| The phrase 'Cablinasian' was coined by Tiger Woods, the US golf phenomenon, to describe his parentage - born as he was of an African-American father and a Thai mother. Tracing his roots, he defined himself innovatively as a Cablinasian - that is, a mixture of Caucasian, black, Indian and Thai blood. |
| Only in the United States would such a prominent figure take pride in his composite parentage, rather than attempting to disguise it. Among all the countries of the world that have welcomed immigrants, the United States stands out as the one where immigrants are the most likely to succeed and the one where they are least likely to assimilate into an identity known as an American WASP - the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. Once, the Anglo-Protestant culture was, according to the controversial social-scientist Samuel Huntington, central to the American national identity. No more. |
| Today, while the United States continues to be a 'melting pot' of disparate communities, it is an ethnic crucible from which flows not one recognizably identifiable stream of new Americans but droplets of ethically different citizens. Before 1965, the average number of immigrants permitted into the United States each year was about 300,000. The figure ballooned from 3.3 million during the 1960s, to 7 million during the 1970s and hit more than 9 million in the 1990s. Every border point and airport became an Ellis Island as immigrants poured in from Mexico, China, the Philippines and India, outstripping the previous sources of Italy, Germany, Canada and the UK. [EXTRACT] |
| Published in DAWN 9 Aug. 2005, and reprinted in WHEN BUSH COMES TO SHOVE & OTHER WRITINGS (2006). |
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