You hear this claim all the time, but is it really true? Usually, I think, when Americans talk with pride about how good we are at assimilating immigrants, we’re talking about the great waves of immigrants in the decades around the beginning of the 20th century. But that assimilation took decades, and most of those immigrants were from more or less the same continent, race, religion, and cultural tradition of most of the native-born Americans at the time, greatly easing the process. That type of assimilation process is not really unique: Europeans have been moving among one another’s countries for ages, and as far as I’m aware have been assimilating in roughly similar ways as happened in the US. Way back in the 19th century, for example, Benjamin Disraeli’s immigrant-descended family was well assimilated into British society; more recently, Nicolas Sarkozy is the son of a Hungarian immigrant. Read any history book and you’ll find Germanic sounding names popping up in France, Russian names in Germany, etc.
Usually Americans pull out the line about how much better we are at assimilation when criticizing Europeans for the state of their Arab minorities. But would the US do much better in that regard? By many measures the US isn’t even very successful at assimilating our Hispanic minorities, and the gulf (cultural, religious, linguistic, etc.) between Hispanic immigrants and native-born Americans is much smaller than that between Arabs and Europeans. Yes, most Arab-Americans are better assimilated than Arab-Europeans, but Arab-Americans are a much smaller percentage of our population, often come better off and better educated than Arabs going to Europe, and a greater percentage are Christians. It’s hardly surprising that they’re better assimilated. If the US had the same ammount and type of Arab immigration as Europe has, I think we would only be marginally better at assimilating them, at best.
Most of the Muslim immigrants I know are not “Arabs”–they are Pakistanis or Iranians. Yes, they look different. But they are well educated & I’m glad to have them here.
Quite a few European immigrants were Catholics or Jews–back when the USA was overwhelmingly Protestant. They definitely had some problems, but the USA changed to accept them. (Mostly.)
And Texas was Hispanic before it was Anglo. Our culture down here is a combination–with more ingredients being added daily. (Have you heard about the newest “Hispanic” cable channel? It’s designed for the younger generation. And its language is English.)
What about the African-Americans? They were “involuntary immigrants”–but have a longer history on this side of the Atlantic than my people. Not to mention the “native-born Americans” now called “Native Americans.”
Yes, the xenophobes push “assimilation” & shrink from “multiculturalism.” But Americans have never been identical participants in in some mythical bland, whitebread WASP culture. And quite a few of the WASP’s enjoy the diversity.
I have a couple of thought in this, probably very ill-informed ones, but here goes.
As you say there was a large influx of immigration in the US at the start of the C20th. The way I see things, the culture of the US was still very young then. You were a nation formed from immigrants from several european countries, who had gained independance little over a hundred years ago.
For a people still discovering/creating a national identity, immigration is only going to bring more and newer ideas to the table.
Europeans on the other hand see themselves as older, more defined people. “This is who we are, and this is how we do things. This is how we have ALWAYS done things.” And yes I know this is incorrect, but just because something is a lie doesn’t stop belief.
To this extent we sometimes see foreign influence as truly alien, and out to change us. So when there was the large increase in immigration at the same time as the US. There was a far greater resistance to changing our historic/stagnant sense of identity.
Another factor, at least in the UK, is the political philosophy of multiculturalism. This started (correct me here when I’m wrong) in the 50’s, and it’s aim was to allow immigrant culture to flourish by grouping immigrants of similar cultures together.
To this end areas of our larger towns and cities were “set aside” for immigrants of certain cultures. Each group had they’re own housing, schools businesses etc. This to me emphasised that these people were different to the existing communities, and actively hindered integration.
This is all irrelevent to what I’m asking here. (Though I would disagree with your assertion that only “xenophobes” push assimilation.) The question is not whether assimilation is good or bad, but who’s better at it – the U.S. or Europe.
I guess it hinges on what you mean by ‘assimiliation’…but I can’t see how its even really a question, unless what you mean is ‘get immigrants to conform to OUR way of thinking and forget all that old, nasty cultural baggage they arrived with.’
The US is a NATION of immigrants after all. Each of the countries in Europe (and most of the countries in the world) are made up of distinct ‘racial’ or cultural groupings. The each have a distinct culture that is internalized…and immigrants are expected by and large to integrate with that internal, exclusive(by and large) culture and lose their own.
