Immigrant who can't speak English feels alienated by US

By Ed Straker

The Washington Post published a touching story about an immigrant who feels alienated because she can't speak English well. She feels "vetted" all the time by evil Americans because of her lack of ability to speak our language.  Part of the continuing propaganda campaign to tell us all immigrants are virtuous and that if you question their lack of assimilation, you are racist. More

My Take - All of my great grandparents and grandparents were born in either Serbia or Croatia, none of them spoke English well or at all.  Were they taken advantage of occasionally? I'm sure they were.  But all of them felt honored to be here, and they didn't come here to be Serbians or Croatians who merely lived in America.  They came here to become Americans who happened to be from somewhere else. 

That's the difference I find between the immigrants of today and those who came here at end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century.  They came here to become Americans and add flavor to the American culture - not change it!  Let's try and get this once and for all.  If where they left wasn't stinko.....they wouldn't have left! 

What a large number of these modern immigrants want is for America to become what they left.  Well, if what they left is so great - why did they leave? And if they're so dissatisfied - why don't they go back?  Because it's stinko where they came from! 

America isn't perfect - it's never been perfect.  But compared to the rest of the world we're paragons of virtue for one reason.  You can become anything you wish to become if you have the skills. 

A number of years ago the media made a big deal out of a whole bunch of Russian artists who immigrated to America and then en masse decided to go back.  Why?  They said in America they could paint whatever they liked but they couldn't afford to buy the paint, presumably because they couldn't sell it.  In Russia they painted what they were told to paint and the government paid them and provided the paint. 

That's the beauty of America.....you're permitted to succeed and you're permitted to fail.  But whether or not you succeed or fail - you get the chance to try!  And if you fail in one area no one will stop you from trying again or attempting to do something else. 

Those Russian artists could have possibly gone to work for newspapers, magazines, advertising agencies or any number of other situations where they could have been paid for the efforts painting what someone was willing to pay them to paint. 

But they wanted to paint what they wanted to paint without restriction or instruction.  Okay....that's what America's all about, but if you can't sell what you paint - who cares what you paint?  They could also have become something else and be a part of the American dream. 

I've often thought about this and wondered if these spoiled communist crybabies ever regretted their actions considering this happened before the fall of the Soviet Union.  But either way - good riddence!  We have enough of our own deadbeats and cry babies, we don't need someone elses.