https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/09/america-without-family-god-or-patriotism/597382/

In 1998, The Wall Street Journal and NBC News asked several hundred young Americans to name their most important values. Work ethic led the way—naturally. After that, large majorities picked patriotism, religion, and having children.

Twenty-one years later, the same pollsters asked the same questions of today’s 18-to-38-year-olds—members of the Millennial and Z generations. The results, published last week in The Wall Street Journal, showed a major value shift among young adults. Today’s respondents were 10 percentage points less likely to value having children and 20 points less likely to highly prize patriotism or religion.

The nuclear family, religious fealty, and national pride—family, God, and country—are a holy trinity of American traditionalism. The fact that allegiance to all three is in precipitous decline tells us something important about the evolution of the American identity.

Sounds partly like progress to me.
You can hardly blame Americans for being less patriotic right now.

The nuclear family is fine, so long as gay people are allowed to marry and have / adopt children. I suspect some younger people are more liberal in their views and recognise this is an issue. Plus, a lot of people recognise that just because you’re blood related doesn’t mean your family treats you well. Divorce is more common too, and you could say this is a shame, but in the past perhaps people stayed together when maybe they shouldn’t have.
As a society, and especially amongst the younger generations, we are more aware of what healthy relationship dynamics are, what constitutes abuse and sexism, and are more likely to campaign for equal rights. Those same people are less likely to just accept that the trinity of life is “holy”.
More people are tending to choose who their family is, what constitutes fair government, and are more likely to think for themselves generally, and particularly where religious beliefs are concerned. And on that point, we now also know a lot more about evolution.

And if religion becomes completely extinct (and I doubt it) you’ll hear no complaints from me. However, America is still quite religious compared to a lot of other countries, including the UK.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/06/2019 08:34AM by LJ12.

is thinking more in terms of how many kids are "necessary" and if they really want children. My TBM daughter is. I tend to believe part of that is because she lived the life of the daughter of a single mother whose father was abusive to all of us during those years. She doesn't want to end up like her mother. She tried to escape marriage even if she wanted it and is very happy. I don't worry about her husband ever leaving her. Now she says she might have 1 child. In mormonism!!!! She is almost 34.

I think it is a good thing if people have less children. I wanted 8 and I only had the twins. I'm glad I only had the twins. I'm not so sure I want grandkids, but if my daughter chooses to have any children, I will be there to help her. My son doesn't want children. He is not religious. I hope eventually my daughter isn't. Religion to me is a major mind fuck and it certainly didn't help with my life.

None of my other nieces and nephews or their children are religious. Only one had more than 2 children.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/06/2019 08:55AM by cl2.

What happened to Apple Pie?

Replaced by Wonton Noodles.

And tacos!

Shinehah Wrote:
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> And tacos!

I agree (assuming the word "tacos" is expanded to include "Spanish-speaking" food generally ;) ).

When my parents (both had been teenaged, Depression era transplants to Southern California who, before, had largely grown up in Oklahoma (my Mom), and eastern Washington state (my Dad). Forty-five years later (after my sister and I, now grown, had left their home), they had been forced to move to New Jersey for my Dad's job.

They would get off the plane from New Jersey at LAX--and, exactly like a person who had been stranded in the desert who was dying of thirst, their first words were always "Get us to El Chollo!" (the closest Mexican food restaurant near to the airport).

Also: once upon a time, when I (a native born Angeleno) was driving from the East Coast back to L.A., I got unbelievably ill from "something" (flu or whatever), and throughout my driving west, I was, physiologically, DESPERATE for green chile--in ANYTHING! [This is true: green chile really DOES seem to help with colds and flu.]

Every time I stopped for gas, I asked: "Are there any Mexican restaurants around here?," and the answer was, uniformly, great confusion at the very concept. (This may have changed since, but thirty-some years ago, the Midwest I was driving through used to be a total Mexican food desert.)

