LIFE IN AMERICA

Diverse and Varied. No country on earth has a population as diverse and a culture as varied as the United States. It is this very diversity that makes American life as complicated as it is. On the one hand, the United States is a nation. On the other hand, even after four centuries, that nation is still a great experiment. The United States occupies a continent and has many varied regions. Over the course of several centuries, immigrants from all over the world came to the United States and brought their own cultures and traditions. The tradition of immigration continues today, creating vital new American communities. The blending of these traditions gives the United States its great strength as a nation. The same mixture creates challenges and problems. Worldwide Influences. American culture, surely one of the richest and most varied in the world. America has soaked up influences from all other cultures, but created something distinctly American. American culture is a complicated subject. America is urban, rural, industrial, agricultural and suburban. American communities take all shapes and sizes. To live successfully in America, you need to know how to find a place to live, settle into it, maintain it, and become part of the community,

The American educational system can be one of the best in the world, but only if you make sure you and your children get the most out of it. The United States really has several systems, at different levels, from public elementary and secondary schools through universities and colleges of every variety. Trade and technical schools fill important needs. American educational resources are impressive, even if the delivery of educational services is haphazard.

America is a nation on the move, its highways filled with cars and trucks whizzing by in all directions. Americans move in cars, eat in cars, worship in cars, make love in cars. They spend a great deal of time, attention, money and love on their cars. While many other transportation networks operate in the United States, the personal passenger car is king.

America Likes Business. Nowhere in the world is business more respected than in the United States. Despite government intervention and an ingrained bureaucracy, free enterprise in the United States is alive and well. The right to start a business is one of the most cherished rights in the United States. Though most new businesses fail, liberal bankruptcy laws allow entrepreneurs to keep trying. Even the tax system favors people who are self-employed.

Government in America is large perhaps too large. Some Americans believe that all social concerns can be treated and solved by the government, while others see the government as a vested interest with no function but to perpetuate itself. Whatever your view, in the United States you'll have to deal with government at many levels. If you want to add an addition to your home, you'll need a permit from the local town or city government. You'll get your driver's license from the state government, or a small business loan from the federal government. And, of course, you'll pay taxes to many levels of government.

The United States offers the newcomer more economic flexibility than any other country. This is not to say that making a living in the United States is easy. It is not. It can be very difficult to find a job in the United States, especially for someone who doesn't speak English well. American workplace customs can also be difficult to learn and understand. What is true about the American economy is that it is so large, so changeable, that an ambitious person can always find some way to make money often a great deal of it.

The United States has many advantages to offer the newcomer, but a stable, affordable health care system is not one of them. The phrase health care crisis is perhaps too mild. Costs are skyrocketing, lawsuits proliferating. Special interest groups aggravate the problems. Racism, poverty, drug abuse and AIDS make matters worse. Significant portions of the population can no longer afford adequate health insurance. As a result, to get good health care in the United States you have to know what you're doing. You just can't afford not to be fully informed, since health care is the one area where the American system can do you the most damage.

More people immigrate to the United States than to all other countries combined. Since America is so popular, the immigration apparatus is swamped from the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to the local courts. The bureaucracy is complicated. To make matters worse, the law, and the administrative regulations that implement the law, are always changing. Few people understand the law. The INS is understaffed, has underpaid employees, and has a reputation for being slow and impersonal. Given the enormous number of applications the INS has to process, and the prevalence of fraud, their lack of warmth is understandable. You'll have to learn to play by their rules. In major cities such as New York and Los Angeles, you may have to wait several hours just to get into the federal building because of security checks. Anyone visiting an INS office should go early in the morning and expect to spend the entire day.