Getting Used to It

Right-wing talk show host Laura Ingraham raised more than a few eyebrows with her recent comments on immigration – both illegal and legal – that has foisted “massive demographic changes” on this country, so that in some areas at least, “the America we know and love doesn’t seem to exist anymore.” Is she right? As Bill Maher pointed out on his show last week, Fareed Zakaria – certainly no right-wing ideologue – seems to agree in one sense.

“The scale and speed of immigration over the past few decades represent a real issue,” Zakaria has written. “Since 1990, the share of foreign-born people in America has gone from 9 to 15 percent. Most of the new immigrants come from cultures tha are distant and different, and societies can only take so much change in a generation.”

Is this racism? It’s actually about something much deeper: evolution, a process we get more familiar with the longer we live on this planet. It seems folks either resist it or accept it. But as with most life issues, there is a spectrum here. At one end of the scale are those who fight change tooth and nail, and at the other end, those who embrace it with enthusiasm. In the middle, though, there are those who are still on the fence. I submit that it’s OK, even natural, to be a little conflicted about it.

I have noticed a few subtle things. I live in a techie area these days, and in certain movie theaters, among the condiments offered to put on popcorn is curry, reflecting the taste of many of the East Indian tech folks in my area. Curry on popcorn? Another one: I turned on the TV to get updates on an impending disaster in a town where I once lived in the South. Almost all of the people being interviewed there did not have Southern accents. They had moved there from someplace else. For a second, I was a little sad about that. I missed how the locals talked when I lived there.

But clocks do not run backwards. Things will never be the same again, but they aren’t supposed to be. And evolution includes competition. I don’t think it has to be a negative. I like to think that when cultures, religions, even political views are allowed to rub up against each other, the way they do in this country, there is always friction, but  the best ideas seem to survive as the harmful ones fall away. It just takes time.

Those of us who say we embrace change would do well not to look too far down our noses at those who resist it. They may seem to be motivated by hate, but it’s really fear. There are people whose minds will never be changed. But there are many more in the who are unsettled and just not sure. They are the ones who need to be cut some slack and given a little  time to process it all.