|
Source: (consider it)
|
Thread: Assimilation: The Borg of Culture
|
lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
|
Posted
One point of contention, worldwide it seems, is how much and how fast an immigrant should acculturate.
Much of the cry ignores the perspective of time.
Immigrants move to a new city. They band together for mutual aid and because, often, the older residents of the city do not wish to intermingle. Over time, the new immigrants blend more with the locals, even though there will be concentrations in particular areas.
Perhaps one of the best examples of the process is New York City as its creation and development are both near enough in recorded events and long enough in time to more clearly observe this process.
An issue with our perceptions is that people tend to be extremely myopic, ignorant and impatient.
A friend of mine is from New York, his parents came immigrated there from China. His mother struggles with English and has likely elicited negative thoughts (at least) because of this. He, on the other hand, is pure New Yorker. Both in accent and attitude. This, in a compressed time frame, is how it works.
There is some retention, some assimilation. Older cities, like London, are more opaque in this regard as time has blurred some of the process. But it is still a matter of blending over time, not outright assimilation.
So, what think you? Assimilation: How fast, how much?
APologies for the disjointed nature of the OP, too many interruptions.
--------------------
I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
|
Posted
It's the 'should' that troubles me. I like London precisely because people haven't assimilated. I walk down the street and see an Orthodox Jew, a woman in a hijab, a Rasta, a business man in a suit, a down and dirty busker, some kids being stroppy and noisy. This is delightful because it is not homogeneous.
--------------------
I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
|
Posted
I agree w/ Q. There's no timeline-- it's going to be different for everyone, and dependent upon things like access to language instruction, kind mentors who will show you the ropes, and proximity to immigrant communities.
One of the problems I see in the US is we've developed a whole mythology about prior generations of "worthy immigrants" who assimilated the moment they arrived at Ellis Island that simply isn't true. I'd heard these stories constantly about my Danish grandfather-- how he learned the language right away, never looked back, fully assimilated. It wasn't until decades after his death through careful questioning that I learned that he'd lived and socialized almost entirely with other Danish immigrants, read Danish language newspapers, and spoke such broken and heavily accented English that my mother had trouble understanding what he was saying at times.
--------------------
"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Gwai
Shipmate
# 11076
|
Posted
Agreed that different people will do it at different speeds. Also, I think we need to carefully separate kinds of fitting into a culture that help--for instance if children born do not learn the language of the country they live in, perhaps among others, then I'd think that a sign of a problem--from joining it.
I have a grandmother who moved here from Britain, actually was sold, bizarrely, but anyway she came, and obviously language was not a trouble for her. Still, she has kept real parts of her culture. In fact, many of the lullabies I learned as a child, and that I sing to my children are British. I really value that and would be rather sad if I thought my children would never sing what is apparently named the Skye Boat song* to their children.
*Not as I had assumed Speed Bonnie Boat, so already we are changing the culture we got from my grandmother, who presumably knew the song's name
[ 03. June 2013, 19:13: Message edited by: Gwai ]
--------------------
A master of men was the Goodly Fere,
A mate of the wind and sea.
If they think they ha’ slain our Goodly Fere
They are fools eternally.
Posts: 11914 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
|
Posted
The other aspect of this, from a British perspective anyway, is what exactly is someone meant to be assimilating to? It suggests that there is a homogeneous culture, to which I can gradually (or quickly) adapt. Is there?
I would say that British society is full of many sub-cultures, which are very different from each other. Should a new immigrant become like the business man in a suit, or the busker, who plays music on the Tube? We are all British, but we are not like each other.
--------------------
I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
The Silent Acolyte
Shipmate
# 1158
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
So, what think you? Assimilation: How fast...?
By the third generation seems to be the rough standard in the USA.
The Japanese provide a good linguistic example: Issei, Nisei, Sansei.
Nobody really knows the words for what comes after that.
Posts: 7462 | From: The New World | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:
By the third generation seems to be the rough standard in the USA.
The Japanese provide a good linguistic example: Issei, Nisei, Sansei.
Nobody really knows the words for what comes after that.
According to Wikipedia the word you're looking for is "Yonsei". I'm guessing part of the reason the term is unfamiliar is that English is the first language of most Yonsei.
