Why I Support Immigration
Differences make us stronger, and they allow us to benefit from the best of different worlds.
When I was in Japan, I saw something very interesting: a group of citizens had organized a cleaning crew to remove litter from the streets. Japan is known for its culture of cleanliness and its intolerance of litter. Keeping public spaces clean is viewed as a civic duty.
In contrast, some cultures developed in environments where discarded materials were often biodegradable. Today, however, much of our trash is permanent. It does not simply decompose and disappear.
What would make America great again is the acknowledgment and acceptance of the differences among its people.
America should function as a network of multiple cultural nodes, with different cultures contributing their own ways of understanding and solving problems.
As I have pointed out before, cultures often blend together and become stronger by addressing problems that another culture may not know how to solve.
Cultures are amalgamations. They carry the memories of the people who created them and serve as communal systems for adapting to the environment and solving shared problems.
Japanese culture and Black American culture are two distinct cultures that differ radically from one another. If they were to influence and learn from each other, some of the problems within both cultures might be reduced. At the same time, that cultural exchange would inevitably create new challenges of its own.
That is the nature of cultural development: cultures combine, exchange knowledge, solve old problems, and generate new challenges.
I imagine America as many different cultures coming together to solve problems collectively as one unit, much like a military unit in which each group contributes a unique skill and helps solve a specific problem.
We complement one another.
For thousands of years, cultures have fought, united, and absorbed ideas and influences from one another. A culture that is highly focused on preventing disease, for example, might develop strong traditions of sanitation and public cleanliness.
Immigration allows cultures to meet, exchange knowledge, and strengthen one another. Our differences should not be viewed only as sources of division. They can also be sources of resilience, creativity, and progress.
Imagine multiple communities, each offering different solutions and having its own space where people can preserve and practice their cultures away from their homelands while still embracing shared American values. Chinatown is a good example.
