George Pelecanos Quotes

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

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.

To the European immigrant - that is, to the aliens who have been converted into Americans by the advantages of American life - the Promise of America has consisted largely in the opportunity which it offered of economic independence and prosperity.

There is no such thing as National character or National Sentiment. The Inhabitants are from all quarters of the globe; and as various in their opinions, projects and schemes, as their manners and habits are from their early education.

The Melting Pot

There was no question of the racial superiority of northwestern Europeans or of the racial inferiority of southeastern Europeans. It was simply a question as to which of these two groups of aliens is, as a whole, best fitted by tradition, political background, customs, education, and habits of thought to adjust itself to American institutions and to American social and economic conditions--to become, in short, an adaptable, homogeneous and helpful element in American national life.

Immigrants have historically been an entrepreneurial bunch.

America is not a melting pot. It is a sizzling cauldron.

I couldn't achieve the American dream in Japan.

Australia has an increasingly multicultural society.

The U.S. tries to provide immigrants who grow up here with a world-class education and imbue them with the can-do attitude that has long defined American innovation.

In grade school I was taught that the United States is a melting pot. People from all over the world come here for freedom and to pursue a better life. They arrive with next to nothing, work incredibly hard, learn a new language and new customs, and in a generation they become an integral part of our amazing nation.

I think integration in Norway is, by all standards, going relatively well. People are working, taking education, learning the language.

Immigrants have always come into the country with low levels of education. Whether it's the Irish or Italian or Polish, here is the land of opportunity. It's where people come in at the bottom and build themselves up. To try to bring in people who have already made it is un-American.

No nation is interested in assimilating another without good reason. The assimilation of foreigners is actually in itself a most unpleasant business, and hence also undesirable. New people mean new candidates for benefits from the accumulated public assets, new hands hungrily stretched out for a share of the common loaf of bread. In order for a nation to desire the assimilation of another social group, it must first see in it something so valuable and attractive as to make it worthwhile despite all the inconvenience of including new partners in the distribution of the assets.

Those who stay in America should be open to society without melting.

I am not here as having one vote in the national legislature to shut the door in the face of any of the Caucasian race that are willing to come, whether they be educated or uneducated, and under the hand of honest, earned bread, the common [i.e. public] schools will take care of the children.

I see with joy the Irish emigrants landing at Boston, at New York, and say to myself, There they go—to school.

The melting pot has sprung a leak.

Assimilation is what has made America great.

Efforts to concentrate immigrants in social groups and to retard their Americanization should be steadily frowned down.

There are men of eighteen different languages; they are scattered here and there upon the [Hudson] river.

Immigrants bring growth, creativity, and opportunity to America. They are the cornerstone of much of our great nation's cultural heritage.

Immigrants to the United States usually arrive with a willingness to fit into their new country and reshape their identities accordingly.

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.