’s an important step in the right direction.
When President Obama talks about not closing the door on people who work and study, who have lived in the US for years and contribute to the growth of the country, it is referring, among other things, to the continuation of a social-economic process that began since the birth of this nation, which is the integration of its immigrants.
For years, the progressive sectors of the society have stressed the need to recognize that the presence of immigrants is valuable, because they arrive in the destination countries with the firm conviction to give the best of themselves in all areas and betting in joining the culture and customs of the place they adopted as their new home.
Ensuring that those already in the country have the opportunity to improve their immigration status does not mean amnesty, but a formidable effort to help the people who have already contributed so much to the prosperity of this country. Helping immigrants or residents become Americans implies much more than issuing new bureaucratic seals. It is about the mutual compromise toward a better integration.
In the last decade the word integration has become the center of several debates.
Often found in the social and political speeches, and yet its meaning varies according to those who use it. Integration can be read from two different perspectives, one that applies to the process that mutually enrich the people of the host country and foreigners who come to settle in it; is a social movement that benefit both cultures, the natives and the immigrants.
On the other hand there are those who claim integration is just a way of denying the assimilation, the fact that foreigners lose their values and customs to try to belong and be accepted by the ones who own the original model. Some scholars argue that foreigners who come to live in another country have no choice but to assimilate into the dominant culture, which destroys any possibility to contribute and enrich it, and this process does not involve harmony and mutual improvement.
This thesis questions the possibility of forming a plural society in which there are people who have similar behaviors and rules to function in society, preserving its essence. Argues that by attempting to mimic the native society and take their customs to be accepted, the majority of immigrants try to leave behind and abandon as far as possible the values and customs and their original identity.
Of course, we believe that in this era of global economy and global communications, one of the most valuables treasures of modern integration may come from taking advantage of the amazing diversity that the newcomers bring with them when they arrive here in pursuit of their own American Dream.
Therefore, beyond the nasty noise that may come from the extremists (mostly the G.O.P. haters), the real challenge for us is to find the best way to use this Latino momentum as the historic opportunity to promote and earn better integrations paths for all immigrants. Because after all, we are also Americans, tambien somos Americanos.