--------------------
Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
The Silent Acolyte
Shipmate
# 1158
|
Posted
No, I'm not looking for that word.
You miss the point.
The fact that the first three are in common use (just barely) indicates that those generations may be worth indication. The generations after these are not worth remarking upon—despite the fact that you have cleverly googled up the words that might refer to them, had anybody the inclination or the interest to do so.
Posts: 7462 | From: The New World | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
|
Posted
Nice example of the is/ought dichotomy here - given the fact that many immigrants assimilate in so many generations - does this mean that they ought to? All together now - abso-fucking-lutely not!
--------------------
I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
|
Posted
As it is often viewed as People through to Barely people and Not People (gaijin), I am not certain the Japanese system is one to look to.
--------------------
I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
|
Posted
It's the usual thing of people saying "They" ought to do something, without the corollary thought that maybe "we" should do something as well.
Any church meeting will have someone who demands that all "they" outside the church should do things "our" way, without considering what a small part that church is of the country as a whole.
Similarly, the people objecting to, or demanding of, immigrants could do with a look in the mirror. In Canada/US, EVERYONE is an immigrant - even the longest-term descendants have an immigrant event in their family story (D.A.R., anyone? or Pilgrim Fathers? or, for that matter, Loyalist or Planter in Canada?)
Should the new immigrants stick to the kind of attitudes the Imperialists in Canada portrayed, or should they just be allowed to work it out at their own speed? The "proper" attitude is to attack and/or slaughter a significant number of the previous inhabitants and then try to impose one's own (imported) attitudes on the rest. Is that what one needs in order to put up with immigrants?
The "normal" progression is that the first wave immigrants keep a lot of the culture/language of their home. The second (or whichever, depending on the control of the old guard) generation look outward and tend to move away from their families, so that the next generation can become "local" and indistinguishable.
Winnipeg, where I grew up was a classic example. The Scots and Brits were dismissive of the French voyageur predecessors (all proper English should despise anything French, ISTM, historically) and then transferred that distaste onto the Ukrainian/Galician/Eastern European sheepskin-coat people that Sifton wanted so badly.
Why did Sifton want them? Because they would stay in nice tidy little ethnic enclaves (so he thought) leaving the proper crowd to run things.
The World Wars undid that - even the Japanese and the Jews became acceptable in the 1950's, so the scorn was redirected to the Greeks, Portuguese or Italians, until they, in turn, became unnoticeable (and, often, richer than the complainers)
Now it is, I suppose, the Muslims, but not for long, I hope.
And the city has turned to the "surface" indicators as a huge entertainment, A week of ethnic-based partying provided by half of the available groups is followed by a week of ethnic-based partying provided by the other half of the available groups. Guess what? Everyone gets to go out and eat too much and/or drink too much, while being danced at or sung at or whatever passes for entertainment.
You don't want to lose all traces of your past. Where would the world be without girls in kilts dancing over swords or amiable old ladies baking cakes at Eurovision or inscrutable "Orientals" balancing plates on sticks or (shudder) Morris dancing?
Just how much Europop, hoodies, backwards-worn baseball caps, teen angst and Belieber-fever do you want?
--------------------
It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
|
Posted
What really is a bitch is when people think Native Americans "need" to assimilate to the (now) dominate culture. WTF?
In fact, it used to be policy to separate tribal students from their languages and their customs and often their very homes. The last California Indian boarding school exists in my town, and thank God it has turned around from its beginnings. No one is sent there against their will now (well, who knows- maybe some of their families give them a little shove here and there); students apply to get in. Students get their high school diplomas, and the school has solid programs in college prep and vocational skills. The students are encouraged to treasure and share their tribal heritages.
But I have still heard some people complain that Native Americans should try to "fit in more". grrrr ![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
--------------------
"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
|
Posted
It's not only the immigrant that must assimilate, the indigenous people must do so too, as the culture will be changed by the inclusion of its immigrants. There is reluctance on both sides. We like the familiar, and don't want it to change as it's comfortable.
Only by going out of our way to build relationships with people do we overcome this, come to appreciate each other in our wonderful diversity, and create new culture comfortable to all.
