Would organized immigrant communities enhance or hurt the interests of American society?

The "African Voice" exists for about 6 months and represents a community of about 10,000 immigrants from Kenya, Africa. "La Presencia Latina" exists for 11/2 years and represents over 17,000 Hispanic immigrants living in Johnson County. "Voice of New Americans" exists for 4 years and is addressed to about 3000 immigrants from the former Soviet Union living in the Kansas City area as well to the American society at large. Because this newspaper covers many questions of interest for ex-soviet immigrants, about 375,000 of who are living in the US, the newspaper slowly grew to become national. The newspaper has a web site under construction. Almost all English articles are already represented on this site. Pictures for the English section and articles in Russian are in the process of being included on the site. "Voice of New Americans" is published by non-for-profit organization RUS Publishing, Inc. All work is done by volunteers; not a single paid position exists.

"African Voice" and "La Presencia Latina" are published by Tri-County Newspapers, Inc. and are also struggling to survive, but both newspapers receive increasing attention and gradually collect more and more ads that support their existence. While "African Voice" is published once every two months, "La Presencia Latina" is ready to be published bimonthly.

There exist local Chinese, Korean, Indian, Japanese, Vietnamese, and many other small communities of immigrants from many countries around the globe. Immigrants have much in common:

Language. All immigrants need to learn English regardless if they want to or not. However, the way they are taught is very ineffective because ESL is taught in English, not in their native languages.

Job training. All immigrants, skilled or not, need to learn traditions and practices existing in American companies. All unskilled immigrants need training before they can merge into the labor market. Even trained professionals like engineers, medical doctors, lawyers, etc. need training. For some of them, training and certification is required by law before they can get licenses for practice.

Immigrants do not take jobs away from American citizens. An absence of a labor force resulted that almost all of the consumer electronics industry has moved out of the country. For instance, all companies that manufacture TV sets belong to foreign owners. The same can be said about the steel industry that is almost extinct in the US. The construction, food, agriculture, and almost all other industries have a shortage of blue-collar and entry-level workers. However, in equal circumstances, immigrants are hired last and are fired or laid off first.

Culture. All immigrants bring their culture with them and difficultly accept American culture because of a language barrier. Because of this, and for other reasons, immigrants are deeply divided from American general society. Even inside their communities, they are divided into groups established by family roots, years in the US, level of income, etc.

Religions. Immigrants represent all of the world's religions. The main issue now is interfaith marriages. It is a common issue for American society. All immigrants need help from American society to integrate into it. On the other hand, all immigrants help American Society by filling low-level low-paid jobs.

Moreover, immigrants even help and enhance the American economy. According to Reader's Digest March 2002 issue, immigrants are:

20% of all medical doctors

22.7% of all Ph.D.s

81% of all farmhands

10.7% of self-employed

26% of US patents are created by foreign-born people

The "Voice of New Americans" exists for 4 years, "La Presencia Latina" for 11/2 years, "African Voice" for 1/2 years. All of them are free for readers and exist on revenue from advertisement.

While those newspapers are currently informational sources about their communities, their main purpose should be helping build organized communities and integrating with American society at large. This will be of great mutual benefit. Not only will the life of immigrants be much easier, but American society will gain from this as well. Immigrants can help solve many problems that now exist because they bring rich experiences from around the globe. Numerous highly experienced educators, engineers, scientists, medical doctors, attorneys, and representatives of almost all professions, who for many years work as salesmen, custodians, and in many similar occupations, can enhance American life.

All contemporary immigrants, as did the immigrants of previous generations, come to America for a better life, to share the advantages of being citizens of a free country, and come with love. Numerous immigrant small businesses open their doors with slogans "With love from Russia," "With love from India," or whatever country they are from. However, love should be mutual. Unfortunately, in many cases, this love is not shared.