The US’s ‘culture’ however is a mix of the various peoples who immigrated here and is pretty inclusive, being a melting pot in truth. Look around. In the US you can see heavy influences from northern Europe, southern Europe, Africa, Asia, Hispanic countries…everywhere people have come from they have shifted and modified the US, what we eat, and how we look at things. We don’t HAVE a distinct, unique culture of our own…we stole everything we have from everyone else. Even the most prejudiced American bigot has been influenced by these factors by what they eat, what they say, and even what they watch on TV.
I would say that the size of the US, combined with the appeal of the self-sustaining minority strongholds typical of large US cities makes it easier for immigrants to not assimilate. I’m Japanese-American, born and raised, and I never felt like a minority growing up… but even I gravitated toward parts of the US that had high Asian populations when I left my home state. I can’t really conceive of an immigrant making greater assimilation efforts than me.
I think the assimilation does happen, but that Americans are quicker to adopt and explore parts of foreign cultures than immigrants are to adapt and explore American culture. I find immigrants are far less integrated into American culture than Americans think they are.
xtisme is on the money: America and the various European nations have very different concepts of what assimilation means, and therefore different relationships with immigrant peoples.
I find it interesting, Rodgers01, that you use England and the case of the Jewish born Disraeli as an example of successful assimilation. You do realize that England kicked Jews out in 1290 and only allowed Jews to return to England about 400 years later. Within a few decades of Disraeli’s death England had instituted an Aliens Act specifically aimed at limiting Jewish immigration. It was a small window in time indeed that allowed a converted son of immigrants to be accepted on his merits in Engalnd. England perhaps did better at tolerating the Huegenots, but otherwise they have not exactly been a model of integration. After all, England considered the British a seperate race of people and a superior one at that.
The reality is that xtisme’s points are well made: Most of Europe consists of national groups with strong and long-lived identities. An immigrant who can come in, erase his background, and like someone in a witness protection program accept an identity of the new nation state as a new one woith no history … that person might be assimilated. Sort of like one becomes Borg. The group that consists of those who wish to become integrated within a European community but also maintain a sense of seperate heritage as well … those people will be viewed as “other” and never accepted.
America doesn’t assimilate immigrants in that Borg like way. It is a hodgepodge stew of flavors bumping up against each other with new ones always being dumped into the pot, influencing each other yet always maintaining some uniqueness. Of course there have always been “Nativist movements” and abuse of the newest (be they Irish or Chinese or Mexican or …), but successful integration into America does not mean erasing any other identity in order to be able to call oneself American. It merely means accepting the common core secular values as well … and proudly being one among the many of the hyphenated masses.
If assimilation means becoming all the same, America does it poorly. If assimilation means aaccepting various groups and exploiting the power of the diversity that results … no one does it better. Even at our most xenophobic.
Nowadays of course America is practicing assimilation in that European fashion … but in externally by the domination of American culture upon the rest of the world and making it that much less other. And that’s a whole different discussion.
Let’s not confuse historical issues with today’s problems.
In America’s past, assimilation has always worked,. But that isn’t necessarily relevant to Europe’s -or America’s–current problem with assimialtion.
The reason is simple: in the past, the immigrants who arrived in America and successfully integrated into the “melting-pot” culture did not bring with them cultural values that were totally unacceptable to the existing American society.
The problem of assimilation today is that some* of the immigrating Muslims (so deeply entrenched in Europe, and just beginning to be noticed in America)
hold values that cannot be melted down into the common pot.
In the past there were problems, but these were only temporary, and were overcome in America.
Yes. the immigrants ate funny foods, wore funny clothes, spoke funny languages. Each group maintained a separate ethnic identity, and resisted marriage with others from outside their group.
So the rest of the country disdained them as dirty, lazy, drunken, etc, etc…
Unforturnately, that’s human nature (to dislike anybody who is different than you , and is competing with you for jobs.) But it was only a temporary problem,
which was solved as the children of the immigrants learned to speak English and assimilated. Something very similar appears to be happening now, regarding Mexicans.
But here is the key: none of those groups (Irish, Jews, Italians, Japanese, whatever) proudly declared that America was the great Satan.
Instead, they adapted their own cultures to match the society they were joining.They did not demand that their new country change its core values to meet their ideas.
And they in no way threatened to replace civil laws with Sharia.
