Gergory Freeman: Americans Must Get Over Our Fear Of 'Them'. P-D 10/13/1996

Headline: AMERICANS MUST GET OVER OUR FEAR OF `THEM'
Reporter: By Gregory Freeman

Publication: ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Last Printed: Sun. Oct. 13, 1996
Section: NEWS, Page: 5B, Edition: FIVE STAR LIFT

SOME AMERICANS are afraid.
They're afraid that "they" are taking over. "They" are people who don't look like them, who come from other cultures, sometimes from other countries.

It can be felt in much of the anti-immigration legislation that has gone through Congress. Congress was prepared to push out a bill that would have allowed states to deny public education to children of illegal aliens. That bill also would have made even legal immigrants liable for deportation if they used government relief programs for one year out of their first seven in the country. President Bill Clinton balked, and those sections were dropped.
Here in Missouri, some legislators tried this year to have English adopted as the state's official language. The attempt failed.
But the legislation was symptomatic of the fear that some have of people who are of different cultures.

Though there are exceptions, many urbanologists theorize that when a previously all-white neighborhood becomes more than about 30 percent bl ack, white flight begins. It's not necessarily the case that the blacks who move in are bad people or poor neighbors; it's a fear of the unknown, a concern that people of a different color have come in.
That is but one example of the fear that many have of America's increasing diversity.

Yet the diversity continues.
   A presidential panel in the late 1980s stated that a majority of those entering the workforce in 2000 will be women or minorities.
   Indeed, Hispanics, African-Americans, American Indians and Asian-Americans collectively make up more than a quarter of the nation's population, and those numbers are certain to increase.
   The increasing racial, religious and cultural diversity of this nation is a fact, one that could not be changed, even if the most stringent immigration laws were put into place tomorrow.
   Demographer Martha Farnsworth Riche writes: "If current trends continue, the United States will become a nation with no racial or ethnic majority during the 21st century . . . Without fully realizing it, we have left the time when the nonwhite, non-Western part of our population could be expected to assimilate to the dominate majority. In the future, the white Western majority will have to do some assimilating of its own."

Although immigration into the St. Louis area has been slower than on the coasts or in larger cities like Chicago, it's been happening here as well. Census and demographic experts estimate that there are now 14,000 Mexican immigrants in the St. Louis area; 7,500 Chinese immigrants; 5,000 German immigrants; 5,000 Koreans and 4,705 Vietnamese. As many as 80,000 people in the area are believed to be immigrants.
We may not notice them as readily as we might in other cities because St. Louis has no barrio, no Chinatown.

Some look upon the changing demographics of this country, even of this area, as a threat. It makes more sense to look upon them as an opportunity.

As a high school student, I had a wonderful opportunity to participate in a program called the Experiment in International Living. The program sent me to a small town in Mexico for a summer to live with a family. I learned and experienced a culture completely different from my own, yet filled with its own wonderful traditions and customs.
I learned that even though we came from two entirely different places, the people there wanted the same things we did: good housing, decent schools, jobs that paid a living wage. The parents there cared as much about their youngsters as parents here; the youngsters loved their parents as much as we do here.
I approached that culture with an open mind and was enriched by it, and I learned that there are some basics that make up all human beings.

As our nation changes, we are faced with two choices: embrace the diversity that is coming toward us and learn how it can be used as an asset; or put our heads in the sand in hopes that the diversity will somehow vanish. The smart person would invest in the former concept.
Our challenge is to prepare ourselves for the changes that are coming and to do all that we can to make sure that our nation's transition is as smooth as possible.

Daniel Schesch - Webweaver

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