I finally located a "Mexican" restaurant somewhere in downstate Illinois, and was severely disappointed (though not surprised) to find that "green chile" in Illinois, even in a colorfully-decorated "Mexican" restaurant, has qualities akin to some kind of WASPy, mayonnaise/whipped cream-based, salad. As a medicine for flu (or whatever it was that I was so sick from back then), it was useless--and it "felt," in my mouth, and tasted, really weird (kind of gross, actually), as well. (It was like someone had read a recipe in a "Mexican" cookbook, and then had substituted for unavailable ingredients, particularly REAL green chile.)

For those of us who grew up with Mexican-food infused blood, "tacos" (or anything else Mexican) constitute a necessary food group.

And everything in this particular Mexican food group of which tacos is emblematic is, as I now testify, part of God, and part of Family, AND most definitely: an integral part of THIS, "Mexican-descended," sizable chunk of this Country--and I doubt that this will ever diminish.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 09/06/2019 05:31PM by Tevai.

Could the decline in overt displays of flag waving patriotism be an indication that the United States is maturing as a nation? I think that as the country developed, assimilating people from ev ery corner of the globe, flag waving displays of patriotism were a vital element to blend everyone into the whole. Today, the United States has a firm place in the world and does not need these overt, often over the top (MV) displays to bolster its self worth and sense of identity. I have lived in two other countries besides the United States and in both the people who live there have a love of their country no less than Americans have for theirs. But it seems to me to be without the need to express it or demonstrate it at every possible opportunity.

When my parents' generation moved to the USA from Mexico, 'assimilation' was the word of the day. I had no aunts, just six uncles, in total. They all learned English ASAP and they all moved into 'White' neighborhoods. Neither I nor my cousins were expected to speak Spanish. Of all my cousins (not that many), I'm the only one who speaks fluent Pocho. (Pocho is fluent Spanish, with an American accent.) My cousins and I grew up completely Americanized.

I don't know when this changed, nor why. But now staying within an ethnic boundary seems to be the order of the day. And holding onto your country of origin's customs and traditions and ignoring Americanization.

I believe that the vast majority of educated Americans, of any color, wait to hear what comes out of the mouth of the 'foreigner' about to speak to them before that American decides how to treat the 'foreigner'. When you speak to them in perfect 'American', the tendency is for complete acceptance. I've lived this.

The only prejudice that I've ever experienced came from multi-generational mormon parents who didn't want their daughters messing up the purity of the bloodlines. My BYU bride had non-mormon Texan parents and they treated me fine.

My personal opinion is that the manner in which the schools eased up on discipline is an important factor in the spread of 'who gives a shit'. But I don't have any answers because I don't care; it's not my problem. All my kids did the one thing that almost always guarantees an even, steady life: They learned to learn.

Now it's a battle between those who know how to make their way in life and to change, adapt and grow, versus those who expect to be taken care of. That's my simplistic view, but you could easily pay me to change it!

elderolddog Wrote:
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> When my parents' generation moved to the USA from
> Mexico, 'assimilation' was the word of the day. I
> had no aunts, just six uncles, in total. They all
> learned English ASAP and they all moved into
> 'White' neighborhoods. Neither I nor my cousins
> were expected to speak Spanish.

My wife's family fled Vietnam and she was raised to assimilate 100% into America. They discourage speaking Vietnamese at home after she started school, etc, etc.

Now her mother berates her for not being Vietnamese enough. Or not speaking Vietnamese well enough. Or not knowing Vietnamese customs well enough..........

A common story, Darren.

I've seen a lot of people like your wife. As they become more "American," they grow more distant from their parents' culture. Sometimes it works out fine, but sometimes they are somewhat rudderless, caught between two very different worlds.

I grew up with a Vietnamese friend, whose parents came to the States as Boat People escaping the purges against Chinese in 1976-1978. Once ensconced in the US, their standards for their children gradually evolved. First the parents were insistent that the children socialize only with South Vietnamese and avoid North Vietnamese. As the children's groups expanded, however, the parents shifted to urging the children only to date Vietnamese and to keep away from white people. When the kids went to (excellent) colleges and began interacting with a much wider range of people, the standard became "date Vietnamese or white people but not others."

