What is your opinion on immigrants?

[Suki]

Originally Posted by Ryzorian

Actually, The US is english speaking because England beat Spain and France. Europe in general was heavy into colonization for hundreds of years. They didn't send boatloads of people over just to have them make teepee's with the local Indian tribes, they expected them to turn the whole Continant into proper english speaking subjects of the crown.

Assimulation and colonization are different aspects of immigration. In one, you have large numbers of people who move from one land mass/area to another with the full intention of creating a secondary version of thier orginal homeland. It's why New England is called "New England".

The other form, has a few people who come into a new country and adapt to the new culture through assimulation. They leave thier old culture behind and embrace the new. While it's true "immigrants" in both situations are trying to create a better life for themselves and thier families. The two have radically different outcomes.

Take the US as an example, It's far more like Europe culturally, than it is like native Americans. Now yes, it's been modified from Europe and has developed a sence of it's own self but even that is still mostly just a blending of different European ideals into one bag. "The melting pot" as it were. The true natives were shunted off into the corner because the new comers weren't willing to assimulate to thier way of life.

That's the issue I and Sangetsu are explaining here when we mean "assimulation". I am not against immigrants were ever they come from, provided they want to become Americans and not try to establish a " New- place country of orgin here" land.

I say this because histroy has shown us repeatedly that when large numbers of immigrants move to an area and refuse to assimulate to the local culture, war's erupt and eventually the natives are either driven onto "reservations" or the invaders are driven back where they came from.

I agree with you. However, isn't it kind of... contradictory, in a way? I mean, when the Europeans first arrived in America they imposed their own culture upon the people that were there first. They pretty much took it from the original natives, cause they believed they could make it a better place. Now, does the fact that it was mass migration make it right for them to have expropriated the genuine natives from their land? You'll all agreee with me that probably not, but that was many years ago and things have changed a great deal since then. It's just funny though to see people saying English should be the only language spoken in the States and hating on the immigrants who are doing exactly what their ancestors did many years ago. Don't get me wrong, I get that. I think it's only logical that someone who's planning on moving somewhere bothers to learn the language and adapt to the country's distinct culture, but, you know, it's funny how none of us would probably be speaking English in the first place if it had been so back in the day. I'm glad the British got there first and managed to invade most of it, can you imagine what it would have been like if it'd been the French instead? Geez, 300 million French speakers. That would give me a headache haha xD (for the record, I have nothing against French people, just don't like the language much).

[RealJames]

Originally Posted by Sangetsu

Assimilation has always been the main issue. In Europe, the leaders of France, Germany, and England have all publicly stated that "multiculturalism has failed". They state that they have taken pains to allow immigrants to practice their own cultures, to the detriment of European national cultures.

Immigrants often flee their homelands to escape poverty, corruption, and violence. Unfortunately, these problems are generally the result of their local culture, and though they may escape their home countries, they often don't shed the poor attributes of their native cultures. Rather than adopting the culture of their new country, they practice their native culture, often with it's negative points.

Some will argue that all cultures are equal, and that people should follow the cultural traditions of their ancestors, but this is simply untrue. If all cultures were equally virtuous, then all the world's cultures would enjoy a more or less equal quality of life. It is obvious that some cultures are better than others, and those cultures which have a high quality of life should be maintained as much as possible.

This is evidenced by America, which is by far the most multicultural country in the world. Immigrants who adopt American culture and adhere to it's values are generally successful and well-to-do. Those who prefer to live and practice their native cultures in deeply ethnic neighborhoods tend to be impoverished, and to commit more crimes. There are exceptions of course, but they merely prove the rule.

Partially, it is a matter of race. Not because people of different races can't assimilate, but because people of particular races tend to feel more comfortable with others of their own race. This discourages assimilation, and propagates adherence to their native cultures.

I grew up in the southwest US, where state governments thought it best to embrace multiculturalism, and even to allow bilingual education. In my home state, which is part of the USA, it was possible to graduate from high school without even being able to speak English. This practice made assimilation nearly impossible, and condemned many high school grads to a life of menial jobs and pay, unable to ever enjoy the full benefits of life in America.

In America there is lots of talk of immigration reform, and of giving a "path to citizenship" for the 18-odd million illegal immigrants who live in America. I would support this action on two conditions: 1, all those who wish to stay must be proficient in English, and 2, all those who wish to stay must take and pass a high school equivalency exam. Knowing the language and having a decent level of education are the two largest steps to assimilating. If they wish to become "Americans" and not hyphenated Americans, than I am all for immigration.

Since we seem to have been given a 2nd chance on this thread I'm going to take the high road and say;

This post from you makes me want to retort with a violent anti-America post.