--------------------
Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
Posts: 4359 | From: The United Kingdom | Registered: Sep 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
|
Posted
Yes, this is sounding better. Assimilation to me sounds horrible, but there is a middle way, where people can express their difference, and preserve it, while at the same time, being able to meet others. I don't want to assimilate to some aspects of British culture, as I find them foul. Some other aspects I like, e.g., swearing at football matches. But I don't expect everyone to want to do that - why would they? Fuck off, and find your own identity.
--------------------
I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
|
Posted
All but that last line, quetzalcoatl. Culture does not know borders. There will always be a bit of contamina.., erm, cross pollination.
--------------------
I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
It's not only the immigrant that must assimilate, the indigenous people must do so too, as the culture will be changed by the inclusion of its immigrants.
Going by this thread so far, there's no obligation on the immigrant to adapt at all. The indigenous people must change their entire culture to suit their new neighbours - that's what they get for staying where they'd always been, right?
quote:
There is reluctance on both sides. We like the familiar, and don't want it to change as it's comfortable.
What's wrong with that, though? The people who don't want change can stay where they are, and the people who do want it can move around. Job done, right?
--------------------
Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
All but that last line, quetzalcoatl. Culture does not know borders. There will always be a bit of contamina.., erm, cross pollination.
To paraphrase Frost, good boundaries make good neighbours. Damn, I've referred to that blasted line that everyone always quotes, so I've become assimilated again. Oh well.
--------------------
I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Going by this thread so far, there's no obligation on the immigrant to adapt at all. The indigenous people must change their entire culture to suit their new neighbours - that's what they get for staying where they'd always been, right?
The immigrants have no choice but to adapt to some extent to the culture they have moved into, but they will naturally resist it as much as the indigenous people, and try to recreate mini versions of 'home'. Brits do it when they move abroad, others do it when they move to Britain. Subsequent generations don't have the original experience of 'home' but are handed down often romanticised versions of it, check out the songs of the Irish people who settled in America for example.
quote:
" There is reluctance on both sides. We like the familiar, and don't want it to change as it's comfortable." What's wrong with that, though? The people who don't want change can stay where they are, and the people who do want it can move around. Job done, right?
If our elected representatives are inviting people from abroad to come to live in our country, we must make the best of it, whether we like it or not.
What often happens in practice is that the indigenous people move away, to wherever they can find a near version of 'home', or make a mini version of it........
--------------------
Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
Posts: 4359 | From: The United Kingdom | Registered: Sep 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
The immigrants have no choice...
Sure they do. They can choose to not become immigrants in the first place.
--------------------
Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
|
Posted
quote:
Marvin the Martian: Sure they do. They can choose to not become immigrants in the first place.
I understand that the point you are trying to make is: "immigrants have to adapt". Is this right?
But isn't this in conflict with your libertarian philosophy of "no-one should be able to tell anyone what they should or should not do against their will"? Or is this philosophy not valid for immigrants?
--------------------
I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
It's not only the immigrant that must assimilate, the indigenous people must do so too, as the culture will be changed by the inclusion of its immigrants.
Going by this thread so far, there's no obligation on the immigrant to adapt at all. The indigenous people must change their entire culture to suit their new neighbours - that's what they get for staying where they'd always been, right?
Yup, that's exactly how it has always worked for indigenous people where I live. ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
|
Posted
The West Coast immigration story is a little different. I tell it to horrify my immigrant software programmer friends at work;
The first generation works hard, often at undesirable jobs, often in a city neighborhood of similar ethnicity.
The second generation studies hard, becomes Doctors, Lawyers, Accountants, Business men and scademics.
The third generation turns blond, become surfers, basket weavers, potters, athletes and artists.
Some of my immigrant friend say that won't happen with my children. I tell them that if it happened to the Jews, the Japanese and the Chinese, it will happen to you.
:-)
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
|
Posted
quote:
Palimpsest: The third generation turns blond, become surfers, basket weavers, potters, athletes and artists.
I blame pot.
--------------------
I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Sure they do. They can choose to not become immigrants in the first place.
It may not seem like a choice, when they have no decent place to live, or means of making a living, or education for the children where they are, and the only chance they can see for their family to thrive is to accept the invitation to settle elsewhere.
--------------------
Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
Posts: 4359 | From: The United Kingdom | Registered: Sep 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
Rosa Winkel
Saint Anger round my neck
# 11424
|
Posted
Sorry about the above post. My hands and my computer are messing me around. Can someone please delete it? [Extra post deleted - Gwai]
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
The immigrants have no choice...