As for the OP question of whether America is more able than Europe to absorb immigration:
So far, it looks like the Muslim population of Europe will not assimilate.Partly due to the inability of the more insular cultures (British, French, etc) to create a melting pot.
But mostly because the Muslims seem unwilling to admit that western culture in the country they have chosen to live in is better than the Muslim
culture they left behind.
And so far, it looks like the Muslim population of America is unsure of its own desires. When their numbers increase to the percentages of England or France,
we may find that America’s famous success in absorbing immigrants won’t repeat itself.
*Before somebody Pits me…please note that I said some of, not all of.
Big thanks to DSeid to pointing this thread out to me - we’d been having a similar discussion in this thread but it was a bit of a hijack.
Firstly, i want to say that you cannot in any way make any direct comparison between integration and multiculturalism in the USA and “Europe” because there is no such thing as a European “standard.”
Individual nations - sure, Europe - no. Sorry but there’s not point even trying.
Secondly (and apologies for this) I’m going to cross-post my bit on integration from a British perspective (with the thread-specific bit removed), as i do feel its pertinent to the discussion, but really don’t want to have to write it all out again. Sorry about that.
Anyway, here it is:
Please note that this post solely looks at what you’re talking about from a British perspective and should not necessarily be taken as in any way relevant to other European nations.
Being British always was, and always will be, an all-encompasing term. By this I mean that its not the name of a country, its the name of a grouping of countries. In many ways as a term it is not dissimilar to “European” in that it is, and always has been, a generalisation. In fact go back long enough (or speak to certain Scots, Welsh or even English with strong feelings on the matter) and you’ll find that they associate with it no more as a personal identity than with the the term “European.”
“So what?!” I hear you cry, well here’s the what - language (and people) change in funny and often unexpected ways and so it was with the term “British,” as a fair few Brits began to discover after WW2 (and a fewer number had begun to discover before then). This discovery largely came about when a whole bunch of people started arriving from places like the Caribbean (or India or any other place where we’d spent several hundred years sending redcoats out to) claiming to be “British.”
Now you can imagine just how well that went down with your average joe - not only were this lot funny fucking foreign types - but they had the audacity to claim that they were bloody British as well!
Trouble was that upon further investigation not only did they have many of the vital qualities needed to be British - such as a basic knowledge of the Royal Family, a full acceptance of the fact that colour is spelt with a “u” and the ability to make a decent cup of tea - but they also had the damn documents to prove it. This was because the British Nationalities Act explicitly stated that being “British” meant being “a Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies.”
You see, it turned out that alongside industry, science, decent team sports, syphillis and many of the other wonderful things we’d exported to the colonies was “Britishness.” In fact, the major purpose of the 1948 Nationalities Act in the first place had been to ensure that citizens of Commonwealth countries could still be British. It was a direct response to Canada’s citizenship law of 1946 and was enacted with the agreement of all Commonwealth countries to ensure that no choice be necessary between being a citizen of the specific country in which you lived and being a British Citizen.
Not only where these foreign types British, but they had the passports and beaureaucracy (and god knows we love a bit of beaureaucracy) to prove it.
Not everyone was happy about that of course, but c’est la vie, and whilst Enoch Powell got busy making speeches that even Oswald Mosely would have blushed at, the Governments of the day got busy doing what governments do best in situations such as this. They started making big noises about doing something about the whole issue whilst actually doing as little as possible about it, because they knew that broadly speaking nothing was wrong as we desperately needed the workers and the whole racism/immigration thing was -and indeed is - rather distasteful and stupid.
Things weren’t easy for those immigrants of course - far from it, and they got even more serious in the sixties, as jobs became fewer and immigration continued at a record pace. Indeed after America closed up on immigration in the 50s Britain became the favoured destination for immigrants from the Caribbean with over 250,000 arriving between 1955 and 1962 alone, and that figure doesn’t even include immigration from anywhere else in the commonwealth not least of all India (Britain didn’t have any barrier at all on immigration from the Commonwealth until 1962 when the immigration laws gradually began to be tightened up). Over the next 50 odd years there have been race riots, bigotry, hatred (from both sides), mickey-mouse laws and various other nasty things facing immigrants and the sons and daughters of immigrants in this country but slowly, inexorably and - to be honest - almost inadvertantly the definition of “British” as something almost extra-national took root.