Canada is a great example of how multiculturalism works very well, even with large numbers of immigrants. The argument of assimilate or war is so broken I can hardly entertain it.

If all the immigrants in America were just as educated as the Americans already there, then they'd get the better jobs and then we'd be complaining that all the educated white folk are flipping burgers because Mohammed is willing to work for half the money, yeah? Then you'd also have a different problem with a significant portion of the working class of America sending it's income to support family members back home, who don't meet the requirements to enter, and so American currency deflates to garbage and the cost of everything goes up, a lot.

And who would be committing the crimes?

America needs it's relatively poor immigrants for it's power, just as it needed slaves, and as it needed "free" land.

[Ryzorian]

Realjames; I will have to disagree with your assessment. Britain has many problems with immigrants so does much of Europe right now because the newer immigranst won't assimulate. Most of the newer ones are from North African Muslim countries. The Indian's in Britain are able to live well there because they lived under British rule for 400 years, and are semi assimulated allready.

The best way to explain what we mean by assimulation and why the lack of it becomes a problem for a nation is this. Imagine your on a Baseball team and a new person from another team joins your team. Only they don't really "join" your team, they insist on staying with thier team in spirit. They wear the other teams uniform dureing the game, won't try to get the batters from their old team out and won't hit anything the other teams pitcher throws. Now, how condusive to your teams playing potential is this behavior?

Canada has a very small population compared to the US and it's not safe from muliticultural problems either. Quebec is allways trying to leave Canada as a whole and be "Independant" because it has more French influence than the rest of Canada.

Folks sending money back is a big problem in the US now, it's why Mexico doesn't do anything about the border trouble because billions of dollars flows into it from the US every year. That's billions the US doesn't get back and can't tax.

Personally I think Much of the immigrant trouble, with Mexico anyway, could be fixed with "Ellis Island" spots along the border. You come up, enter there, we give you an ID and make sure you pass quarentine and your set. Hell, Ellis Island had millions pass through it and the US turned out fine.

Again it's about wether the immigrants are trying to become assimulated to the culture they are migrating too or are instead trying to enforce thier own cultural values on the new land.

Believe me, sooner or later a preassure point is reached and violence ensues, historically it always has. It has in Europe plenty, the French riots not to long ago was due to immigrants, mostly muslims from North Africa. Denmark kicked out everyone who hasn't been a resident for at least 16 years. Switzerland outlawed the Muslim Minerete. France banned muslim women from wearing a head scarf. Yes, I see multural culturalism working just fine.

[siokan]

[TrainOfThought]

The way I see it multiculturalism isn't all bad. However, most countries need to sort out their integration politics.
Sweden the perfect example of how it's NOT supposed to be done.
I live in a small Gothenburg suburb called Angered (yeah, I know it sounds funny to you ) and out of the ~35.000 people living here, 84% or so are 1st, 2nd or 3rd generation immigrants, and there are neighbourhoods where 94%+ are immigrants.
The immigrants who came here during the 60's, 70's and early 80's have been doing really good when it comes to assimilating and all that.
Most of them were labourers from Greece, Turkey, "Yugoslavia", Italy and Austria, and most of them were a great contribution to the Swedish society.
However, many of the immigrants who came to Sweden during the mid to late 80's to now (most of them from MENA countries) aren't doing anything to contribute to society at all, but instead they live a decent life without having to lift a finger.
Of course I'm not saying that everyone from the MENA countries in Sweden are like that, but unfortunately most of them are.

I could go on and on about how Sweden has failed, but I'm gonna try to keep it short.
As of june last year (I think?) immigrants will be given money to take Swedish classes through SFI (Svenska För Invandrare/Swedish For Immigrants). I think it should be mandatory to learn the language of the country you're going to live in, so I can't really agree with giving them 8 400 SEK ($1 300/110 000¥) a month for learning how to speak Swedish. If they just arrived, they'll also get a flat with all the furniture they need, paid rent and about 3 500 SEK ($540/45 000¥) a month for food, clothes and stuff like that, and like 2 000 SEK for each kid.
So, if family X arrives to Sweden with two parents and 6 kids (quite common), and both parents are taking SFI classes, they'll be getting a flat without having to pay the rent, free education and ~32 000 SEK (~$5 000/400 000¥) a month.

Should you dare to say that you think this is wrong, you'll be called a racist and all kinds of other stuff, and if you say that you think it's unfair that a Swedish family in a tough situation wouldn't get 1/3 of that (speaking from experience) people wouldn't want to be your friend any more 'cause of how inhumane you are. Ofc the immigrants need all that money to survive. They've had a hard time living in their home countries. It's funny how noone ever mentions how they go back to their home countires on vaccation.

