(I'm clearly very liberal) I think it's less binary than assimilating vs. not. Cultures are complex, and depending on your preference, you might like American

(I'm clearly very liberal) I think it's less binary than assimilating vs. not. Cultures are complex, and depending on your preference, you might like American culture (whatever that really even is) if it acquired some traits from others. For example, Japan has a super low crime rate. Let's stipulate that this is a cultural thing. If you think the cultural traits that lead to this super low crime rate are good, then presumably you'd welcome lots of Japanese immigrants bringing that culture here to the US. On the other hand, if you're a freewheeling quasi-anarchist, you might not favor this kind of thing. What I've personally always considered America's strength was its ability to ingest other cultures rather than force everyone to conform to some idea of "American" culture. That's how you can get America's rich musical tradition, for example. If we forced everyone to play saxophone instead of the accordion we'd never have Zydeco. I do think we need to be careful of clearly destructive cultural tendencies. Religious fundamentalism. Nationalism. Homophobia. Misogyny. Racism. But it's obvious that even our own culture has problems with this stuff. So I sort of worry when we start talking about "assimilation". To me, that feels like forcing people to live and think a certain way, when I think it's more beneficial for us to learn to live and think in a new way together.