Basically its very hard to keep arguing that someone isn’t British just because “they’re different” when you can’t pin down what actually makes someone “British” in the first place and yes, now that you mention it, it is rather wonderful now how you can actually find a local shop open on a sunday and… wow… this jamaican 'erb is rather good actually isn’t it… hmmm… i tell you what i could really go for a curry right now…
All of which, in a long-winded, roundabout kinda way (sorry about that) brings us up-to-date and to my point, which is this:
That the term “British” has always been, and indeed still is, an all-inclusive identity. Partially through design, partially through accident and in no small part through the blood shed by many and the tireless and continuing political and cultural efforts of many others the “British Identity” has for many people (and probably many more who don’t even realise it, so culturally embedded has it become) become something that is available to all regardless of class, creed or country and for which the only qualification needs be residency on this small rainy bit of northern Europe and a general willingness to be nice to everyone else and talk about how horrible the weather is once in a while.
Now there are obviously a whole raft of reasons why Britain has immigration and integration problems at the moment - some of which would be very familiar to Enoch and his crew and some of which are brand spangly new 21st Century ones. Its easy sometimes, however, to miss the fact that for many - indeed i’d argue the majority of British people out there - one of big causes of uneasiness with some immigrants (or dissaffected youths born here) isn’t that they dress differently, hold radical beliefs (unless these go against that whole “generally being nice” thing) or don’t learn the language (although that does make the conversations about the weather more difficult), its that a lot of people have worked bloody hard to make being “British” an open thing and it’s rather impolite, rude and slightly worrying (given the seemingly minor requirements mentioned above) when that’s rejected without good reason - particularly if you’re not even prepared to share the bits of your existing identity with us which we’ve a sneaking suspicion we’d rather like, or hold a decent conversation on what is wrong with Britishness in its current form and how we can go about fixing it.
Indeed to many existing immigrants its a double insult because they were the ones who had to fight so hard to make it an inclusive term in the first place and also makes them look bad.
I guess it’s a bit like going to someone else’s house for dinner and taking your own food:
So basically don’t confuse “Britishness” with being an all or nothing identity - being British absolutely does not mean you have to stop being whatever else you are, in fact if you’d did so you’d probably be in the minority.
Britishness works to exactly the same principle as the American tendency to double barrel their origin (“I’m Irish-American”). I’m English. My dad is Welsh and my mother is Irish but we’re all British, and so is my mate Ying who is also Chinese, my mate Paul who is also Nigerian and my mate Sandra who’s South African, as are several thousand Asian guys and girls in Birmingham amongst many millions of others.
Also i think this point is worth seconding. It’s very easy to turn round and point out various European historical examples of anti-immigrant behaviour, but unless they have had a direct and lasting (or indeed continuing) effect on forming current attitudes towards immigrants and integration or multiculturalism, then it is - quite frankly - just silly. Pulling out the Edict Of Expulsion from 1290AD and waving it around (although i do appreciate it was, to a certain degree, prompted by the mention of Disraeli) does nobody any good.
Besides, for every Edict of Expulsion you can throw out, i can give you a Battle of Cable Street. Which is not only far more recent, but also something that is still commemorated and celebrated in London to this day.
Besides, go back beyond the first settlements of America and our history is your history.
I’d say this pretty much matches the feeling i developed when I lived in the US. For the record i lived and worked in New York for 13 months or so about a year ago (and my direct experiences of this are confined to that period and the vicinities of New York and Chicago) and the general impression i got in my dealings with American-born people and immigrants in those places matches what chappachula said reasonably closely.
Garius while I actually defer to your appraisal of the current state of multiculturalism within Britain, and to the broad caution against overgeneralizing across Europe, I think that you somewhat underestimate the importance of historical context, especially as relavent to this op, which specifically tried to call upon history to make the case.
Yes, the specific case of Jews immigrating into England (and being kicked out) was brought up specifically to counter the exceptional case of the converted Disraeli as evidence of how wonderfully Europe does this assimilation thing, but, to dismiss the 1290 Edict of Expulsion as ancient history belies that the fact of the matter is that Jews were not allowed within the country for nearly four centuries after that, and within two centuries of being allowed back in were the subject of major anti-immigrant reform acts. In between Shakespeare was writing The Merchant of Venice at a time when he had likely never met a Jew as none were to be had within England.
