Simon+R’s+Final+AmEx+Speech+2017

Simon Raul Reyes III What kind of america do I want to grow old in? I want to live in an America where freedom is maintained. The freedom of speech, religion, protest, etc. All of these are profound necessities to maintain democracy. Sometimes we fail to realize that often such freedoms are unique to our country. Take England, freedom of speech is not a right. There are places like a speaker’s square where the speaker has freedom of speech, but there are no individual rights. NORTH KOREA. TURKMENISTAN. EQUATORIAL GUINEA. LIBYA. ERITREA. CUBA. UZBEKISTAN. All of these have no freedom of speech or press, any negative news coverage on the government is strictly illegal. Some think that a lack of freedom must be far away, but let us take a peek right next door to a country that has been a source of political contention recently-MEXICO. There are states in the south of Mexico, like Chiapas, Oaxaca, and Guerrero where Catholicism reigns supreme and Evangelicals are threatened with death and impeded by signs that literally say “No other religions allowed”. We can even look at humble, polite, India, where six states have laws against leaving the Hindu faith. I would argue that we basically have freedom in America. For those who would dispute that, I would ask “In a country that is not free, would you be able to contradict the government like that?” But I am concerned that we may not always have these freedoms, that these freedoms may be in jeopardy. I don’t want to live in a country where I can’t speak my mind because I might be arrested, or given a fine. I don’t want to live in a country where people are deported just because they don’t speak English. One thing that I think isn’t emphasized enough however, is the freedom of culture. I feel as though assimilation is the consensus for what’s necessary. A sort of unwritten rule for immigrants into our strange land. I would basically be okay with this if it weren’t for one thing. For lack of a better phrasing, immigrants aren’t allowed to assimilate into the US, unless they could pass for white. Unfortunately, this principle in particular is pretty unique to our culture. I’ll give an example, my great-great uncle and my great-great aunt couldn’t have children. So they adopted a son and named him Johnny (I don’t know why they named him that, they could never pronounce it, always calling him “Yanny”). Well “Yanny” was Japanese, but my great-great uncle and my great-great aunt were both Mexican. Mind you all of this was going on in Santa Paula back in the mid fifties and sixties, where there was plenty of racism to go around. Well, whenever someone like my Dad or cousins would ask about Johnny, “where’s he from?” (they refused to say where), the response always was “He’s family, so it doesn’t matter.” Now that is assimilation. I wish I could say that such a sentiment was universally available, but sadly they were quite literally in the minority in that line of thinking. To be free, to either assimilate or maintain one’s culture, if you want. I think that today the ability to assimilate is in jeopardy, the ability to adapt or even maintain one’s culture is almost non-existent, especially with the rise of the suppression of certain individuals, especially included in this category would be immigrants. The idea of people not being able to be free with their culture in America disgusts me. It would be an utter perversion of the “American way”. I think that if we want to have an America that is free and stays free, we need to see different cultures with the thought in the back of our minds that, if their culture is strange and foreign to us “They’re family, so it doesn’t matter.” That way we will be more understanding of those different from us. Thank you.