At some point, for a lot of the second generation, the parental cohort lose their credibility and their influence. Whether strong familial relationships survive this depends on the families themselves. The kids' interactions with their peers, other social groups, and government likewise vary from situation to situation.

I'm not sure how much of this is relevant to your wife's situation, but you brought the issue to mind.

My wife is the child of Cubans who immigrated as infants/toddlers. They didn't teach any of their four children to speak Spanish, in part because of their desire for assimilation. They now regret it.

Regarding the discipline situation in schools, I probably wouldn't care either except that I ended up on a local school board. My kids are little, but I'm confident they'll be fine. Even though I'm a trustee for a public school district, if private school or even home schooling were ever necessary, I wouldn't hesitate because I don't really care what other people think. My kids should be OK in the system, however. They seem to be resourceful and to have the ability to learn wherever they are planted.

During almost every school board meeting, we have to have at least one expulsion hearing in executive session. It's nearly always the same story every time, and it's getting harder and harder to pay attention, though I'm still paying attention because I would really love to hear something new and different in even just one of the hearings. Sometimes a teacher, counselor, or principal has contributed to the problem because God knows they aren't perfect, but in the vast majority of cases a kid is behaving as an @$$hole because the kid's parents think he or she is the exception to all rules. The only variables are the manner in which the kid has elected to behave as an @$$hole and the degree to which the safety or learning of others has been compromised by the acting-@$$hole's actions.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/07/2019 04:22AM by scmd1.

When my grandfather came here from Sweden, alone at age 16, he spoke no English (convert looking for Mormon help to settle in America). He tried to assimilate as fast as possible. He never spoke Swedish or even talked about Sweden. He wanted to be American and was proud his 10 kids were raised as English-speaking USA citizens.

How I wish I had learned Swedish from him. He had over a hundred grandkids. I'm glad everyone doesn't have 10 kids. What he did and how he lived doesn't seem like that great of an idea nowadays.

I think the current Holy Trinity of American life is "Me, Money and Social Networking"

I let your little bromide, "Me, Money and Social Networking", rattle around in my brain for a bit and out popped "Image".

I fear people are more concerned with their outward appearance than they are with about their inward content.

elderolddog Wrote:
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> I let your little bromide, "Me, Money and Social
> Networking", rattle around in my brain for a bit
> and out popped "Image".
>
> I fear people are more concerned with their
> outward appearance than they are with about their
> inward content.


I agree, even though it makes me sad.

Eight points:

1) I grew up in an east coast coal mining town that was heavily immigrant. People came in to Ellis Island, and were shipped off to Pennsylvania to mine coal. In a local coal mine museum, they have the miners' instructions that were posted in the mines. They were written in 6 different languages. When I was a kid, there were two Yiddish weeklies in town. All my HS friends had grandparents from Europe. Some of the grandparents barely spoke English. My grandmother could communicate in seven languages, six of them Slavic. She spoke passable English, but it was by no means her strongest language. My grandfather died when I was 5, so I don't remember him all that well.

My dad understood Russian, but couldn't really speak it. I learned very little Russian except for foods that grandma sent over. I taught myself the Cyrillic alphabet as an adult, and was surprised to find out that not a few Russian words are recognizable once you understand their alphabet. I joke that I speak "restaurant Russian". I could look at a Russian menu and probably have a good idea what would show up if I ordered it.

2) I have a friend from San Antonio, Mexican grandparents. He, like me, is second generation American. His experience with his ancestral language is essentially the same as mine. He knows Spanish about as well as I do (I speak Portuguese, can read simple Spanish reasonably well). He is by no means fluent. He's a literal rocket scientist at JPL.

I'm an All But Dissertation (ABD) in Comp Sci. All of my sibs have college degrees, though I was the first in the family to get one. My dad was a dropout who eventually got a GED.

3) I used to visit Winnipeg in the early 1980s. Even lived there for a few years. They started what was supposed to be a one-off festival called Folklorama. Kind of sounds like a 1960s/70s name, no? It was similar to the Greek Festival in SLC, except it was 14 different pavilions for various nationalities scattered around town.

