“Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.”

Are we so satisfied with American society that we can see no room for improvement? Or might we welcome the gifts that immigrants bring, whether it’s a greater sense of community, a deeper spirituality, or simply unique foods, dance, and music?

Those were the ominous words of the “Borg” on the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation. The Borg were a race of machine-human hybrids bent on galactic domination. Their demands were simple: you either “assimilated” to their way of life, giving up everything unique about yourself, or you would be destroyed.

Those words came to my mind recently while listening to a National Public Radio report about immigrant assimilation. I cringe when I hear the word “assimilate” because, typically, the assumption made is that assimilation is good, while failure to properly assimilate is bad. Immigrants are great, but only when they learn to talk like us, act like us and dress like us. Only when they become truly “Americanized.” 

Talk of assimilation also quite often invokes the common argument that early European immigrants assimilated quickly while more recent immigrants hold onto their cultural ties. To this point I have to say that, if the first European immigrants to this country had truly assimilated, we’d all be living very much like the indigenous cultures the pilgrims encountered. It is also worth pointing out that, in many early Mennonite immigrant communities, German was the primary language spoken for generations. It was only after the two World Wars that the switch to English was made.

All the talk of assimilation completely ignores the positive ways in which immigrants shape our culture today. Are we so satisfied with American society that we can see no room for improvement? Or might we welcome the gifts that immigrants bring, whether it’s a greater sense of community, a deeper spirituality, or simply unique foods, dance, and music?   

We need look no further than the first chapter of Genesis to see God’s own love of diversity and variety. “Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.… great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind… living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind… God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good." (Genesis 1:11, 21, 24, 31)

Why do we hide our faces from seeing the beauty that God sees in the world? What are we afraid of? I expect that many calls for assimilation stem from a fear of change. Encounters with different people and different cultures challenge us to take a deeper look at the way we live and ask ourselves whether the choices we make benefit society at large and whether they are truly in line with Christian teachings. 

As we urge policymakers in Washington to reform our broken immigration system, we should urge them to craft policies which respect human dignity, address the root causes of migration and provide opportunities for family reunification, fair guest worker programs, and viable paths toward citizenship. Any legislation should recognize the valuable contributions immigrants have made – and continue to make – in American society.

Resistance is not futile. Resistance is key. We must resist the tendency within ourselves to be fearful of change and of the “other.” That fear keeps us from heeding Jesus’ call to radical love and radical hospitality. That fear keeps us from stepping out in faith and love to welcome people who look or act different from ourselves, but who nevertheless are our brothers and sisters in the Kingdom of God. And that fear keeps us from appreciating all of the wonderful ways God is working in this world and all of the beautiful – and beautifully different – people and cultures he has created.