It’s quite sad. Really, I would expect that Europe would fare much better in this regard. Recent arrivals from the Middle East in the US tend to be no less integrated into mainstream American life than any other first generation immigrant group. Far more often than not, they join the ranks of the middle class.
Yes, Muslims and Middle Eastern immigrants have experienced prejudice firsthand. Yes, women wearing abayas might be subject to a longer glance than anyone else at a supermarket in the suburbs. However, some overlook the fact that they are living in middle-class suburban neighborhoods, just like the majority of Americans. Even Middle Eastern ethnoburbs in places like suburban Detroit are, for the most part, middle-class.
During a time when I find myself apologizing for the acts of their government, I’m proud of the way my country has accepted Middle Easterners and Muslim immigrants into our mosaic.
Why is Europe different? Why have Middle Easterners there had a harder time of joining the middle class?
As a WAG - because the USA has a much more selective immigration policy regarding people from Muslim areas. You let in well-educated people to meet specific skill shortages. It’s not like black ghettoes don’t exist in the USA or a thriving middle class of Muslims does not exist in europe.
In Europe a lot of immigration is the legacy of empire. The UK has a large immigrant population partly because once one person had a foot in the door a whole giant extended family and then the extended family by marriage had a ‘right’ to come in.
And in my experience in a small northern town, immigrants naturally wanted to live together and so whole streets would slowly become ‘Asian’ as houses came up for sale with several extended families banding together to buy one house and in doing so being able to pay above market rates.
And no doubt add in a good dose of good old fashioned white racism that ‘encouraged’ groups to want to live in their own areas.
Also, and this must be true of the USA, if you have a group of people coming in to do the shit jobs on low wages (like with afro-caribbeans in the Uk in the 40’s to 60’s) the housing you can afford dictate where you can live.
I’m not sure how social mobility rates for minority groups in the Uk compare to that of, say, hispanics in the USA.