Long story short, it was spectacularly successful, and is still going on. When the number of pavilions got into the upper 20s, they split it over two weekends. It is still going on 40-some years later. There are about 40 pavilions, and transit buses are free for traveling between pavilions, partly because street parking is horrendous around the pavilions because of the crowds, and partly because plenty of alcohol from the pavilion's country is sold.

Winnipeg had two Ukrainian Immersion high schools when I lived there. I have no idea how many French Immersion schools they had. Winnipeg has the largest concentration of French speakers outside Quebec.

With all that, the city does not feel fractured. Immigrants have accents. They just do, and the accent is not likely to disappear. Their kids raised in Canada might have a slight accent. Might. The next generation are like me and my friend at JPL. No distinctive accent at all, unless the city we grew up in had a regional accent, and those are becoming more rare. My Florida relatives, Millennial generation, sound like they are from Cleveland, which is to say, no discernible accent.

4) I went to the Greek Festival in SLC for lunch today. The Festival starts today. They had a large rat maze line for the food booths. It was already six switchbacks deep, and they were not short switchbacks. Gaach! The event is spectacularly popular.

5) My local church works with Dreamers at St Stevens (or Esteban's if you want to go ethnic) in SLC, and we have a sanctuary family staying at the church. The oldest daughter staying at the church is 7 and has been in the US three years. Her English is unaccented. You would have no idea she wasn't born here.

Dreamers speak flawless English, are totally acculturated to the US, for the most part are HS grads, and a fair number are college grads. They have either no recollection or little recollection of their birth country. The expensive part of raising them is over. They are educated. They are not liabilities now, they are assets, yet people want to throw them out. They are American in every way that counts except paperwork.

6) Yesterday, NPR in conjunction with Minnesota Public Radio aired a series of interviews they did with the local Somali community. Listen to it as see how "foreign" and unassimilated you think they sound.
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/09/05/minnesota-somalis-get-a-national-forum-on-nprs-1a

7) I have a friend, retired prof from the UofU, who grew up in East LA. He looks Hispanic, and his name is Hispanic. Both sides of his family are descended from the original Spanish land-grant settlers of Los Angeles 400 years ago. He occasionally gets the "why don't you go back home". He points out that his family was in LA for 250 years before the Anglos showed up and ruined the neighborhood. That's longer than the US has even existed, though we are getting close to 250.

7) Canada is 23% immigrant (many of whom are also now Canadian citizens). Australia is 33% immigrant. The US is 14% immigrant, again, many of whom are also US citizens. I've never attended a US citizenship ceremony, but I did go to a Canadian one. It was quite the tear-jerker. People are thrilled almost beyond words to be part of their new home country.

Yes, our immigration system is FUBAR, but it has always been FUBAR, and we have always have had lots of immigrants. We hated the Irish in the 1850s. Then it was the Chinese, after they helped us build the transcontinental railroad. Then the Germans, before and during WWI. By WWII, we were OK with Germans, but rounded up the Japanese, and kept out the Jews. In the 1950s, West Side Story was written about Polish and Puerto Rican street gangs in New York. Neither group was particularly well liked. Pollock jokes were the coin of the realm in the 1950s.

Then the unfavored group was the Vietnamese, and yada yada.

When was the last time you heard a Pollock joke?

How many Vietnamese restaurants are in your town, and doing fine?

And of course there are been Chinese restaurants around for as long as all of us have been alive.

We will survive FUBAR immigration. We always have. Calm down. Give it a couple generations.

8) And finally!.....
The minister at SLCUU, just yesterday, in the church newsletter, wrote about attending the citizenship ceremony for his son-in-law. He's Jewish with a dry sense of humor, Keep that in mind.

https://slcuu.org/news/latest-news/item/992-torch-article-reverendly-yours-rev-tom-goldsmith

05 September 2019
Last week I faced the U.S. flag, pledged allegiance to it, and sang the national anthem, all while placing my right hand over my heart. I had only a fleeting impulse to take a knee, or not cross my heart, or not even stand. But I proceeded with these patriotic exercises nonetheless, and felt proud.

