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Matt Thura
Ms. O’ Connor
English 11 AP
19 November 2015
Painting the Future of America
America is arguably one of the greatest nations of all time. Ever since its creation, it has
been a unique place built on the robust ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This
pursuit of happiness is what created America in the first place, as the founding fathers and
optimistic colonists fought for their beliefs in independence against the antagonistic British. The
revolution allowed many great intellectuals to emerge from the crowds and share their views
about the future of this prodigious nation. One of these intellectuals was Thomas Paine, a
pamphleteer who influenced the thoughts of the entire nation solely by his literary skills. His
book Rights of Man conveys his perspective on America, and how “people from different
nations” can live in “cordial unison” by “the simple operation of constructing government on the
principles of society and the rights of man.” It was the views of Thomas Paine and other
revolutionaries that made people aspire for a country where this unison between diverse people
can happen. However, times are changing and the idealistic outlooks from two centuries ago are
not tangible today. Thomas Paine’s characterization of America stands true to the extent that
America is still a melting pot of different cultures, but stands false in the current effects the
government has on rich, poor, and different ethnic people .
Thomas Paine’s characterization of America as a melting pot of diverse people still holds
true today. In fact, America is much more diverse than it was in the 1790’s. Timothy Kane, an
economist and research fellow with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, further
validates the current diversity. In issue 1401 of his publication, he states that “even today, over

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one million foreigners migrate to the US legally and permanently every year — a greater amount
than any other country on Earth” (Kane). Immigration is an important source of America’s
diversity, proving that immigrants want to be in this country. The fact that the number of
immigrants is greater than any other country on Earth says a lot about how America maintains a
government subject to the correct principles and the natural rights of man. The government still
stands true to the level of standards that the founding fathers made. The incoming immigrants are
not the only people to recognize and praise the new opportunities available in America. The
Stanford publication further explores that “84% of our experts think immigration is a good thing
for the United States, and 30 of 38 [79% of experts] think the level of legal immigration should
be increased,” showing that the “results of the survey show a much deeper level of consensus on
immigration [among experts] than one might expect” (Kane). Modern-day experts support
immigration and diversity just like the founding fathers, because of the potential benefits they
have on society in the U.S. Even though immigrants may have different religions or speak
another language, they can stimulate the economy by being large sources of labor who spend
money, which stimulates the economy even further. An instance of this is the Korean American
population in Los Angeles, who are “associated with hopes, dreams, and aspirations” (Abelmann
and Lie). Adding more ingredients into the melting pot can turn an ordinary stew into a five star
dish. Unfortunately, the recipe does not always quite turn out as it was planned.
Although America is made up of different ethnic groups like Thomas Paine stated, the
current oppression of the poor is unlike anything he imagined for this nation. Paine viewed the
unified government of his time capable of creating a place where “the poor are not oppressed, the
rich are not privileged.” However, the results are the exact opposite of what he expected.
Timothy Smeeding is a professor at Syracuse University who has done research about poverty
rates in the United States. He states that the relative poverty rate of all persons is “17.0 percent in

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the United States, with an average rate of 10.3 percent across the eleven countries,” while even
“Canadian and British poverty are both about 12 percent and are, therefore, far below the U.S.
levels” (Smeeding). Although these numbers were calculated about eight years ago, any number
around seventeen percent is too large of a number. Canada and Britain’s lower poverty rates also
show that America’s rate is not a case of being a large country. As the saying goes, with money
comes power, and with power comes responsibility, but the wealthy men and women of America
have not been very responsible in handling this case. Their response to the rate really exemplifies
the oppression of the poor, because “of the countries listed, the United States devotes by far the
smallest share of its resources to antipoverty income transfer programs” (Smeeding). The rich are
acting privileged and insensitive to the poor, which was not how Paine and other revolutionaries
characterized America. The rich are destroying the union for all types of people that the United
States once stood for. In William Epstein’s book (from the University of Wisconsin Press) about
American welfare, there is “an absolute decline in living standards among some socioeconomic
groups, relative inequality… competition over scarce resources… and rising social tensions”
(Epstein). There is nothing “cordial” about the poor’s situation, and the conditions that Epstein
describes is a crutch in the development of the United States. If oppression was gone, then
America would be one step closer to the great society that Thomas Paine once envisioned.
Although varying ethnic groups currently exist, the separation between them is also
distancing America away from Thomas Paine’s visions of the nation. William Epstein’s book
also contains information about differences economically between ethnic groups. Epstein
describes how “large economic disparities persist among blacks, Hispanics, and whites with
poverty rates in 1993 of 33 percent, 31 percent, and 12 percent respectively” (Epstein). While the
author acknowledges that official statistics may be exaggerated, this is still a very large gap
between whites and other groups. This statistic also suggests that the “other” ethnic groups

