American style melting pot multiculturalism failing?

[Locut0s]

I was just thinking today about the Boston Bombing suspects and how they turned out to be yet another seemingly promising immigrant story gone wrong. The older brother was working his way towards an Olympic boxing career and what little we know of the younger brother seems to show that those who knew him thought he was very normal. But the older brother at least increasingly become isolated and fell under the "spell" of radical Islamism. The key thread I keep reading with these individuals is an extreme form of isolationism and disillusionment before or while falling under the brain washing of radical Islamism.

This is just speculation but I wonder if this stems, at least partly, from the form of multiculturalism that is somewhat unique to America, the "Melting Pot". When you immigrate to America you are expected to throw away your ties to your previous life and become entirely American. Those who hang on to their home culture tightly are often looked down upon, even by other immigrants. I'm wondering if this paradoxically, creates a sense of loss, isolationism, and disillusionment with their adopted country. In this "rejected" state one is far more prone to falling under the influence of any number of wacko groups.

Note that I'm not at all excusing what these people have become, they deserve to be punished to the full extent of the law for the horrible murders they have committed. I'm just trying to put forward one possible explanation.

[cali]

1. no, that's largely not how multiculturism works in the U.S.

and Cambridge is where they went to school and lived? Rindge Latin is the ultimate in multiculture. Really.

[DonViejo]

2. No. I don't think it is failing...

Increasingly, what's becoming clear, IMO, is this branch of the family was/is very dysfunctional.

[gollygee]

3. I wonder if he was affected by growing up in a war zone

But we can wonder forever what happened. We might never know just what caused these two young men to turn to violence.

[DonViejo]

18. Based on what the Uncle said this morning...

the boys are ethnic Chechnians but never lived in Chechnya itself.

[Arrowhead2k1]

4. A couple of kids go nuts and the whole system consisting of millions is failing?

Please, give me a break!

[arcane1]

5. The "Melting Pot" is not about total assimilation.

That's like saying Sandy Hook is a sign that birthright citizenship is failing.

[virgogal]

6. These young men are exceptions. I know many,many immigrants who have adapted beautifully and

certainly are not criticized for participating in ethnic cultural events.

[Zorra]

7. Yet their uncle said this: “I teach my children....

...This is the ideal micro-world in the entire world. I respect this country. I love this country. This country which gives chance to everybody else to be treated as a human being and to just to be human being. To feel yourself human being.”
~ Rusian Tsarni

[jpak]

8. Two Guys on murder spree = melting pot fail?

What are your thoughts about the Manson Family?

Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols?

The DC sniprers?

Shessh

[Lex]

9. What about Tim McVeigh, or Klebold & Harris--how does "multiculturalism" play into that?

How does your explanation work with them?

[FarCenter]

10. It is air travel

When my grandparents came, it was a one-way trip in very uncomfortable conditions on a steamship. None ever went back to Europe. Although immigrants lived in communities and kept their own language for a while, they were very much committed to America. This led to the "melting pot" effect of homogenizing language, customs, mores, and culture.

Advances in telecommunications and travel mean that new immigrants don't have the same cutting of ties to their homelands, and rather than becoming American, they become hyphenated Americans.

[SoCalDem]

11. The Melting Pot idea is a romaticized over-simplification

It's always been more of a buffet..People pick and choose at a buffet, leaving some items totally alone .

Most people, over time, make accommodations and the future generations often are indistinguishable from Mayflower families.

Others end up in cliquish enclaves where the "native tongue and customs" linger for generations.

We have been drinking our own koolaid for a very long time, and although we like to praise ourselves as being a welcoming society, many immigrants come here and never fit in. We just ignore them and hope they "self-deport".

Media has always loved a schmaltzy story, but I suspect that millions of people have come here with hopes that never materialized for them. We are lucky that all but a very few just muster on and cause no harm to others.

[Ken Burch]

12. The terms "Melting Pot" and "multiculturalism" are NOT synonymous.

The "melting pot" idea is about become similar to(if not identical with, since that may not really be possible)the dominant(in this case, the pre-1900 Northern European Protestant-we'll call it "NorEuroProd" for short)culture. It's about diluting, if not losing, one's cultural identity in an attempt to become a "Real American&quot I.E., the sort of person NorEuroProds-people similar to myself, sadly, although some of us have tried to move on from this idea-think is the "gold standard" of a citizen"

Multiculturalism is a response to that that says no, people shouldn't have to lose their identity to become "American".

[liberalmuse]

13. It's not failing.

But never underestimate the power of someone who is misguided and older's ability to influence a youth and totally fuck up not only their life, but hundreds of other lives. I'm not trying to justify this kid's actions, but fuck. 19. I was an idiot well past the age of 22. I hope he ends up having a conscience and turns himself in, if only to garner insight on how someone like him ends up callously maiming and killing innocent people like this. I think it would help many of us to understand the evolution of something this unspeakable.

[alcibiades_mystery]

14. There is no "melting pot" multiculturalism

Most immigrants hold on to home country traditions for several generations, live in ethnic enclaves, associate with other immigrants and culturally-similar groups (i.e., Italian Catholics hang out with Croatian Catholics). There is usually not a total break with previous cultural forms until the fourth generation. The very premise of your post doesn't comport with actual experience for most people in the United States.

[msongs]

15. perhaps salad bowl is better, where religious groups fight over the dressing everyone must use nt

[Journeyman]

16. I like Jacob Riis' phrase better: A crazy quilt of humanity, all stitched together but separate. . .

Jacob A. Riis, How the Other Half Lives (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1890), 21-27.

Seen in this manner (and Riis certainly had the credentials to speak authoritatively upon the immigrant scene of his day), the perceived inability of select people to assimilate is better understood.

Beyond that, I can't comment on the present situation. Too little known about either the suspects or their motives.

[Posteritatis]

17. Ahhh, sweeping conclusions from single events.. (nt)

[Baitball Blogger]

19. It sounds like they got indoctrinated OUTSIDE the U.S.A.

[ecstatic]

20. I don't know much about Boston, but the tossed salad approach works well in NYC

Is Boston as diverse as NYC? I think the melting pot concept is achievable with American-born children of immigrants (or kids brought here as babies). But first generation immigrants cannot blend in as easily. There will always be someone who hears the accent and asks where they're originally from.

[HipChick]

21. immigrant children are normally highly successful, more so than US born kids..

[Katashi_itto]

22. Lack much in critical thinking skills?

[entanglement]

23. It would take a book or two to debunk the elaborate superstructure of myths involving the immigrant

experience and the question of "assimilation". The mythology makes for pleasant reading, but it is certainly not history. The fact is that there always was a dominant Anglo-White-Christian matrix (itself a class pyramid, but that's for another day) into which "the rest" were supposed to dissolve, if possible, or defer to, if not.

The larger question of who belongs and who does not has rarely had to do with individual choice.
Instead, the story is one of erasure (Native Americans), oppression (African Americans), subjugation (Hispanics) and exclusion (Asian Americans) by the dominant majority, using varying degrees of violence. (Race was used skillfully by a ruthless ruling class to further its interests, and the process continues to this day). What people from these groups wanted - to "belong" or be autonomous - mattered for little in the way they were treated.

The question of "assimilating" newcomers cannot be tackled in an honest way by ignoring this history.

[LittleBlue]

24. What a load

2 guys perpetrate a terror attack and multiculturalism is failing.

Plenty have answered your post, just wanted to chime in that it's ridiculous for the reasons already stated.

[HiPointDem]

25. no. the american economy is failing to assimilate people.