I was in Fairfax, VA, witnessing my son-in-law take the oath in becoming a U.S. citizen. He’s from Bangladesh, married my daughter almost seven years ago, but still faced relentless scrutiny while traveling. With a middle name of Mohammed, it sure ain’t easy entering the U.S. But he likes to say he only travels with his lawyer (my daughter). When you string together the number of hours they have been detained, it would equal a month worth of humiliating searches and intimidating cross-examinations.

But there we were, the three of us in a crowded room, following the protocol for all the rituals on the road to becoming a citizen. Everyone was instructed several times about crossing one’s heart when saying the pledge, as though noncompliance could possibly nullify the mountain of paperwork and endless anxiety in dealing with immigration bureaucrats. Nobody was going to take that chance.

But despite feeling like one was being processed on an assembly line, a mood of joy mingled with relief and pride. My son-in-law’s ceremony included sixty-six people representing thirty-nine different nations from around the world. There was one from Germany, England, Canada, and Ukraine. Everyone else was dark-skinned or Asian, lifted by a spirit of new beginnings/new life.

We sat through a video of Donald Trump reminding us how great it was to be an American, and a video of Madeleine Albright, an immigrant herself, addressing the unlimited possibilities in America for immigrants. We all pledged, and sang, and waved little American flags, and finally, one-by-one, each immigrant was called by name to receive her or his naturalization papers. Each immigrant took the certificate as though receiving an Oscar. Smiles and tears and love and laughter filled the room.

I felt enormous delight that my dear son-in-law could travel now with a U.S. passport, eliminating the duress of going through customs. But the contradictions ricocheted around my mind: Immigrants are not welcome in our country; endless opportunities do not exist for people of color; Democratic principles are on the chopping block. And yet…there is still an ideal of America we seem to carry in our hearts. It’s like a blueprint for a country that strives for equality and justice, even when it stumbles along the path to freedom. I realized that despite my criticism of our nation’s hard right turn, I was not about to forsake my U.S. citizenship. Hope for this country is unfailing and all enduring. My son-in-law can now join the rest of us Americans in turning this country around

We went to dinner that night at their favorite restaurant in Alexandria. When my daughter made the reservation she was asked if it was a special occasion. She explained the circumstances, thinking nothing of it. The whole restaurant staff must have been alerted. When we arrived, the African American bartender fixed us free drinks. When moving to the dining room, our table was draped with the American flag. Our Korean waiter told us he had become a citizen just the year before. Then a guy from the kitchen crew came out to greet us. He was from Bangladesh. They babbled on in Bangla as though they were brothers.

It was a slice of America that filled me with warm sentiments. Not the free drinks, but the international tapestry of immigrants, still counting on making their dreams come true in this country. They each have a story to tell. And all their stories together comprise the threads of American greatness, making it incumbent upon us all to realize our nation’s potential. TRG

__________________________

Whew. If you made it this far, thank you. Between immigrant grandparents, living in highly ethnic cities, and having spent a year or more each living in four foreign countries (five if you count Provo), this is a subject in which I am deeply invested.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/06/2019 09:52PM by Brother Of Jerry.

Nice post, BoJ. I enjoyed that and appreciate your insight on this topic. (Yes, count Provo as a foreign country.)

Yes, BoJ, a very well written and moving exposition.

Thanks, BoJ.

Wonderful, BOJ!

anybody Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The nuclear family, religious fealty, and national
> pride—family, God, and country—are a holy
> trinity of American traditionalism. The fact that
> allegiance to all three is in precipitous decline
> tells us something important about the evolution
> of the American identity.

Or maybe it tells us those institutions no longer deserve their former ranking.

Gracias, obrigado, kamsa-hamnida, spasibo, merci, and whatever the words are in Slovak, Polish and Gaelic, and Utahn. I started out thinking I’d do a couple or three stories, ended up with 8, and could easily do 4 more. I figured I was already testing people’s attention spans.

I’m posting from a phone, which will cut down considerably on my wordiness. Factoid: both candidates for SLC mayor are women, members of That Party, and children of immigrants. The times, they are a changing.