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mainly fall into the bottom of the social rankings, where all the oppression and inequalities for
the poor exist. Falling to the bottom of the melting pot creates other problems to Paine’s view of
the future. Paine suggested from the start that there will be “nothing to render them wretched,
there is nothing to engender riots and tumults.” However, the separation of whites, blacks, and
other ethnic groups often creates horrible riots and disorderly behavior.
A famous case of conflicts to exhibit the struggle between rich and poor classes of
different ethnicities was the L.A. riots of 1992. The authors Nancy Abelmann and John Lie wrote
an entire book (published by the Harvard University press) about the three different groups in the
1992 incident: the whites, blacks, and Korean Americans. Abelmann and Lie state that an
African American was afflicted by an “episode of police brutality,” which led to “civil
disobedience, rioting, looting” that made Korean Americans in Los Angeles “riot victims”
(Abelmann and Lie). This incident exemplifies a horrific situation where different ethnic groups
violently attacked one other. Blacks were incredibly frustrated by the police brutality, making the
poverty that so many of them faced even worse. Koreans were also frustrated by all the rioting
caused by blacks, making them lose money that they desperately need. It was more than just a
riot, but rather a rebellion, an “effort by many people to change the government of a country by
the use of protest or violence” (Merriam-Webster). This was a controlled rebellion in which
lower class ethnic groups were rebelling and rioting against the upper class whites. The melting
pot needs to be stirred whenever different ingredients are added, in order to be uniform
throughout. If the “cordial unison” of America is not equal throughout, it will never reach a state
of unity.
Thomas Paine’s characterization of America still stands true to a certain extent, but
doesn’t hold to be entirely true today. While there are many different people from different
nations immigrating into the United States, communities in the United States have not really

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unified. The prospect of growth and wellness of life that is so well sought out for is hard to find
when inequality exists. The equality throughout these different people must be addressed in order
to preserve the peace and avoid rioting across America. Otherwise, incidents like the Los
Angeles riots could become commonplace. If immigrants are continually put into the poor and
lower class, America will only become more unpredictable and have more instability. In order to
complete the nation that our founding fathers started, the separating ends between ethnicities
need to be connected.

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Works Cited
Abelmann, Nancy, and John Lie. Blue Dreams: Korean Americans and the Los Angeles Riots.
Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1995. Web. <https://books.google.com/
books?hl=en&lr=&id=BawoT007lesC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=unity+riots+america&ots=
WPZ9gRF7af&sig=Oiblpqc5wYlBKxaNWebg0NHqzas#v=onepage&q&f=false>.
Epstein, William. Welfare in America: How Social Science Fails the Poor. Wisconsin: The
University of Wisconsin Press, 1997. Web. <https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=
&id=J1ZhPTFM-K4C&oi=fnd&pg=PP8&dq=poor+oppression+america&ots=09mNaaz-
K2&sig=oCv2jCwudPQLdPiBBzusj87qHHU#v=onepage&q&f=false>.
Kane, Timothy. “American Immigration in the 21st Century.” Peregrine! 1. 1401 (2014): n. pag.
Hoover Institution. Web. 12 Nov. 2015. <http://www.hoover.org/research/peregrine-
american-immigration-21st-century>.
“Rebellion.” Merriam Webster. An Encyclopaedia Britannica Company, 2015. Web. 13 Nov.
2015. <http://www.merriam-webster.com/>.
Smeeding, Timothy. “Poor People in Rich Nations: The United States in Comparative
Perspective.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 20. 1 (2006): 75-78. Maxwell School,
Syracuse University. Web. 13 Nov. 2015. <http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/
089533006776526094>.