America’s united principles

Latin American immigrants often take the jobs at the bottom of the social ladder. A large portion of their wages usually goes to their families back home. Foto: Bjørn Laastad

UNITED BY PRINCIPLES: Lene M Johannessen believes that the USA’s unifying principles are easy to agree on and that they can therefore unite a multicultural state in a unique way. Foto: Thor Brødreskift

Text: Kim E.Andreassen

The USA has evolved from being a ‘melting pot’ into a multicultural society in which different groups are united behind the fundamental principles of liberty, equality and the right to pursue one’s dream. As a result, the USA is not a nation that can be understood in light of the geographical origins of one ethnic group, as we know from Europe.

‘Because the unifying principles are flexible enough to take changing realities into account, it would perhaps be more correct to refer to the USA as what Deborah Madsen, among others, calls a “state of nation” rather than a traditional nation state,’ says Associate Professor Lene M Johannessen of the Department of Foreign Languages at the University of Bergen.

Can learn from the USA

Lene M Johannessen believes that we in Norway could learn a lot about immigration from the USA, where the pace of integration is much faster. One example she mentions in this connection is an article published in the Norwegian daily newspaper Aftenposten about differences in integration between Somalis in Norway and the USA.

 ‘A Somali who comes to Norway is isolated from society by first having to take a language course and then learn Norwegian customs. After that, he or she must enter Norwegian society and become one of us. In the USA, a Somali is integrated by entering the labour market straight away. The person learns about society from the inside by participating in it from day one. This method of integration takes far less time and seems to be more successful. At the same time, the American model does enable economic exploitation to take place in a questionable way, but that can also occur in the Norwegian system,’ says Ms Johannessen.

Invisible apartheid

Although the USA has been idealised as 'the melting pot’, where different cultural backgrounds melt together to form a new, homogeneous society, racial segregation and other racial issues have always existed. One well-known example is the Jim Crow laws that were in force between 1876 and 1965. These laws prohibited contact between whites and blacks in public arenas such as schools, restaurants and public transport.

Today, Latin Americans are the largest immigrant group in the USA. Many of them are illegal immigrants who enter the country from the south and take menial jobs that no-one else wants. This has resulted in new exploitation, economic repression and racial and ethnic hate.

‘In the wake of the financial crisis, new immigration legislation has empowered local authorities to take the law into their own hands and check that immigrants have their papers in order. This is leading to many families being split up. We see cases where children who were born in the USA and are therefore US citizens have lost their parents due to deportation.

Latin American immigrants feel they have no legal rights and compare their plight with that of black Americans in the USA. The situation is now such that people – particularly those in the southern states – talk about ‘Juan Crow’, harking back to the Jim Crow era.

Political controversy

Many Americans believe Latin Americans pose the greatest threat to American identity. The issue of Latin American immigration is so sensitive that neither John McCain nor Barack Obama dared bring it up during the presidential election campaign.

‘If a multicultural society is to work, you have to discuss the problems that immigration brings. You cannot just pretend that what Samuel Huntington refers to as “the Hispanic problem” doesn’t exist. But where he, with characteristic naivety, talks about the threat they represent to the American dream, we should instead be talking about economic and social challenges in society as a whole.’

The land of opportunity

Although the country faces many challenges with respect to its immigration policy, the USA has shown itself to be a country of opportunity where things can change rapidly.

Right up until 1967, blacks and whites were prohibited from marrying each other. Now, 41 years on, the USA has elected its first black president. In no other country in the world could such changes have come about so fast. This means that other problems the multicultural USA is facing can in principle be resolved.

The article is published in Hubro 4/2008