It's like our government only cares about making life for immigrants as easy as possible. It's like they're all a bunch of helpless babies that we need to take care of. I'm NOT saying they are, but that's the way our govenrment treats them. And it's not only about money either.
Let's say a Swedish 15 year old boy were to do something really bad like set a car on fire... All hell would break loose and he'd get sent to a reformatory or something.
If it was a boy from let's say Somalia or Iraq, it's be more like a "I know you suffered a lot back there, but you can't do stuff like this, and you have to promise not to do this again" talk with a social service lady. Well, it's not THAT bad, but I think you get what I'm trying to say.

Because of this a lot of (young) immigrants feel that they can do whatever they want. This really needs to change. We can't "babysit" 80 000-100 000 new immigrants every year.
That's like if 1 300 000 immigrants came to Japan, or 3 100 000 immigrants came to USA every year.

To return to the original question, I don't particualarly like or dislike immigrants. If they actually try to get a job and become a part of society they're just another person, but if they refuse to do that and abuse the system I dislike them just as much as I'd dislike a Swede trying to do the same thing.

[termogard]

Originally Posted by Ryzorian

That's the issue I and Sangetsu are explaining here when we mean "assimulation". I am not against immigrants were ever they come from, provided they want to become Americans and not try to establish a " New- place country of orgin here" land.

I say this because histroy has shown us repeatedly that when large numbers of immigrants move to an area and refuse to assimulate to the local culture, war's erupt and eventually the natives are either driven onto "reservations" or the invaders are driven back where they came from.

Well said.
It reminds me a viewpoint of current Russian leadership :

There will be no “Chinatowns” in Russia

The president noted that Russia is ranked second after the US in the number of immigrants.
“On the one hand, it shows that our country is attractive and millions of people from other states pin their hopes for better living [on Russia]. And, perhaps, it is not bad for our self-appraisal. On the other hand, such external demographic pressure creates a huge number of problems,” he said.
In addition to the inflow of immigrants, migration within the country is also high.And the “ethnic balance of many territories is changing under our very eyes”.Those changes are rather painful and often lead to ethnic clashes, which are stirred up by “political extremists or ordinary criminals”.
Medvedev ruled out the very possibility of compact settlements based on ethnicity.
“Indeed, there can be new constructions, but we will not deliberately create our own Russian Chinatowns,” he said.
Other countries’ experience in coping with inter-ethnic conflicts can also be considered. Medvedev recalled that just 40 years ago people of different races and nationalities would often sit “on different benches”. But now American society is rather tolerant and “we should not be ashamed to learn”.
Russia is a united country and it is necessary to learn to live in peace. “Otherwise, we will not succeed. And the worst forecasts that were made with great pleasure by some foreign analysts in the beginning of the 90s will come true. You remember what a sad fate they predicted for the Russian Federation,” he added.
Medvedev pointed out that “some representatives of the public and business” saw nothing wrong with the country being divided into several pieces as it made it easier to manage it and make money. Such approaches are criminal he said. While the dissolution of the USSR was relatively quiet, the consequences of such a scenario for Russia would be completely different.

Source

In particular, I agree with a statement concerning to "Chinatowns".

[Ronin4hire]

Yeah.. RealJames pretty much summed up what I wanted to say to Sangetsu.

I want to add to though that the speeches of leaders of Germany France and England do not state fact.

They are all leaders of conservative parties who happen to be in power at the moment. They were making speeches that appealed to their base, in response to various internal pressures.

Which is not to say they didn't make some good points... they did... but they made a mistake when they said that "multiculturalism has failed". Mulitculturalism is a work in progress. It always has been and it will remain a work in progress for at least the next 100-200 years in my opinion (An educated guess nothing more).

If a policy fails it's not due to the goal of the policy but the implementation of the policy.

Saying multiculturalism has failed like commenting on a guy who jumped off a bridge with wings strapped to his arms, and saying "manned attempts at flight have failed".

[Ronin4hire]

Originally Posted by TrainOfThought

The way I see it multiculturalism isn't all bad. However, most countries need to sort out their integration politics.
Sweden the perfect example of how it's NOT supposed to be done.
I live in a small Gothenburg suburb called Angered (yeah, I know it sounds funny to you ) and out of the ~35.000 people living here, 84% or so are 1st, 2nd or 3rd generation immigrants, and there are neighbourhoods where 94%+ are immigrants.
The immigrants who came here during the 60's, 70's and early 80's have been doing really good when it comes to assimilating and all that.
Most of them were labourers from Greece, Turkey, "Yugoslavia", Italy and Austria, and most of them were a great contribution to the Swedish society.
However, many of the immigrants who came to Sweden during the mid to late 80's to now (most of them from MENA countries) aren't doing anything to contribute to society at all, but instead they live a decent life without having to lift a finger.
Of course I'm not saying that everyone from the MENA countries in Sweden are like that, but unfortunately most of them are.