Sure they do. They can choose to not become immigrants in the first place.
There isn't always a choice.
In other news, culture is assumed to be static and closed. There are plenty examples of transcultural elements, i.e. things that migrate across national borders and get adapted and change. Like the Polish word Fajsbuk, fish 'n' chips in GB and Australian football, these elements change in the contact with other people while retaining something of what it was.
Moralistic talk of "assimilation" ignores this simply fact.
[ 03. June 2013, 23:16: Message edited by: Gwai ]
--------------------
The Disability and Jesus "Locked out for Lent" project
Posts: 3271 | From: Wrocław | Registered: May 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
|
Posted
There is certainly a common core of the host culture that immigrants have to assimilate to, or spend their lives in a ghetto of people like them (Brits on the Mediterranean coast, I'm looking at you, too). Things like the language used in routine public discourse, engagement with local community groups, the local pattern of working hours, transport, schooling and healthcare.
But there's a whole load of cultural features that immigrants can keep. Food is the most obvious - children of immigrants who can't talk to their grandparents because they speak only the host language nevertheless tend to keep eating foods from their parents' culture. You often find that people who immigrate as adults adopt a style of dress which is a blend of the host culture and what they grew up with. Often the grandchildren inherit little more than a name, and maybe a holiday tradition or two, from their grandparents' culture.
I think the immigrant experience s very different if you're a small minority - in that case, you have no choice but to engage with the host culture, adapting to it, and adding a bit of colour with your curious foreign ways.
Whereas if there are lots of people from the same place as you, you're more likely to produce an immigrant ghetto unless you consciously decide to integrate yourself.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
| IP: Logged
|
|
Russ
Old salt
# 120
|
Posted
There's a difference between having someone to visit as a guest in your home, and shacking up with them permanently. Either can be good, but there are privileges and obligations associated with either status. When someone claims the privileges without shouldering the obligations, or conversely has the obligations dumped on them without corresponding privileges, then there is tension.
Best wishes,
Russ
--------------------
Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
I think the immigrant experience s very different if you're a small minority - in that case, you have no choice but to engage with the host culture, adapting to it, and adding a bit of colour with your curious foreign ways.
Whereas if there are lots of people from the same place as you, you're more likely to produce an immigrant ghetto unless you consciously decide to integrate yourself.
In urban Britain now, there's less and less of a sense of a majority culture into which one can easily assimilate. Put crudely, there are several British cities which are already majority non-white, and more will follow in the coming years. In other words, the indigenous cultures in those cities are no longer normative. Due to both geographical displacement and the loss of industrial jobs the indigenous white working classes are now almost non-existent in the British inner cities where the working class ethnic communities live.
Certain careers and educational or social contexts in some areas guarantee a dominant 'white' middle class environment. Entering into that world is a conscious choice for those not born into it, but these days one can be a successful member of society yet bypass that world almost entirely, if one lives in a large city.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:
No, I'm not looking for that word.
You miss the point.
The fact that the first three are in common use (just barely) indicates that those generations may be worth indication. The generations after these are not worth remarking upon—despite the fact that you have cleverly googled up the words that might refer to them, had anybody the inclination or the interest to do so.
Yonsei, Gosei... we studied them in college. FWIW.
--------------------
Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
The immigrants have no choice...
Sure they do. They can choose to not become immigrants in the first place.
Not if they're refugees. Who often get no choice as to the country in which they're resettled.
But anyway...
One of the main problems our Vietnamese first generationers have is that the minute they get here, they're handed a slum apartment lease, a minor amount of money, and a job--usually a sweatshop job of the kind that would horrify most people if they knew it existed in the U.S.--and that puts English learning, assimilation, etc. right out of reach. Because their fellow workers are Vietnamese, their neighbors in the slums are Vietnamese, and they have basically no contact with English speakers due to the ungodly hours they must work to keep body and soul together. English classes are rarely held at times they can make, or at places they can access via public transport (because, of course, you can't legitimately get a driver's license until you can speak English, natch!). So it's a Catch-22.
Not that they don't WANT to assimilate. But they hardly have the chance, if they're first generation.
