Jeff Hawkins Quotes

Millions of people have come to the United States in pursuit of liberty and a better way of life. They contribute to this tremendous melting pot and embrace the opportunities which are presented for them and their families.

Assimilation is what has made America great.

IMMIGRANTS, NOT AUSTRALIANS, MUST ADAPT. Take It Or Leave It. I am tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some individual or their culture…. We speak mainly ENGLISH, not Spanish, Lebanese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or any other language. Therefore, if you wish to become part of our society. Learn the language! …. If you aren't happy here then LEAVE. We didn't force you to come here. You asked to be here. So accept the country YOU accepted.

I've always loved New York City and the idea of a cultural exchange: the immigrants coming to America.

I really feel that my life story is a continuation of the Great American Dream - the immigrant who comes to this country and is allowed to excel. How many other countries would let me do that?

As a first generation Jewish American, I have witnessed firsthand Jewish immigrants who have come to this Nation in order to create a better life for themselves, their families, and future generations.

America's legacy has been crafted by generations of hard-working men and women who moved to the United States from all over the globe to pursue their dreams.

The fact that so many of your people are today residents and citizens of the United States, lending their influence to our civic and economic life, which has meant so much to our development.

Most previous immigrants came to the United States to become Americans, with no intention of returning home. They relinquished their ties with their homeland. English was their key to prosperity, and they worked hard to master it.

In this country, it doesn't make any difference where you were born. It doesn't make any difference who your parents were. It doesn't make any difference if, like me, you couldn't even speak English until you were in your twenties.

We are a nation of immigrants. We are the children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the ones who wanted a better life, the driven ones, the ones who woke up at night hearing that voice telling them that life in that place called America could be better.

As we embrace the American dream and the freedoms it represents, we must also ensure that those who wish to enjoy those freedoms become a part of our society and learn to speak our language.

As to other foreigners it is thought better to discourage their settling together in large masses, wherein, as in our German settlements, they preserve for a long time their own languages, habits, and principles of government, and that they should distribute themselves sparsely among the natives for quicker amalgamation.

The melting pot has sprung a leak.

The fundamental, longtime American attitude has been to ask not where a person comes from but what are his personal qualities. On this basis men and women migrated from every quarter of the globe. By their hard work and their enormously varied talents they hewed a great nation out of a wilderness. By their dedication to liberty and equality they created a society reflecting man's most cherished ideas.

America is transplanted Europe, but a Europe that has not been disintegrated and scattered in the transplanting as in some Dispersion. Its colonies live here inextricably mingled, yet not homogeneous. They merge but they do not fuse.

America was built by immigrants. Immigrants come here for work - to contribute and get to a better place. That's my story. It's a story of hope.

The great social adventure of America is no longer the conquest of the wilderness but the absorption of fifty different peoples.

America gave the world the notion of the melting pot - an alchemical cooking device wherein diverse ethnic and religious groups voluntarily mix together, producing a new, American identity. And while critics may argue that the melting pot is a national myth, it has tenaciously informed the America's collective imagination.

In a land of immigrants, one was not an alien but simply the latest arrival.

Rather than be asked to abandon one's own heritage and to adapt to the mores of the new country, one was expected to possess a treasure of foreign skills and customs that would enrich the resources of American living.

I hear that melting-pot stuff a lot, and all I can say is that we haven't melted.

Of course, preserving the American dream has always meant creating opportunity for the most recently arrived Americans - those who have come here from other parts of the globe to work hard and build a new, better life.

My parents came to the United States in the early years of this century as part of a wave of Russian Jewish immigrants seeking freedom and opportunity in the New World.

My dad is an ob-gyn - he's retired now - and he wanted to come to the States to make a better life, for opportunity. My mom said that, on the plane ride here, I did not want to speak a word of English - I spoke Tagalog. And then, after the first day of school, I didn't want to speak anything but English.