There is a lamentably gushy, Panglossian tone to this essay. The whole thing reads like someone exclaiming: "Look at these nice Muslims I found!" - which accidentally makes them sound like a rarity. Even the phrase "whip smart" is a backhander of a compliment because it amounts to saying "inanimate object smart". (Would anyone feel flatt…
There is a lamentably gushy, Panglossian tone to this essay. The whole thing reads like someone exclaiming: "Look at these nice Muslims I found!" - which accidentally makes them sound like a rarity. Even the phrase "whip smart" is a backhander of a compliment because it amounts to saying "inanimate object smart". (Would anyone feel flattered to be told that they are "brick smart"?)
Such own goals blight not merely the article's style, but its content too. There are curious admissions, in which the author doesn't seem to grasp the implications of what he is saying. At one point he describes what follows when Mariam fails a college admissions test:
"I appealed to the dean of admissions, and they changed the way they review refugee kids’ standardized test scores, and she got in."
Translation: I moved the goalposts so that a failure could be turned into a success, without even having to re-take the test. Would this revelation make Mariam's own patients feel more - or less - confident about how qualified she is to treat their illnesses? After all, when Mariam "got in" to a class with a limited number of places, she would almost certainly have displaced a NON-refugee student who performed better than her. How is this grade-grubbing approach meant to make Americans feel better about the refugees in their workforce? (And, given that this was the very week in which the country's highest court ruled affirmative action in universities unconstitutional, the timing of this university lecturer's admission is awful.)
It gets better. In a peroration executed with a kind of flourish, the author tells us how the family will soon commemorate their long road to becoming US citizens:
"On July Fourth, the Al-Khafajis will celebrate their arrival in this country ... they’ll do what they always do on the Fourth. They’ll pile into the family’s Honda Odyssey and drive up to Buffalo ... There’s a Yemeni restaurant there that they like."
Translation: on the one day of the year when everyone around them is celebrating being American, these Arab refugees will plunge right back into Arab culture.
I have to commend anyone who uses the term "Panglossian tone"! I too found the essay superficial. I briefly helped an Afghani woman settling into our city, but I could tell you far more about her life in Afghanistan than the obvious they had to run for their lives. Americans think everyone is like them, they just speak a cute language and cling to quaint, outdated customs. It does not occur to most Americans that people from other cultures actually have different values and assumptions. Diversity is a double edged sword. In my community, we are welcoming both Muslims and Hindus ... because they love each other so much!
There is a lamentably gushy, Panglossian tone to this essay. The whole thing reads like someone exclaiming: "Look at these nice Muslims I found!" - which accidentally makes them sound like a rarity. Even the phrase "whip smart" is a backhander of a compliment because it amounts to saying "inanimate object smart". (Would anyone feel flattered to be told that they are "brick smart"?)
Such own goals blight not merely the article's style, but its content too. There are curious admissions, in which the author doesn't seem to grasp the implications of what he is saying. At one point he describes what follows when Mariam fails a college admissions test:
"I appealed to the dean of admissions, and they changed the way they review refugee kids’ standardized test scores, and she got in."
Translation: I moved the goalposts so that a failure could be turned into a success, without even having to re-take the test. Would this revelation make Mariam's own patients feel more - or less - confident about how qualified she is to treat their illnesses? After all, when Mariam "got in" to a class with a limited number of places, she would almost certainly have displaced a NON-refugee student who performed better than her. How is this grade-grubbing approach meant to make Americans feel better about the refugees in their workforce? (And, given that this was the very week in which the country's highest court ruled affirmative action in universities unconstitutional, the timing of this university lecturer's admission is awful.)
It gets better. In a peroration executed with a kind of flourish, the author tells us how the family will soon commemorate their long road to becoming US citizens:
"On July Fourth, the Al-Khafajis will celebrate their arrival in this country ... they’ll do what they always do on the Fourth. They’ll pile into the family’s Honda Odyssey and drive up to Buffalo ... There’s a Yemeni restaurant there that they like."
Translation: on the one day of the year when everyone around them is celebrating being American, these Arab refugees will plunge right back into Arab culture.
So much for integration.
I have to commend anyone who uses the term "Panglossian tone"! I too found the essay superficial. I briefly helped an Afghani woman settling into our city, but I could tell you far more about her life in Afghanistan than the obvious they had to run for their lives. Americans think everyone is like them, they just speak a cute language and cling to quaint, outdated customs. It does not occur to most Americans that people from other cultures actually have different values and assumptions. Diversity is a double edged sword. In my community, we are welcoming both Muslims and Hindus ... because they love each other so much!
would you feel better if they bar be qued some carrot dogs