Americanization

“ There are many who imagine that the process of Americanization, the process of the melting pot as it has been called, consists in discarding and throwing away all the traditions, customs and national traits of character which the immigrant people have brought over with them from all parts of the world, in order to become here something that it not yet defined or crystallized. Every one realizes that the American is not Englishman in spite of the fact that our national and political life is so greatly derived from the English national and political life. ”

“ To the American, part and parcel of his country, these particulars in which his country falls short with the foreign-born are, perhaps, not so evident; they may even seem not so very important. But to the foreign-born they seem distinct lacks; they loom large; they form serious handicaps which, in many cases, are never surmounted; they are a menace to that Americanization which is, to-day, more than ever our fondest dream, and which we now realize more keenly than before is our most vital need. ”

“ We act as if we wanted Americanization to take place only on our own terms, and not by the consent of the governed. All our elaborate machinery of settlement and school and union, of social and political naturalization, however, will move with friction just in so far as it neglects to take into account this strong and virile insistence that America shall be what the immigrant will have a hand in making it, and not what a ruling class, descendant of those British stocks which were the first permanent immigrants, decide that America shall be made. ”

“ Second, it is a fallacy to suppose that Americanization is a process needed by the foreigners only. Much Americanization work proceeds upon the assumption that what is needed is to make the foreigner "like us." The fact is that Americanization is sorely needed by many of "us," Americanization does not mean merely getting an immigrant ready for his citizenship-papers. It means the continuous fostering of the American spirit of liberty, justice, and equality of opportunity in every man and woman and institution and policy. ”

“ But, in thus animadverting on American civilization, is it not a fact that we see the mote in our brother's eye, but perceive not the beam that is in our own eye? What of the resistance that ought to be made to these redoubtable tendencies by our German civilization, ancient and firmly rooted as it is, when compared with the American? Unless we give way to one of our latest-cherished self-delusions, we must confess that we have already made such progress in "Americanization" as should give us pause. ”

“ Americanization as Assimilation
The Americanization Study has assumed that the fundamental condition of what we call "Americanization" is the participation of the immigrant in the life of the community in which he lives. The point here emphasized is that patriotism, loyalty, and common sense [Pg 763] are neither created nor transmitted by purely intellectual processes. Men must live and work and fight together in order to create that community of interest and sentiment which will enable them to meet the crises of their common life with a common will. ”

“ In any honest endeavor, the way is wide open to the will to succeed. Every path beckons, every vista invites, every talent is called forth, and every efficient effort finds its due reward. In no land is the way so clear and so free.
How good an American has the process of Americanization made me? ”

“ Hence we find the vast effort known as “Americanization,” which is for the most part a perfect example of American education at the present day. The spirit of “Americanization” is to consider the individual not with reference to his inward growth of mind and spirit, but solely with a view to his worldly success, and his relation to the existing order of society, to which it is considered that the individual will find his highest happiness and usefulness in contributing. ”

“ Yet this man was a power in his community, a strong influence upon others; he believed he could Americanize others, when he himself, according to his own statements, lacked the fundamental principle of Americanization. ”

“ Their Americanization consists of lip-service; the real spirit, the only factor which counts in the successful teaching of any doctrine, is absolutely missing. We certainly cannot teach anything approaching a true Americanism until we ourselves feel and believe and practise in our own lives what we are teaching to others. No law, no lip-service, no effort, however well-intentioned, will amount to anything worth while in inculcating the true American spirit in our foreign-born citizens until we are sure that the American spirit is understood by ourselves and is warp and woof of our own being. ”

“ In a new country, peopled in two hundred and fifty years by immigrants from the Old World and their descendants, the process of Americanization is not limited by any hard and fast rules as to time and generations, but is altogether a matter of individual and race temperament. ”

“ This axiom expresses fittingly the basic principle of americanization. It is both right and proper that a man who has adopted this land for his country and is eating its bread should sing its praises, in other words, that he should become American. The question only is, how it should be done so that the country might find in him a loyal and useful citizen, and he in turn might find in the country the right kind of domicile, a satisfactory substitute for his native land, so that he might live contented and happy; for only then will he become a good citizen. ”

“ The fact is that hardly a thing has been proposed as desirable in an Americanization program that is not the duty or function of some existing institution of our country, the church, the school, the industry, the press. Education, hygiene, and a decent inter-class courtesy are necessary features of any sound Americanization program, but they can be more effectively applied by calling them what they are and promoting them in normal ways than by branding them Americanization and cursing them with the blight of paternalistic uplift. ”

“ The great forces in Americanization are the [Pg 16] home, the school, and the neighborhood. These cannot influence the itinerant resident, in one town to-day and gone to-morrow; in a factory this month and in a wheat field next month; in a city with its rule of civilization one year, and in a labor camp with only the most primitive rule another year; in a well-ordered home one week and in a derailed freight car the next. We must contrive that educational and cultural forces shall follow the man from place to place if we are to achieve nationalism through assimilation. ”

“ Now any educator can tell you that this very atmosphere of sympathy is of the very essence of the class room, it's a condition of education, and Americanization is an education in nationalism.
"And here is where the revolutionary idea of Americanization falls down. Are you going to prove to the immigrant in one lesson that he is all wrong? Are you going to undo with a single jerk what it has taken centuries to do? ”

