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Funny thing about assimilation. I spent last thanksgiving surrounded by bigots who spent the time in between dinner and pie (which never actually came) making hilarious (they thought so) jokes about Mexicans.
Just to assure me and my lady friend that he wasn't a bigot (we weren't convinced) the man of the house explained to us that he only had a problem with the Mexicans who didn't assimilate. He said this with a straight face smack dab in the middle of a dining room full of stupid little tchotckes celebrating his Norwegian heritage. This motherfucker has multiple Norwegian flags in his house and he's complaining about how those damn Mexicans need to show a little more respect for America by not acknowledging their roots.
Recognizing one's own ethnic heritage is normal. I come from a state which prominently celebrates its Northern European heritage. My neighborhood has rich Eastern European traditions which feature prominently year-round in the names of local businesses and also in annual festivals which celebrate the food and culture of the homeland.
It's perfectly normal for recent immigrants to hold on to and celebrate the culture of their homeland. As my thanksgiving host showed, it's also apparently normal to hold on to and celebrate the culture of the places your ancestors came from.
All this talk of flags is really overblown. Especially here, where the participants are teenagers, and thus prone to making hamfisted political statements solely for the purpose of inciting controversy.
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