Becoming American: Why Immigration Is Good for Our Nation's Future (26 page)

Because of the limited resources provided, some people have argued for an immigration reform effort that focuses more attention on assimilation processes. As research shows, having immigration integration policies in place can yield beneficial results. “For example, research by Richard Florida and Charlotta Mellander found that nations which focus more on immigrant integration have higher levels of economic competitiveness, are more innovative, and have higher rates of entrepreneurship.”
¹³
Recently, the Migrant Integration Policy Index measured the United States against thirty other countries on its immigration and integration policies. Overall, the United States ranked ninth, scoring 62 out of the possible 100 points. The study reported, “This overall ranking is good, especially when the lack of national integration policy is taken into account. Unpacking the meaning of this score, however, demonstrates that the United States can and should think much more carefully about how we welcome and encourage new immigrants.”
¹⁴
According to
Politico
, a political news source, many conservatives would like to see an assimilation policy that supports “patriotic principles instead of programs related to workforce training, and access to health care, legal help and youth education, which they argue sound more like entitlements.”
¹⁵
Nonetheless, currently, no official policy is intact to help all immigrants assimilate into the United States.

WHEN ASSIMILATION DOESN’T OCCUR

As argued previously, proper assimilation, though difficult to measure, is crucial for an immigrant’s success. History has even shown us that, when people fail to assimilate, it is not only a detriment to themselves but also to society at large. Both the Boston Marathon bombings and the 1992 Los Angeles riots perfectly illustrate this claim.

Marked as the worst terrorist attack since 9/11, the Boston Marathon bombings occurred on April 15, 2013. Two pressure-cooker bombs exploded near the finish of the marathon on Boylston Street in downtown Boston. Three people lost their lives, and two hundred eighty more were injured because of the bombs. Following the attack, the two suspects, the Tsarnaev brothers, fled the scene, and a citywide manhunt ensued. The elder brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, twenty-six, was killed by police gunshots, and the younger brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, nineteen, was later caught hiding in a boat in Watertown. Dzhokhar has since been taken into custody, treated in the hospital, and recently pleaded not guilty—though he previously admitted to federal agents that he played a role in the bombings. He also cited U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq as being the motivation for the attack, which came days after an attack in Afghanistan for which the Afghan government blames the CIA. Though a conclusion has not been reached, other possible motivations include: opposition to the American drone strikes in Pakistan, opposition to the Kyrgyz government’s cooperation with the Americans, and opposition to the Russian government’s cooperation with the Americans.
¹⁶
According to an article published in the
New York Times
, “The portrait investigators have begun to piece together of the two brothers suspected of the Boston Marathon bombings suggests that they were motivated by extremist Islamic beliefs but were not acting with known terrorist groups—and that they may have learned to build bombs simply by logging onto the online English-language magazine of the affiliate of Al Qaeda in Yemen.”
¹⁷

Both brothers legally immigrated to the United States when they were young. The eldest, Tamerlan, came with his two sisters a year after his parents and younger brother, Dzhokhar, immigrated to the United States in 2002. Before the children were born, the parents left dangerous Chechnya, a small region in Russia historically stricken by Islamic uprisings fueled by separatist wars. The family first arrived in Kyrgyzstan, where Tamerlan was born in 1986. In 1993, Dzhokhar was born. The family eventually left Kyrgyzstan for the mainly Muslim region of Dagestan in Russia. Less than a year later, in 1994, the parents and Dzhokhar made it to the United States as refugees, fleeing political persecution. A year later, at the age of sixteen, Tamerlan joined his family in Massachusetts. The family did not arrive to the United States equipped with knowledge of the English language, but by the time Dzhokhar enrolled at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School in 2007, he barely even retained his accent.
¹⁸
He seemed to seamlessly integrate into the school’s culture, both academically and athletically. As a novice, he joined the school’s wrestling team, quickly gaining ranks within the team and being elected captain. Upon his graduation in 2011, he won an academic scholarship for college. Accounts from his classmates, teachers, and coaches reveal that Dzhokhar was quite popular, yet despite having numerous friends, no one really knew about his personal life. No members of his family ever showed up to any of his matches, and when he was asked about his past, he deflected questioning by simply stating he was Chechen and had lived in Russia.
¹⁹

Like his younger brother, Tamerlan appeared to initially assimilate into the United States well. Shortly after arriving, he registered with USA Boxing, the organization that runs amateur boxing in the United States. After winning a fight in a local boxing tournament, Tamerlan reportedly told the
Lowell Sun
newspaper in Massachusetts that he liked the United States because it offered more job opportunities than Russia did.
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In 2008, Tamerlan apparently became incredibly involved in religion under the possible influence of a family friend, a change that caused some friction in the household. According to a
New York Times
article, Dzhokhar was “irritated” by his brother’s newfound devotion; nonetheless, he still looked up to him as his older, wiser brother, especially when their father returned to Russia. A year later, a photograph of Tamerlan training appeared for a university magazine story; the caption, a quote from Tamerlan, read: “I don’t have one American friend. I don’t understand them.”
²¹
According to Cambridge police department records, that same year, he was also arrested for allegedly assaulting his girlfriend. In the years following, he married Katherine Russell and cared for their toddler, while Katherine worked as a home health aid. Starting in 2011, their mother, Zubeidat, also became more devout, and Tamerlan began to pray five times a day. Both were reportedly influenced by a family friend named “Misha” to become more religious.
²²
According to an article published on
Huffington Post
, a client of Zubeidat reported that during one of her services, Zubeidat began quoting a conspiracy theory, which she said her son also believed, that 9/11 was staged by the U.S. government as a way to convince people to hate Muslims.
²³

