300 Million

 

I recently read a passage in my English text book Joining the Conversation that discusses the increase in the United states population. This passage details the increase of 20 million Americans in the last 20 years. Author Aida Aki claims that an annual birthrate of  about 1 percent accounts for 60 percent of this the other 40 percent is due to immigration. The major point I recognized in this piece is that assimilation of immigrants is an issue some people are concerned about. The concern Aki has is that with such large population migrating to the U.S. we will have a hard time living amongst one another being that English is not their first language. In many cases some communities don't speak English at all. "If we cant all communicate together with one language as Americans, its very difficult to see how we are going to have a cohesive society in the long term. That's a major problem that can result in the 'Balkanization' of the United States over the long term," says D'Agostino. D'Agostino believes that if immigrants keep coming in at this rate we as a country will experience divided cultural communities within the United States. My concern with the large immigration percentages is the job market and its growth. If its an issue to assimilate immigrants now, imagine a state where illegal foreign immigrants are not only undereducated but also impoverished. Poverty leads to increased crime rates due to unemployment. I believe that turning this situation into somewhat of a positive is a fairly simple solution. I'm aware that computers are the generation we live in, and as time goes on they will get more and more advanced which is amazing, but what I don't agree with is the jobs normally held by people are now being given to computers. Jobs that could at the very least give American families a decent living. My solution would be to exterminate these computer based, automated, self services and use real people with real lives and real financial situations. These jobs should be given to people so that more money is going into households thus more money being generated in the economy. I believe that if more jobs were given to immigrants along with federally financed English courses to teach them the language of the land will fix any issue Aki predicts, any issue preventable. Although I'm sure only God knows what the future national birthrate will bring, especially with sex being marketed at an all time high these days, but that's another topic.