I was at a party this weekend when a stranger came up to me and opened with the classic question, “Where is your family from?” Unfortunately, I have this same conversation with people all the time. I told him I was from Chicago, and he proceeded to ask me the question that sparked my interest in writing about this topic to begin with. He just went for it and asked, “So how long ago did you move to America?”
Of course, I wish this didn’t offend me — because he didn’t ask the question with the intention of being offensive — but it did. I think that anyone would be offended by a question like that, especially when you were born and raised in America. It was a slap in the face, because this guy pretty much showed that even though I grew up speaking English, have a bit of a valley girl twang and dress in “western” clothes, I still don’t fit in this guy’s vision of an “American.”
Of course, he is not representative of everyone, and most people understand that America is built on diversity. At the same time, I also know that people stereotypically think that Americans are white. This sentiment is interesting because, according to the Los Angeles Times, by 2044, white people are not going to be the racial majority. We are less than 27 years away from having this be a reality, yet people still assume that you couldn’t have been born in this country if you are non-white.
I understand why people would be reluctant in believing in this reality. Change is scary to anyone. According to William Frey from the Los Angeles Times, some white Americans are probably afraid of “change, of losing privileged status or of unwanted people coming into their communities.” However, the change has already been occurring in different age groups, including among people under 30 years of age.
The fear that people are experiencing of a very prevalent change in the racial makeup of our country has caused some drastic measures to keep the country within its white majority. For example, some communities have enacted “laws tough on immigrants in the country illegally” even when few immigrants live in these areas “legally or illegally,” according to Mathew Burrows and Alidad Mafinezam from The Huffington Post.
The way NC State is combatting the issues brought upon the university with the anti-immigration ban was discussed at the recent Student Senate meeting March 15. Resolution 84 is a Student Government bill stating that it stands in solidarity with the “students who are from countries which fall under the suspended travel executive order issued on Jan. 27, as well as students affected by the executive order.”
The timing for the resolution is no doubt delayed, considering action on such a tremendous executive order should have been taken closer to the event itself; however, perhaps it’s better late than never. News about the anti-immigration ban is still relevant considering the recent rejection from a Hawaiian federal judge of “the Justice Department’s request to narrow the injunction,” according to Democracy Now!, an independent global news source. This shows the fight against the anti-immigration ban isn’t over.
A student senator, Zach Lentz, said he wanted to “show support for the international communities that were pointed out by President Trump’s executive order,” because “it would be bad for [them] to say that [they] do not support these students.” At the same senate meeting, however, Jack Pashby, a senator from the College of Engineering, argued that the bill “will become worthless” because of the new executive order 13780, which says that people with a visa can come back into the country.
What Pashby doesn’t understand is that executive order 13780 has fueled ignorance among the American people about the fact that America simply works better when we’re diverse.
According to Scientific America, diversity is directly related to innovation and creativity. In a 2003 study by the University of Texas at Dallas, Orlando Richard, a professor, and his colleagues found a clearly positive correlation between higher racial diversity and “enhanced financial performance.” They did an experiment where they tracked the financial performance of 177 banks in the U.S., specifically those that had a focus on innovation.
There shouldn’t be any specific ideas of what an American looks like because America is made up of so many different people, of different races, ethnicities, sexual orientations, religions and so on. When there is one singular idea of what an American ought to look like, it marginalizes all other Americans who were either born here or are legally citizens and call this country home.