Tamerlan’s history became even more concerning when in early 2011, Russia asked the FBI to look into Tamerlan’s activities. As reported by
CNN
, “‘The request stated that it was based on information that he was a follower of radical Islam and a strong believer, and that he has changed drastically since 2010 as he prepared to leave the United States for travel to the country’s region to join unspecified underground groups,’ the FBI said in a statement.”
²⁴
But by the summer of 2011, the FBI had concluded that no terrorism activity could be found, so in 2012, Tamerlan left for Russia. It is unclear what Tamerlan did while in Russia, though some have speculated he used the time to be instructed by Chechen rebels. Six months later, Tamerlan returned to the United States, but it remains uncertain whether he made other trips to Russia. Soon after his arrival back in the States, Tamerlan created a YouTube channel featuring videos with footage of the Imarat Kavkaz group, “the most potent militant Islamist group in the north Caucasus, which includes Chechnya and Dagestan,” according to CNN.
²⁵
Another video showcases jihadist leader Abu Dujana, who had ties to Imarat Kavkaz and was killed by Russian security services. Tamerlan also submitted an application for U.S. citizenship on September 5, 2012, prompting further investigation by federal law enforcement agencies in 2013. The Islamic Society of Boston reported that during the same time frame, Tamerlan vocally disrupted a preacher’s sermons twice, challenging the preacher’s convictions. After the second interruption, leaders of the mosque told Tamerlan he was not allowed to attend if he continued to interject during sermons. Tamerlan chose to remain quiet.

Meanwhile, Tamerlan’s brother, Dzhokhar, graduated from the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School and began college at the University of Massachusetts in 2011. During his freshman year, he started a Twitter account, tweeting statements that “sometimes revealed a young man more troubled and blunt-spoken than he seemed in person,” according to an article published in the
New York Times
.
²⁶
Though on September 11, 2012, he was granted American citizenship and appeared happy about it, “the previous March, he had written ‘a decade in america already, I want out,’ followed in April by ‘how I miss my homeland #dagestan #chechnya.’”
²⁷
Although Dzhokhar did not appear to be as outwardly devout as his brother,
CBC News
did find a social networking site page where he lists Islam as his worldview and has several videos about Islam.
²⁸
Thus, despite an outward appearance of being able to fit into American society, Dzhokhar seemed to harbor feelings of anger and isolation. According to Jean-François Ratelle, who studies Chechen radicalism and lived in the Republic of Dagestan to conduct research, “the brothers seemed to be not well integrated into American society, especially Tamerlan. Often, he said, young people turn to radical Islam to find answers or a society and peer network that accepts them.”
²⁹

But the Boston Marathon bombings are not representative of the first time in U.S. history when immigrants have struggled to assimilate into American culture. Edward Chang, a professor of Asian American studies at the University of California, Riverside, immigrated to Los Angeles, California, in 1974. Settling in Koreatown, he came with his family in hope of obtaining the American Dream. He was there to witness the 1992 riots that ensued, following the release of the four Los Angeles Police Department officers who beat Rodney King. Yet that was not the only event that could have fueled the riots. On March 16, 1991, a fifteen-year-old girl named Latasha Harlins was shot and killed by Soon Ja Du, who accused Harlins of attempting to steal a bottle of orange juice from her store. Though Du was convicted of voluntary manslaughter, she was able to walk away with probation after posting a $250,000 bail.
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As Angela Oh, the spokesperson for the Korean community during the riots, told National Public Radio, “The visual was a woman walking out of court having just completed a case in which a teenager has been shot and killed, right? So the ire was really intense at that moment. . . . My belief is that that was the spark.”
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During the riots, fires destroyed a significant portion of Los Angeles; however, Koreatown was hit hard as a result of poor black-Korean relations. Many Koreans were killed, and their businesses and homes were diminished to nothing. Chang said the riots marked a turning point for many Koreans, who realized the inherent problems in having isolated themselves. In fact, he told NPR, “Prior to 1992, Korean immigrants considered themselves Korean. . . . But after 1992, they began to call themselves Korean-Americans.”
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As a result, many Koreans became more active members of the community, attempting to lessen discrimination and embrace multiculturalism. Businessman Chris Lee also said, “I think we are much more accepting, which I think is a first step toward becoming assimilated into this country.”
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Clearly, what happened in Koreatown is another example of how vital proper assimilation is.

NOTES

1. Stephanie Hanes, “Immigration: Assimilation and the Measure of an American,”
Christian Science Monitor
, July 7, 2013,
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2013/0707/Immigration-Assimilation-and-the-measure-of-an-American
(accessed July 24, 2013).

2. Hanes, “Immigration: Assimilation and the Measure of an American.”

3. Hanes, “Immigration: Assimilation and the Measure of an American.”

4. Susan K. Brown and Frank D. Bean, “Assimilation Models, Old and New: Explaining a Long-Term Process,” Migration Information Source, October 2006,
http://www.migrationinformation.org/feature/display.cfm?id=442
(accessed July 24, 2013).

5. Hanes, “Immigration: Assimilation and the Measure of an American.”