Immigration: A Sudden Change Essay, Research Paper
Due to the immense amount of immigration, the United States has become the land of diversity. People from all over the world leave their homeland to journey to the United States. The United States is like a person where people are pieced together by their experiences. Every single person who has lived in America has added his or her patch to the red, white, and blue quilt. Each patch is a story. Without one patch the entire quilt would be different. The immigrants had drastic affects on the United States and the United States in return, had extreme influences on the immigrants. For my family, being robbed at a gunpoint was the incentive for my parents to progress to a securer atmosphere. Through the past six years my experiences that dealt with the differences in: culture, importance of religion and value of a family has molded me in to the being that I am today.
To begin, our country was built from the immigration of people from an international array of backgrounds. However, multitudes of white supremacists blame their persona as well as economic misfortunes on an abundance of ethnic groups. African-Americans, Muslims and Jews are only some of the groups tormented by these white supremacists. It was very awkward for me to be in a new country and I felt alone and vulnerable, but having to deal with a culture where people are discriminated against was an even more overwhelming experience for me. But due to the high numbers of immigrants, America has been transformed in to a melting pot where our society has become a lot more tolerant to different attitudes and ideas. It is this type of acceptance that baffled me the most when I first set foot here on a cold, cloudy morning. Back home in Pakistan, my acceptance of others differed tremendously from my beliefs today. I have learned that to be accepted in a culture, you must be able to accept the culture first. By excepting this boundless culture and conforming my self to it, I have seen much more tolerance in the people around me. Now I feel a part of the society and with that comes the sense of security that I lacked in my homeland. Although I am a member of the Pakistani culture, my identity grew out of my desires for freedoms unique to American culture. Therefore, I believe my identity is not a result of either Pakistani or American cultures but out of a personal desire for setting my own limits.
In America people are not shy about questioning Gods existence. It bothers me to see how Americans have come to accept science as their religion and scientists as their god. Contrary to American view, I strongly believe that by having the different tools of religion, a family has a much better chance of staying together, and staying strong. By this I mean that most religious faiths give people the chance to find answers to problems they are having in their lives. Lack of religious faith can also have a great impact on our entire society. In Pakistan, the government revolves around religion and all the laws that pass have to keep the religious concept in consideration. This way of government is widely accepted by the people who are not willing to sacrifice their religious values at any cost. On the other hand, Americans are able to enjoy all this freedom that their society offers since they do not feel obligated to follow their religion so closely, but ignoring religion is not always the best thing. Religion teaches us that reliance in faith and in others with the same faith is a must. If people relied solely on their selves, then faith in religion will be totally lost. With faith lost, the world seems very inured.
Today?s youth in our society feel a need to be rebellious because of individualism and peer pressure from role models. Youth in the 90?s want to be like their favorite actors or athletes rather than their parents or teachers. Young people feel as if they do not need to be controlled by anyone and they often rebel from domination in order to become free of any laws or rules that govern them. In America, kids are regarded to as the lowest priority. In an average household, a kid does not receive the attention that he or she requires. This leads to kids feeling unwanted and that leads to their rebellious behavior. Many young people want to portray the same image of their role model and live the same way they live, even if the role model is not the best person to imitate. In Pakistan, the main reason that women are encouraged to stay home is that our society sees kids to be the most important thing and they realize that if a kid has a good upbringing than they will be likely to see prominent figures like Gandhi and Rosa Parks as their role models rather than following the rebellious acts of Marilyn Manson and Dennis Rodman.
To conclude, when I first set foot on the ?land of the free? I had great expectations to succeed in this prosperous and powerful nation. I still do, but now I realize that the challenge for me is not on how to succeed but rather it is to find a way to become a part of this society. I want to be able to add my patch to this quilt that is heading for greatness and I strongly believe that I will be the one who will haul this nation to a newer level. Coming to America was an incredibly difficult challenge for me to be faced with at the age of twelve. It took perseverance, patience, and discipline for me to overcome my fears and become a part of this society. Though I have not compromised my religious convictions and family views; I have adapted to this much more liberal western culture.