Assimilation?

I was still thinking about my encounter with the woman in the burka when I spoke to a Muslim woman acquaintance recently. She explained that while she is Muslim she is not Arab and she is much more open and westernized than other immigrants. She has been in the U.S. For nearly 20 years and is very mainstream American in her dress and actions.

I asked her for her opinion on the woman in the burka from my description of the interchange. The first thing she mentioned was that possibly this woman did not speak English. But she also thought it was just as likely that in such a male dominated culture the man always spoke for her and she did not have a "voice" of her own.

My friend recounted a recent experience she had at a woman's clothing store where she observed a Muslim couple interact while the woman was trying on clothes. The man was so verbally abusive to his wife that my friend finally spoke up and told him he could not talk to his wife this way. He was in America now and women are not treated this way. She managed to have a brief private conversation with the wife to let her know she did not have to tolerate this behavior and there were options. There are shelters here for battered and abused women.

The cultural divide runs deep and one of the problems in assimilation is that Muslim woman are often confined to the home and are only in public in the company of a husband or other male relative. They do not learn much English and they remain in their own private worlds. Their focus is living by the stringent rules of Islam and Sharia. They do not really understand the values the  U.S. was founded upon. This group of immigrants is the most different from any immigrants in our history and we are starting to understand this more and more.

When we say the U.S. Is a "melting pot" we are looking to the past immigration of the many nationalities that came here from places like Germany, Ireland, Italy, and Poland among others. They spoke different languages but had to learn English quickly to get along in their new lives and to become gainfully employed. They did not rely on government agencies to blend in. They had family and friend who came earlier to show them the ropes. Most all of the immigrants were from the Judeo Christian tradition even if their religious affiliations were diverse.

We are learning that these newer refugees from the Muslim world are not always happy to be here as evidenced by the number of young Somalis becoming radicalized to take up arms against the country that welcomed them. So, why are we going along with a refugee policy that is beginning to show us that we are setting up problems that are better dealt with sooner than later.

The UN is driving the bus on our refugee resettlement program because they choose who comes here. The refugees that come are more than 90% Muslim and we live in a predominantly Christian nation. Many people ask why we are not receiving the persecuted Christians in the Middle East, but it is obvious that does not fit in with the UN agenda.

It is interesting to review the UN thought process when placing refugees. They describe a three part approach. The first option is to repatriate the refugee to the country they left, secondly they could be supported to stay in the country where they came for immediate shelter, and it is only the third option to locate a receiving country for immigration. A very small portion of the refugees are placed via the third option. So my question is how do they decide who makes the cut and how do they decide which ones come to the U.S.?  In this very secretive program some of the most basic questions never seem to get answered.

Is it time to have a real discussion about our entire immigration program, especially RR? It is not wrong for us to want to protect our country and our culture. We have been blinded by political correctness to the detriment of our current citizens as well as our children and grandchildren. It is time for some plain talk and peeling back the cloak of secrecy that has kept this movement under the radar.