Their kids do, though they spend their whole lives perched uncomfortably between two cultures and languages, never at home in either. But that's got to be better than being totally denied the opportunity.
--------------------
Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
The immigrants have no choice...
Sure they do. They can choose to not become immigrants in the first place.
"We are being treated poorly by those who invaded our land, kicked us off it, charge outrageous fees to eat the food we grow, beat us, kill us, etc., and now we are starving because the food we can eat, that grown for animals, is now dying from blight. Should we stay here or leave? " Well, now, don't think we want to be unwelcome guests, let's just all stay and starve to death."
One example, want more?
--------------------
I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
|
Posted
I'm having trouble with this assimilation idea, mostly because I'm also having trouble with the "host culture" idea.
FWIW, I'm a New Englander born and bred who earlier in my life lived in several other parts of the U.S.
In Illinois, neighbors thought nothing of dropping in (no warning beyond the doorbell ringing) for morning coffee and superficial chat while I was still in my PJs (and so were they). Where I'm from, "dropping in" is Not Done, and you don't entertain in your PJs, and you Do Not leave the house less than Fully Dressed.
And where I'm from, it's tea, not coffee. I had a number of surprised/disappointed neighbors in Illinois
In New Hampshire, I've had long, bosom-unburdening talks with neighbors across the lilacs (this over a period of several years), despite neither of us ever so much as seeing the inside of each other's front halls.
In Florida, I was lost much of the time due to people telling me to turn right at the top of what they seemed to think was a hill, and which I perceived as a slight incline. And you were "weird" if you weren't prepared to bond instantly at the complex's swimming pool and even weirder if you brought something to read with you.
In Oklahoma, making Highly Personal Remarks to a comparative stranger is perfectly OK as long as the Remarker is a few decades older than the Remarked-Upon.
In South Carolina, woe betide you if you do not follow every utterance with the words "sir" or "ma'am" to an interlocutor older than yourself.
Where I grew up, that was an admission that you considered yourself of inferior status.
And so on.
--------------------
Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
argona
Shipmate
# 14037
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Rosa Winkel:
Sorry about the above post. My hands and my computer are messing me around. Can someone please delete it? [Extra post deleted - Gwai]
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
The immigrants have no choice...
Sure they do. They can choose to not become immigrants in the first place.
There isn't always a choice.
In other news, culture is assumed to be static and closed. There are plenty examples of transcultural elements, i.e. things that migrate across national borders and get adapted and change. Like the Polish word Fajsbuk, fish 'n' chips in GB and Australian football, these elements change in the contact with other people while retaining something of what it was.
Moralistic talk of "assimilation" ignores this simply fact.
Sorry to link to
Mail Online but this is how indigenously British is "fish 'n' chips". I believe fried fish was introduced by Jewish refugees from the Portuguese Inquisition in the 16th Century. Oh, and I've just looked up morris dancing. Wikipedia reckons it might originally have been moorish dancing. Indigenous culture? Too often a mess of sentimentality, nostalgia and plain nonsense.
Posts: 327 | From: Oriental dill patch? (4,7) | Registered: Aug 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
|
Posted
This is all very interesting. Re the longest settled Europeans where I live, many in my generation are the 3rd generation (I'm first generation). The original peoples were badly treated, with cultures (plural) extinguished mostly. The laws on discrimination have ended the ethnic jokes of my youth, mostly at the expense of Ukrainians.
I was highly surprised to understand the skin colour definition of ethnicity when I reached about 10 or 12 years old, and hadn't realized some people I grew up with were called "black" in the USA (about as brown as Obama, we would have not seen him as black). Thus, I think the idea of culture and assimilation inevitably involves race and racism. -- a friend who is brown (that's a common Canadian term) keeps having racial targetting of her when travelling to the USA. "Where are you from". "Calgary". "No, where are you really from".
This video explains the problem: What kind of Asian are you?
--------------------
Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
argona
Shipmate
# 14037
|
Posted
Ah yes, and the English Defence League.
Posts: 327 | From: Oriental dill patch? (4,7) | Registered: Aug 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
I'm having trouble with this assimilation idea, mostly because I'm also having trouble with the "host culture" idea.
