Samuel P. Huntington
Samuel P. Huntington
Samuel Phillips Huntingtonwas an American political scientist, adviser and academic. He spent more than half a century at Harvard University, where he was director of Harvard's Center for International Affairs and the Albert J. Weatherhead III University Professor. During the Carter administration, Huntington was the White House Coordinator of Security Planning for the National Security Council. He is most well known by his 1993 theory, "The Clash of Civilizations", of a post-Cold War new world order. He argued that future...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionSociologist
Date of Birth18 April 1927
CountryUnited States of America
Certainly here in the U.S., we've had fundamentalist movements that have taken very critical and hostile attitudes toward immigration and the assimilation of immigrants into our society and culture. So these tendencies are fairly universal. The problem is what if they get out of hand and become the dominant factor in a society, which can only lead to the oppression of minorities or even to war with neighboring societies with differing cultures. That's why it seems to me it's important to try to keep these tendencies toward extremism under control.
Expectations should not always be taken as reality; because you never know when you will be disappointed.
Our relationship with Mexico in this regard is unique for us, and in many respects unique in the world.
The other aspect of American identity worth focusing on is the concept of America as a nation of immigrants. That certainly is a partial truth. But it is often assumed to be the total truth.
Immigrants are people who leave one country, one society, and move to another society. But there has to be a recipient society to which the immigrants move.
They weren't immigrating to some existing society; indeed, they often did whatever they could do to destroy whatever existed here in the way of Indian society.
Finally, in my critique of the immigration image of America, it is also important to know that we're not only a nation of immigrants, but we are in some part a nation of emigrants, which often gets neglected.
We also thought of ourselves in racial and largely ethnic terms.
Much of what we now consider to be problems concerning immigration and assimilation really concern Mexican immigration and assimilation.
First of all, we haven't always welcomed immigrants.
The West hasn't reached its universal state as yet, although its close to it, but it certainly has evolved out of its warring state phase, which it was in for a couple of centuries.
It was this society and culture that among other things - including economic opportunities here and repression in Europe - attracted subsequent generations of immigrants to this country.
Total falsehoods can be easily exposed for what they are by citing exceptions to their claims. Hence, they are less likely to be accepted as the total truth.
Mexican immigration poses challenges to our policies and to our identity in a way nothing else has in the past.