Have I assimilated enough?

Do I belong in America?

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, the third in leadership in the House of Representatives, said this today:

If you watched him, heard him, you will then get the full emotional import of what he said.

That Minnesotan leader—keep that in mind the next time you hear “Minnesota nice”—also said that the founders created a Christian-based nation.

I am not a Somali. As far as I know, none of the subscribers here is Somali. But, you too ought to get angry at the GOP leader. Even out of self interest; you know, first they came for the Somali and I kept quiet, then they came for …

That Minnesotan is not the first one to channel that message. “Assimilate or go home” is pretty much a mantra that many influential GOP elected officials say, against which we do not hear push back from most “decent” GOP elected officials.

What does it mean to assimilate anyway?

After four decades here in America, am I considered to have assimilated? Even though I am not a Christian? Even though I still speak English with an accent? What does it mean to be an American?

Decades ago, Ronald Reagan famously said this:

Sure, but did Reagan clarify what it meant to be an American? Or, even if Reagan left it fuzzy, does that Reagan quote qualify me as an American?

Is it Islam that makes an immigrant not assimilated enough to be an American as far as the GOP is concerned? Because this blogger is not a Muslim, this blogger is considered assimilated enough? Are Zohran Mamdani and Ilhan Omar considered to be assimilated enough to be Americans, or in the eyes of the GOP faithful they are always Muslims first and Americans last?

Omar, who was born in Somalia, responded Thursday afternoon.

“I assimilated all the way to Congress and this idiot still tells me to go back where I came from,” Omar said.

I know you readers are well informed about American history and, therefore, know how various groups were considered at different time periods as not assimilated enough and, worse, that they don’t want to assimilate. But, the GOP has made it clear that recalling such history is woke, and the authoritarian would throw out the “treason” word for recalling history that is not approved by him. So, should we merely shrug our shoulders and say that it is American to yell against ethnic groups? Maybe one is not assimilated enough if they don’t participate in this yelling?

What does it mean to assimilate anyway?

Answering that has become quite a challenge since 2016 when the GOP standard bearer made it possible for the party faithful like Emmer to say what he said today.

If immigrants have gone through the process of becoming naturalized citizens, do they automatically gain a certification of assimilation? What does it mean to be assimilated?

There are those who continue to fly the flag of the confederacy that was defeated in the Civil War; well, are they assimilated enough to qualify as Americans? Are those who fly the confederate flag eligible to judge whether or not others have assimilated?

In 2017, the NYT published an essay that says it all right in the title:

A year ago, in this post, I wrote about Lalami:

Lalami was born in Morocco and, like many of us, came to the US for graduate schooling. It turns out that she and I earned our PhDs from the same university—USC, in Los Angeles!

I wrote—and the following are my words from a year ago:

We immigrants can immediately identify with being outsiders who don’t quite fit anywhere. Not because we want to be outsiders, and not because we don’t know how to assimilate and fit, but because it pretty much goes with the territory of being an immigrant. How much ever Americana that I am fluent with, perhaps even more than the typical American is, I know I will be considered an outsider here in the US. A foreigner who became an American but is still considered a foreigner.

What did Lalami say about assimilation in her 2017 essay?

Because there is no objective measure of assimilation, many people end up throwing up their hands and saying, ‘‘I know it when I see it.’’ The question is: Who is doing the judging here?

“Who is doing the judging here?”

I will leave you with this excerpt from Jill Lepore’s book; I would think that the likes of Tom Emmer will be so shocked at Frederick Douglass that they will want to denaturalize him retroactively!