Well, sure - the US isn't a monoculture. Someone immigrating to Illinois from New England, as you mention, has to conform somewhat to local norms. I'd imagine it's only marginally different from the experience of someone immigrating to Illinois from old England.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
| IP: Logged
|
|
The Silent Acolyte
Shipmate
# 1158
|
Posted
While stopping for gasoline in the Texas panhandle, I was asked—only half in just—whether my east coast home was really part of the Yoo-nited States.
Posts: 7462 | From: The New World | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
|
Posted
Internal assimilation is interesting. I grew up in a working class area and then went to a very posh school, where I was told immediately to get rid of my regional accent, in front of the whole class!
So I did. Anyway, that was my introduction to the genteel middle class.
--------------------
I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
I understand that the point you are trying to make is: "immigrants have to adapt". Is this right?
I'd use the word "should" rather than "have to", but otherwise yes.
quote:
But isn't this in conflict with your libertarian philosophy of "no-one should be able to tell anyone what they should or should not do against their will"? Or is this philosophy not valid for immigrants?
The libertarian philosophy as I espouse it is "no-one should use the law to force others to do things they don't want to do". Nothing in that philosophy prohibits me or anyone else from saying I think they should or shouldn't do something.
--------------------
Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Going by this thread so far, there's no obligation on the immigrant to adapt at all. The indigenous people must change their entire culture to suit their new neighbours - that's what they get for staying where they'd always been, right?
Yup, that's exactly how it has always worked for indigenous people where I live.
Yes, and it was wrong back then as well. And what gets me is most of the people on this thread would agree that it was wrong back then, and that the immigrants of the time (i.e. Europeans) all but destroyed the indigenous culture in a way that was morally reprehensible.
What's changed?
--------------------
Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
|
Posted
quote:
Marvin the Martian: What's changed?
Logically, I see a couple of possible answers to immigration:- People should not immigrate.
- When people immigrate, they should completely assimilate into the culture of the recieveing country.
- When people immigrate, the culture of the recieving country should completely change to adapt to them.
- When people immigrate, no-one has to adapt. Both sides continue to live along eachother within their own culture.
- Immigration happens, and both sides will have to adapt a little to make it work
What I see people doing on this thread, is reject solution 2. What you are doing, is shouting: "You want solution 3!!!"
--------------------
I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
|
Posted
What MtM is saying is that he doesn't like being English.
--------------------
I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
|
Posted
I'm trying to think of a way in which I've had to adapt my culture to accommodate the immigrant population and I'm coming up with a big fat hairy zero. Seriously. What sort of adaptations do other indigenous people feel they've had to make, because I'm damned if I know?
[ 04. June 2013, 10:46: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
--------------------
Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
CL
Shipmate
# 16145
|
Posted
The native population/culture owes immigrants nothing. They are in that country at the natives sufferance and can either adapt or f**k off somewhere else.
Posts: 647 | From: Ireland | Registered: Jan 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by CL:
The native population/culture owes immigrants nothing. They are in that country at the natives sufferance and can either adapt or f**k off somewhere else.
Read the Old Testament much?
--------------------
Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
I'm trying to think of a way in which I've had to adapt my culture to accommodate the immigrant population and I'm coming up with a big fat hairy zero. Seriously. What sort of adaptations do other indigenous people feel they've had to make, because I'm damned if I know?
Sometimes, I stand behind a Sikh at a football game, and I have to crane my neck in order to see. However, I realized that I could just move along a few places. You see, science works!
--------------------
I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
Marvin the Martian: What's changed?
Logically, I see a couple of possible answers to immigration:- People should not immigrate.
- When people immigrate, they should completely assimilate into the culture of the recieveing country.
- When people immigrate, the culture of the recieving country should completely change to adapt to them.
- When people immigrate, no-one has to adapt. Both sides continue to live along eachother within their own culture.
- Immigration happens, and both sides will have to adapt a little to make it work
What I see people doing on this thread, is reject solution 2. What you are doing, is shouting: "You want solution 3!!!"
Nice analysis. I also question the use of 'should' in any case. What does this mean? Does it mean 'this is what I want?', or 'they are morally obliged to do X?'. Is there any difference?
--------------------
I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
What I see people doing on this thread, is reject solution 2.
I don't see why, though. It's a perfectly valid option.
--------------------
Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
Printer-friendly view
