There is no doubt that intercultural differences that exist between people living in the same country become a problem that encourages a series of discussions from time to time.
Within the frame of the given assignment, we are supposed to read the statement by Barry Loudermilk who is one of the well-known politicians working in the state of Georgia (“About Barry,” n.d.). In general, there can be diverse opinions on the letter to the editor written by this person because it contains phrases addressed to immigrants living in the United States that are rather aggressive.
Based on the character of the letter, it is obvious that the author does not try to conceal his feelings on problems related to cultural, linguistic, and religious diversity in the United States. Instead, he expresses his opinion on the detrimental influence of immigrants on the cultural identity of Americans. Even though he sounds rather aggressive, I suppose that a lot of people in the United States who see immigrants demonstrate inappropriate behavior or underestimate the role of American culture and religious beliefs of Americans would agree with this politician.
In the last paragraph of the letter, the author states that people in the US do not want to change, and the use of the pronoun “we” can also be an interesting topic for discussion. As for me, using “we”, the politician intends to include only white Americans. Even though African American people already have a lot in common with the latter when it comes to mentality (there is a lot of interracial families), the politician seems to speak about white Americans as he constantly refers to “Christian founders”. More than that, the author also belongs to the Caucasian race and this fact, together with his aggressive attitude to representatives of other nations (which is clear in the paragraph where he discusses languages) can increase the possibility that he neglects the role of representatives of other races in making the American society better. At the same time, I suppose that the author can use this pronoun to denote the large group of white nationalists whose opinions on rights and responsibilities or people of different races in the United States are becoming more and more popular in the country due to growing influx of migrants from Muslim countries.
To be honest, our society seems to be more accepting of certain immigrant groups versus others, and I suppose that the reason for such division lies in religious diversity. Listing the languages that are not to be spoken in the United States instead of English, the author of the letter mentions Spanish and Portuguese. At the same time, it is clear that the attitude of Americans towards Hispanic immigrants and people arriving from Muslim countries is not the same, and it can be explained by many reasons.
To begin with, the Spanish-speaking region is located close to the United States which enables Americans to monitor the situation. Apart from that, people coming from these countries can not be regarded as a significant threat to the religious identity of Americans because the majority of them are Christians. At the same time, people from Muslim countries are often seen as this threat because Christianity and Islam belong to the number of the largest religions in the world, and it is extremely difficult for people exercising them to live in unity (Gould & Klor, 2016). At the same time, proclaiming the superiority of Christianity, the author forgets about a large number of atheists among the white population of the United States.
References
About Barry. (n.d.)
Gould, E. D., & Klor, E. F. (2016). The long-run effect of 9/11: Terrorism, backlash, and the assimilation of Muslim immigrants in the West. The Economic Journal, 126(597), 2064-2114.