He sadly tells his audience that he has "moved away from the periphery and closer to the center of American life, [he] has become white at the interior” (Liu 1). As a young Chinese boy growing up in America, he was taught that the path to assimilation was to abandon the language, culture, and traditions of his ancestors, and his essay is a remorseful reflection on the consequences of his sacrifice. Even though he has given so much, despite everything he has done to “become white,” he will always be an outsider – race and skin color can never be the unifying factor of a community. Eric Liu goes on to explain that “the assimilist is a traitor to his species, to his class, to his own family” (Liu 2). Why does it have to be this way? The “word” (assimilator) need not be negative, if only assimilation meant adapting to an ideology rather than the culture of a race. If this were the true meaning of assimilation, the idea that to assimilate is to betray would be eradicated. The current method of naturalization into American culture is unacceptable: the only thing that will unite Americans will be a common goal of promoting good values ​​and hard work within the Union.