“ Americanization must be taken up earnestly and systematically. America first must be stamped upon every heart. There should be but one language in the public grade schools—the language of the Declaration of Independence, of Abraham Lincoln, of Theodore Roosevelt. A common language is one of the strongest influences for building up a spirit of national solidarity. We must emphasize that hand in hand, with equality of privilege and opportunity, goes equality of obligation in war and in peace, in fair weather and in storm. ”

“ There is slowly growing up a body of incisive criticism dealing with the current epidemic of Americanization work that is sweeping the country on the wings of clever catch-words and generous emotions. ”

“ Atlantic and the immigrant as an inferior because born on the other side, should keep his or her hands off Americanization if for no other reason, for this one: They are not themselves in any true sense Americans, lacking both the American spirit and ideals. It is such sociological tinkerers that often de-Americanize more immigrants than the others can Americanize. ”

“ The very complete and profound change of character implied by the phrase: "The Americanization of the Foreigner" can be wisely and safely accomplished only if spread out over at least three generations, while four or five would be better. Every year less than three generations, that the progress is hastened, means moral and spiritual breakdown for thousands—means domestic tragedy and congested criminal calendars. There is only one foreigner who is really a menace to American society. He is the foreigner who is in rapid process of "Americanization." ”

“ Still another starry flag may the land of the future confidently oppose to such reproaches as are implied in the term "Americanization"—the flag of its young literary honors, each star being some name illustrious in science, in song, or in story. However, the term "Americanization" is now naturalized, nor will non-Americanized Americans object to the employment of it, as most of them are quite ready to admit the weak point in the young giant's education which this term is used to designate. ”

“ The material in this volume was gathered by the Division of Adjustment of Homes and Family Life of Studies in Methods of Americanization.
Americanization in this study has been considered as the union of native and foreign born in all the most fundamental relationships and activities of our national life. For Americanization is the uniting of new with native-born Americans in fuller common understanding and appreciation to secure by means of self-government the highest welfare of all. ”

“ It does not mean that they have been really Americanized. It means that, letting slip from them whatever native culture they had, they have substituted for it only the most rudimentary American—the American culture of the cheap newspaper, the “movies,” the popular song, the ubiquitous automobile. The unthinking who survey this class call them assimilated, Americanized. The great American public school has done its work. With these people our institutions are safe. We may thrill with dread at the aggressive hyphenate, but this tame flabbiness is accepted as Americanization. ”

“ For the accepted types, the current patterns, the standard versions, intercept information on its way to consciousness. Americanization, for example, is superficially at least the substitution of American for European stereotypes. Thus the peasant who might see his landlord as if he were the lord of the manor, his employer as he saw the local magnate, is taught by Americanization to see the landlord and employer according to American standards. ”

“ However, the crowning insult offered to the intelligence of the American people by the Americanization movement is the soberly uttered and persistently reiterated proposition that the best way to cure the evils of a heterogeneous population is to naturalize the foreigners! In the voluminous literature issued by the group of organizations directly connected with this movement, the three injunctions to the foreigner which appear with the greatest frequency and emphasis are: “Attend night school,” “Learn the English language,” “Become an American citizen.” ”

“ I have always been in favor of a sensible Americanization, but this need not mean a complete abandonment of all that is German. It means that we should adopt the best traits of American character and join them to the best traits of German character. By so doing we shall make the most valuable contribution to the American nation, to American civilization. ”

“ The American churches, his American employers, are in other parts of the city, and his Americanization is left to the school-teacher, the policeman, and the politician, who generally are but one generation before him from Europe. But on the farm he sees and knows all classes, the best and the worst, and even where his parents strive to isolate their community and to preserve the language and the methods of the old country, only a generation or two are required for the surrounding Americanism to permeate. ”

“ Our proper job was to create a people, to get acquainted with each other and develop a common background. But the almost miraculous success of our lowest common denominator stood in the way of our working out any highest common multiple. Instead of developing a common background, we went on assimilating subscribers to the Declaration, our arbitrary tradition, “Americanism.” We have been so increasingly beset by aliens who had to be assimilated that their Americanization has prevented our own. ”

“ So you see, gentlemen, that americanization, as I say, is much slower process than many of us may imagine, and I do not believe that the hyphen can be expunged within one generation. That, however, does not necessarily mean that the americanized foreign-born citizen should or does love his adopted country less than his american-born fellow-citizen. ”

“ Bok scanned the rather crowded field of thought very carefully, and selected for discussion in the magazine such questions as seemed to him most important for the public to understand in order to face and solve its impending problems. The outstanding question he saw which would immediately face men and women of the country was the problem of Americanization. The war and its after-effects had clearly demonstrated this to be the most vital need in the life of the nation, not only for the foreign-born but for the American as well. ”

“ First, it is psychologically bad to approach Americanization work through a super-organized and much-trumpeted movement, because such a policy warns the foreigner in advance that a crowd of superior persons have set out to improve him. ”

“ It is the man behind the papers that counts. If anything, we have made citizenship too easy a privilege in the past.
Now, all this is said not to suggest that there is no room or need for special consideration of the Americanization problem by groups of public minded citizens. It is not intended to suggest that Americanization may not properly be made the subject of considerable propaganda. ”