Cole Nicosia
There is currently an intense and on going debate between what Americans should do with immigrants and other sub cultures. Multiculturalists believe that immigrants can have two identities and do not have to call themselves Americans and live only within American culture. Assimilationists believe that all immigrant cultures need to come together to form one nation’s culture in which you only participate. Two Yale students, Trevor Wagner and Laura Marcus, participated in this on going debate each explaining why they are right. Trevor Wagner addresses the pro side of the debate and Laura Marcus addresses the con. Trevor Wagner believes that America is changing because of immigrants not appreciating and understanding American values and claims that immigrants need to be assimilated for America to be its best. In contrast, Laura Marcus believes that a little assimilation is good but claims that you can have two identities and still be American and practice your other culture. After analyzing the students’ facts, support, and tone, it becomes clear that Trevor Wagner’s speech was more superior.

Support is essential in a persuasive argument. Depending on how you support yourself in your argument will greatly impact the audiences’ point of view in what you are saying. In the pro argument, Wagner does this with precision. In the argument, he supports his claims with great detail, and also provides possible scenarios of consequences if we don’t take his side. On the other hand, Marcus supports her claims using manly her opinions and self-experiences creating a weaker argument. Wagner indicated that immigrants need to adapt to American public mores and stated, “If we do not force immigrants to accept the superiority of our public mores, then we weaken them by allowing the rise of a large class of voters who have values that directly contradict those of the American republic.” This provides good support for his position because he’s saying something that can definitely happen. When people become uneducated of their government, they will be taken advantage of, thus weakening our nation and repeating other instances where this happened in history. On the other hand, Marcus’ argument supports her claim that immigrants want to have more than one identity by stating ,” They come with the baggage of their home country and often want to cling to them … But most times they are happy to adopt an American identity alongside it.” She is supporting her claim these immigrants want to cling to their home country but are happy to get another identity. Further, that all Immigrants feel the same way. When her audience hears this oversimplification of how these immigrants feel, they believe that she is not only giving poor support, but she creates an oversimplification of the way immigrants feel when coming to America and uses no true evidence to back it up. We know she feels like this because she speaks of what immigrants do as if they all do the same thing, when in reality they don’t. Some immigrants could have had it rough in their home countries and are looking forward to adopting American customs. This weakens her argument because she is not giving in depth support in what she is saying. So basically, she is speaking her opinions of what immigrants do and states all immigrants want this or that, when in reality all immigrants may not want the same things she does. She attempts to create support of her claim after using things of what she been through with her life and her opinion on what other immigrants believed. The pro argument presented not only goes into depth, but he doesn’t include only his opinions and untruthful support to back him up. He creates this possible and convincing scenario that; if we don’t assimilate the nation can become weak. In contrast, the con side is just simply trying to win over people opinions by only using her opinion, and doesn’t include anything else to make her argument side actually