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Wouldn't the new cultural norms you reference imply sameness eventually though?
Sameness isn't boring (not saying that you said it was) if the sameness is comprised of many different cultures' contributions
Not really. It's not like we all eat Mexican food every night or all use the same lingo or whatever. The U.S. is an extraordinarily diverse place, so it's thousands of little cultural attributes integrating and splintering.
I'm missing your point. I never said any immigrants have had it easy in this country.
What happened to those irish, germans, polish, dutch etc? They all became "Americans". Not hyphenated versions. Today we are all labeled either white or some hyphenated american, that doesn't sound like a melting pot to me.
Well, we've come a long way thanks to civil rights and such, and I think we're moving ever closer to that everyday. The reality is that Europeans, once they lose the accent after a generation, kind of look alike so it's far easier to assimilate with one another. That's not as true for Asians or Africans or Hispanics who come here.
I'm not sure it's a good thing, either, to lose customs and sense of identity. Maybe hyphenating is good. I have eastern European relatives who came over generations ago and still think of themselves primarily from that cultural heritage - meaning they essentially hyphenate themselves.
If we had Assimilation rather than Multiculturalism, we would be a melting pot.
We used to be a melting pot until the govt started throwing labels on every individual. I blame the govt. and the media. They seem to focus on what makes us different rather than the ways in which we are the same.
Huh? Stop being brainwashed by the politically correct lamestream media! It's a simple fact that when people look different from about 60% of the population, it takes longer for them to assimilate.
Prejudice, so you know for the future, is when you identify one group as being better than another based on an irrelevant factor.
Class dismissed.
It's pointless for me to discuss this with someone who doesn't know the definition of prejudice.
If we had Assimilation rather than Multiculturalism, we would be a melting pot.
We used to be a melting pot until the govt started throwing labels on every individual. I blame the govt. and the media. They seem to focus on what makes us different rather than the ways in which we are the same.
Assimilation always fails. Humans identify themselves with likewise thinkers or groups.
Look at the history of Native Americans. When total annihilation failed the European descendants of the immigrants who came here tried to force assimilation on all of the Indigenous people here in North American. Every action failed. Over the course of several hundred years many different approaches were tried. Even during my dad's youth many children were taken from their homes, their parents, and their tribes to be shipped off to Christian boarding schools. During his generation it was not forced as it was in earlier generations. At least, not for him.
It was in those Christian boarding schools where the were badly beaten for speaking their native language; had their hair cut so they looked like little white kids. That was my dad's generation! The generation before my dad, Native children were taken from their parents and shipped off to these Christian boarding schools where traditional attire was forcibly replaced with White peoples' style of dress; they were beaten for speaking their languages; they weren't allowed to return home often for years. So as far as I'm concerned Christians can kiss off.
In the late 1950's many Native Americans were enticed off of their reservations and away from their tribes. They were encouraged by a federal policy to move to cities. Milwaukee, Seattle, San Francisco, Denver and other selected cities with the promise of jobs. Those who left for the cities found minimun wage jobs, horrendous housing conditions and they were often thousands of miles away from tribal and family support systems. The point of this program was assimilation. It was another effort of the U.S of America's failed Indian policies. The BIA or whoever was running that program tried to get my dad to move and he refused. Lots of NDNs were disconnected from their culture by this policy. Read Wilma Mankiller's biography and you'll see her family was one of the ones that moved to San Francisco.
While most of us NDN's do just fine in mainstream America, those who have been lucky enough to be raised around NDN's and NDN culture refuse to ever let go of that culture.
Assimilation by trying kill off another's culture never works. Assimilation works when one culture respects another culture and people go with the flow and let things be. Generally speaking, Whites and Christians seem to be the worst at trying to force everyone else to be like them. I don't know why. Just let it go. People would be okay if they would simply respect one anothers' culture.
It's pointless for me to discuss this with someone who doesn't know the definition of prejudice.
good day.
Why are you being so rude to me? I don't think you understand my point at all. Seriously. There's no prejudice in it at all. In fact, it would seem that your unscrupulous actions in this discourse are better reflective of its definition:
prej·u·dice –noun 1. an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason.
[quote=Bluefly;17729721]Well, we've come a long way thanks to civil rights and such, and I think we're moving ever closer to that everyday. The reality is that Europeans, once they lose the accent after a generation, kind of look alike so it's far easier to assimilate with one another. That's not as true for Asians or Africans or Hispanics who come here.
I'm not sure it's a good thing, either, to lose customs and sense of identity. Maybe hyphenating is good. I have eastern European relatives who came over generations ago and still think of themselves primarily from that cultural heritage - meaning they essentially hyphenate themselves.[/quote]
Well stated! I'd rep you again, but I have to 'spread it around'.
I think it goes against human nature. Humans have a natural tendency to group together with the like minded. In the past, we saw this with tribalism. Today we see it with politics, religion, regions where one lives (South, NE, PNW, ect.) race, culture and such. Often out of these groupings there are sub-groups.
Think of the identity crisis teen-agers go through when they are trying to hard to find themselves and where they fit in. Goth kids, gang-banger kids, christian kids, ect.
People group themselves, whether it's an identification with lifestyle: cowboy, rancer, farmer, hippie, punk rocker, born again Christian, Catholic, biker, or any combination of those and many other things. It's natural.
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