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anybody that immigrates as a small child and grows up here and finishes public school will be very likely to be fully adapted.
people that didnt grow up here will never fully assimilate.
I disagree. I live in a very diversified area, and know "anchor babies" that are not well-integrated even though they speak English with either no accent or with a faint accent, as they grew up in homes where, depending on the case, the parents did not care to learn English or continued only the traditions of their former culture and did not adopt any American traditions (except perhaps for Thanksgiving, just for the turkey and the trimmings, etc.). They came only to prosper financially, and perhaps to have larger families or to be able to breathe. Their families sometimes forbid them to have close friends who are Americans, let alone marry an American.
On the other hand, I also know refugees who came over, who have integrated very well into American society. Their children are often top students in school and then they also succeed at work. It doesn't matter at all if they have an accent, just that they understand and speak English at home, school and work.
I could cite the home countries that I feel are most well-assimilated, but I have decided I would prefer not to do so, because I don't want to offend anyone.
Last edited by SFBayBoomer; 10-03-2015 at 07:37 PM..
It's funny. I moved temporarily to Ohio last Spring to work and one thing I noticed is that every job I would expect to see a Mexican doing, whether in the restaurant industry or heavy labor, a White American person is doing. Sometimes a Black American.
Ohio isn't the South or the West. Midwest is primarily a Black and White affair. It is also a cultural wasteland; a good bit of the Whites are European immigrants and a good bit of the Blacks are descendants of refugees from the old South, pre sixties. The pecking order is that the Whites, while immigrants themselves, once established didn't particularly care for the Southern Blacks that were moving in. After a few generations everyone was born there and they could somewhat get along.
Hispanics in the Midwest, it isn't like Texas, California, Georgia or Florida, and it probably never will be. The only viable reason to stay there is because the rent is cheap and you can get a better quality of life for a fraction of what you'd pay in New York. Columbus is good. Those other cities, it really depends on the situation.
I think any native-born European-American would gladly accept anyone who works hard, is polite and considerate to others, tries to fit in with the majority (race, culture) of the community, and keeps his/her residence well-maintained.
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Interestingly enough the black American middle class is "assimilated" more than any immigrant, and yet don't always experience this nirvana that you describe.
The way people perceive themselves as being, and the way that they actually are is not the same. I am often amused when many whites enter a room with middle class blacks, and the obvious unease that they feel.
In Europe is almost impossible to assimilate inmigrants muslims .
They do not want.
Europe doesn't do a good job in assimilating its immigrants, EVEN those from other parts of Europe. Look at all the angst in the UK about Eastern European immigrants!
Decades of work with foreign service types and those under foreign service cover working all over the globe. More recently with such types retired into American enclaves abroad. The exceptions I know of are among those who married a local and were thus pulled out of an ex-pat orbit and into the native-born world. In any case, the notion that Americans behave in any substantially different way from immigrants to America when they are plunged into a foreign culture is just a lot of home-team bias.
Do Americans resident in the Caribbean assimilate? I think not! This is why they aren't liked in the USVI. Not only do they not assimilate, but they often behave like a colonizing force.
Sad to say, but assimilation are in the order of skin color.
From light to dark..
Did it ever dawn on you that this is because the darker an immigrant is, the more bias they encounter? And yet the immigrant is blamed! Even immigrants from the SAME country have different experiences. A comparison of black and white Cubans being appropriate.
Failure to provide translators is just plain arrogant. Restricting full participation in society to hearing English-speakers is an abomination of anti-Americanism.
While I am in favor of immigrants retaining their cultures, and identities, being an immigrant myself, I resent an entitlement attitude which demands that a translator MUST be provided.
Should an immigrant speaking an obscure language demand this? And why should an immigrant speaking a popular language, like Spanish, feel more entitled than some one speaking an obscure indigenous language?
There are certain basics that all of us resident in the USA must adhere to, and the most essential is developing a command of English, speaking, reading, and writing it. Were I an immigrant to Mexico I certainly wouldn't feel entitled to an English language translator. I would be GRATEFUL if one was provided. After all the onus would be on ME as an immigrant to that nation to learn Spanish.
I think people from asia tend to have a drive to edcuate themselves and become Americanized by the second generation I have thi and mexican family 2nd cousins and they are americanized but some cultures openly refuse to join in. I guess part of that could be a fear of losing there culture.This current group in the news today are young adult men as well as others but i am afraid this is political and could lead to war someday,Hope Not" but the last time something political like this happened the cherokee and other native tribes did not fare so well,although they agreed to assimilate that cry fell on def ears.
, the children of African immigrants to a black area of Brooklyn
What does "assimilated" even really mean?
I agree that definitions of assimilation vary.
Does it mean.
1. Complete eradication of one's culture, and identity, and assimilation into a so called mainstream culture? The only problem is which "American" culture are we talking about? I once met a young Egyptian, who I mistook for a Puerto Rican. The kid was over joyed when I said so. Obviously his assimilation was into that of a NY raised Puerto Rican.
2. It can also mean acquiring the means to economically integrate, while still maintaining the basics of one's culture. So the immigrant acquires the language, educational credential, experience, and knowledge of how the "system" operates in order to obtain occupational upward mobility.
They still retain their ethnic/national identity and other aspects of their culture. So while there is some cultural shifting, they don't become fully American, and sometimes aren't even sure that they want their kids to be. A prime example of this will be Asian Indians. They definitely have achieved occupational success on the whole, yet they maintain a very highly defined "Indian" identity, and work very hard to ensure that their kids do the same.
Now for black and Hispanic immigrants, the issue of assimilation is often "problematic". They migrated to the USA to achieve a better life, so clearly don't wish to be trapped in the quagmire that many of the less educated native minorities find themselves in. So they may retain their ethnic identities as they believe that this would actually facilitate upward mobility.
So the kid of the African immigrant will ne discouraged from mixing with AAs, unless those blacks are very upwardly mobile. Yet their blackness will prevent them from assimilating into the white world. In addition, coming from former colonies, there is often baggage in terms of being forced to become deracinated.
But these immigrants will definitely aim to achieve full competency in English, acquire the academic and other qualifications to achieve occupational success, and will go the extra mile to do what it takes to succeed.
Some white Americans think that assimilation means being 100% integrated into some mythic notion of what an American is. As an immigrant to NYC, even among whites, I see different models of what being an American is. The preppy from Westchester often has no more in common with the blue collar person from Long Island than I do.
From the responses, it seems to equate with one's ability to blend into and become apart of "American whiteness." Mexicans blend just as quickly as East and South Asians. The difference is that for every Mexican that assimilates, three more arrive as brand new immigrants, legal or otherwise. It ends up appearing as if non-Cuban Latinos don't assimilate into the broader white culture, even though most do after two-ish generations.
Africans are a large and varied group from Nigerians to Somalis to South Africans and Sudanese. Most of these immigrants "assimilate" but because they are black in appearance, little thought is given to their cohesion within American culture. Once the children no longer speak Igbo, Wolof, Xhosa and Yoruba, they just become educated black people and aren't seen as an extension of whiteness the way Asians are.
Asians are not viewed as a competitive threat and the women often marry white males after the 1st generation. WASPS' desire to view themselves as hard working, tough, smart (basically any positive trait they assign to themselves and believe isn't possessed by the blacks and browns) etc., leads them to identifying with Asians. WASPS think that Asians act like WASPS, which is why they are successful. Basically, a dog whistle to blacks and browns that if "you act like us, you'd get ahead." Not realizing that Asians REFUSAL to act like WASPS is why they get ahead. A typical misunderstanding of culture. Attempting to appropriate the positives of someone else's culture as your own.
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