I could go on and on about how Sweden has failed, but I'm gonna try to keep it short.
As of june last year (I think?) immigrants will be given money to take Swedish classes through SFI (Svenska För Invandrare/Swedish For Immigrants). I think it should be mandatory to learn the language of the country you're going to live in, so I can't really agree with giving them 8 400 SEK ($1 300/110 000¥) a month for learning how to speak Swedish. If they just arrived, they'll also get a flat with all the furniture they need, paid rent and about 3 500 SEK ($540/45 000¥) a month for food, clothes and stuff like that, and like 2 000 SEK for each kid.
So, if family X arrives to Sweden with two parents and 6 kids (quite common), and both parents are taking SFI classes, they'll be getting a flat without having to pay the rent, free education and ~32 000 SEK (~$5 000/400 000¥) a month.

Should you dare to say that you think this is wrong, you'll be called a racist and all kinds of other stuff, and if you say that you think it's unfair that a Swedish family in a tough situation wouldn't get 1/3 of that (speaking from experience) people wouldn't want to be your friend any more 'cause of how inhumane you are. Ofc the immigrants need all that money to survive. They've had a hard time living in their home countries. It's funny how noone ever mentions how they go back to their home countires on vaccation.

It's like our government only cares about making life for immigrants as easy as possible. It's like they're all a bunch of helpless babies that we need to take care of. I'm NOT saying they are, but that's the way our govenrment treats them. And it's not only about money either.
Let's say a Swedish 15 year old boy were to do something really bad like set a car on fire... All hell would break loose and he'd get sent to a reformatory or something.
If it was a boy from let's say Somalia or Iraq, it's be more like a "I know you suffered a lot back there, but you can't do stuff like this, and you have to promise not to do this again" talk with a social service lady. Well, it's not THAT bad, but I think you get what I'm trying to say.

Because of this a lot of (young) immigrants feel that they can do whatever they want. This really needs to change. We can't "babysit" 80 000-100 000 new immigrants every year.
That's like if 1 300 000 immigrants came to Japan, or 3 100 000 immigrants came to USA every year.

To return to the original question, I don't particualarly like or dislike immigrants. If they actually try to get a job and become a part of society they're just another person, but if they refuse to do that and abuse the system I dislike them just as much as I'd dislike a Swede trying to do the same thing.

Thanks for your perspective. I actually stayed in Goteborg for one month and found it to be a pleasant city.

I didn't see any of what you said but I suppose I didn't really go to Angered. (My friend had an apartment in the city next to "the boulevard" is that what its called? That part where all the nightclubs and bars are.)

Anyway... as I said before. Bad policy doesn't mean multiculturalism is a failure and I suppose I'm backing up what you are saying.

[TrainOfThought]

Originally Posted by Ronin4hire

Thanks for your perspective. I actually stayed in Goteborg for one month and found it to be a pleasant city.

I didn't see any of what you said but I suppose I didn't really go to Angered. (My friend had an apartment in the city next to "the boulevard" is that what its called? That part where all the nightclubs and bars are.)

Anyway... as I said before. Bad policy doesn't mean multiculturalism is a failure and I suppose I'm backing up what you are saying.

Yeah, Göteborg is a lovely city (especially in the summer), and it's not like this everywhere. I guess Angered, Biskopsgården and Bergsjön are pretty much the same, but the central parts of Göteborg are really nice.
"The Boulevard".. that's got to be "Avenyn". Your friend was lucky to get a flat there.
Wait.. your friend's name isn't Malin, is it..?

And yeah, I agree. Multiculturalism itself isn't a failure, but what we see in most cases today isn't multiculturalism.
I mean, how is it "multicultural" when you segregate people from different cultures like that?
Of course people from Iraq won't get to be a part of Swedish society the way they should when they only spend time with other Iraqis!
We only had "real" multiculturalism in Sweden during the 60's 70's and early 80's, and it worked like a charm!
I don't know what it's really like in the US, Japan or anywhere else apart from the UK, but I do know that what we see in Sweden today isn't working, and that it isn't multiculturalism.

[Ronin4hire]

No my friend's name was Johan (but that's such a common name in Sweden.. I must have met about 4 or 5 Johans).

I guess he was lucky.. He was a student at some marketing school at the time though but he came from a pretty well off family and he now has a really sweet job in Stockholm.