26th June 2003, 5:02 PM
Quote:Originally posted by A Black Falcon
Second, America is a unique nation in the world -- we are a nation immigrants. I know it sounds dumb but it really is true...
If America was like Western Europe and Japan and had almost no immigration we would be having their problem right now: declining population. Our population is only growing because we allow huge immigration...
And because we allow that, we have to acknowledge their cultures. Yes, they will assimilate to some extent, sure, within a generation or two... but they shouldn't forget their heritage, like we made people do until not that long ago!
Canada is in a similer position as the US, we are also a nation of immigrants, but instead of being a melting pot we attempt to have a multicultural society. People are encouraged to learn english or french depending on the area of the country they imigrated too but other than that they are not forced to join our culture. The government actaully puts millions of dollars a year into groups that help people preserve their ethnic identity. In some provinces there is a whole seperate publicly funded school system that catholics can choose to go to, and within the general, then within the public school system there are schools or programs for many different ethnic groups where there is demand for them, and parents can choose to send their children to one of these programs or send them into a normal public school program. In other areas the seperate publicly funded board may be a french board instead of a catholic one because that is what is in demand, and even within the seperate boards there are multicultural programs, the publicly funded catholic schoolboard here has French and Ukranian programs, and so does the general public school board, but some of the public school boards also have programs for Native Americans, Muslims, Francaphones and other minority groups.