I am also getting a sense that you are somewhat sugarcoating the nature of colonialism and the apparent eventual acceptance of those from within dominated cultures as part of the family.
Your example of The Battle of Cable Street also illustrates a major difference of perspectives. Many Americans would not read that example as a tribute against racism and facism. In point of fact if the same situation was occurring within America today many of us would advocate vigorously for the right of the B.U.F.ers to march and to march in uniform with protection if needed. (The analogous situation actually did occur in my then backyard of Skokie, IL with NeoNazis.) It is a cogent differnece of perspective. Even intolerance is to be somewhat tolerated within America. The only thing you need to do to assimilate to the American hodgepodge stew is to be able to survive living with the mess of intermingling and evertransforming cultural flavors around you. You may change too … or not. No matter. You are a valid part of the stew. No need to know about the queen or anything.
Still, I again stand corrected as to the current nature of multicultualism in Britian. As to the lifecycle of assimilation and pride of cultural otherness in America … what often happens is that a first generation remains somewhat insular. Their ways remain seperate ways to no small degrees. Much of a second generation often tries very hard to fit in, American first names, embarassed of parents’ accents, etc. Not all of course: witness the persistence of a highly insular part of the American Orthodox Jewish community, for an example. Finally a generation is born that is more secure of their place within American culture and of their Americanness and they have a drive to return to some ethnic roots. The current popularity of “Irish Americans” (here now for several generations) to name their kids Seamus, for example.
To a large extent such has also been the path that Moslems in America have been following, just early on in the arc. It has been suggested that Moslems immigrating to Europe are not going to follow that arc. That may be so, but if it is I would lay some of the cause at the feet of certain European countires having been uncomfortable with accepting their particular “otherness” as a valid part of the cultural stew as well. And perhaps an unrealistic expectation of how quickly newcomers who were not of dominated cultures, who instead were of cultures that never accepted the cultural yoke of colonialism and who still resent that it was attempted to be placed upon them, will glom onto the new identity above their historic ethnic and religious ones. And that is a problem that is more Europe’s historical baggage than America’s.
I’m sorry but how on earth is this relevant to a debate on the current situation?
I genuinely don’t see what bearing the policies and culture of that time have being here.
Believe me, I’m a historian by training and i fully appreciate the importance and effect that history can have on current situations, culture and thinking but you’re tilting at windmills here. More pertinent to the discussion are the immigration laws (and the effect that they have had) of the 1960s, 1990s and 2000s - all of which are better weather vanes as to how immigration policy and feeling has developed in this country.
Actually they did have sizable police protection. My use of Cable Street was as a counter point to your own aimed at drawing attention to the fact that the same demographic who were clamouring at Edward back in the 13th century for the expulsion of the Jews could in many ways be found on the streets of Cable Street in the 30s.
If i am then its not my intention and i’m trying carefully to caveat the positive points i’m making by saying that they should not be taken in isolation. British Imperialism was not a black or white thing, it had good consequences and bad ones - this just happens to have been a good one.
What i’m trying to do is counter-point the seemingly automatic assumption that exists in the States that this monopolistic national identity exists throughout Europe (and in this case Britain in particular) that to be part of that country requires some kind of subsumation of ones existing identity.
What we do have here are media-fulled scares on “fake asylum seekers” et cetera, and things like that are where any decent discussion should be focused, not on a sweeping assumption of what is required to be “British” that is patently false.
It’s not really possible to quantify who is “better” at assimilating immigrants. European states tend to be way more homogeneous than the United States.
Within Spain and France for example you have long-standing minority groups, but they have always been politically and legally overshadowed by the majority. It is akin to the Chinese, there are many different groups of ethnic Chinese people, but within the Chinese state the Han Chinese have long been overwhelmingly dominant politically, culturally, and legally.
The nationalism of the late 19th and early 20th century exacerbated the homogeneity of Europe, more and more nations felt that a state should be a nation and vice versa. So you had the splitting up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire along ethnic lines, based on nationalist trends.
Germany (both pre-unification and post-unification) and France went round and round about border areas which one side or the other claimed should be “French” or “German” the underlying argument being “Germans should be ruled by Germans” and “French should be ruled by French.”
This is a cultural truth that existed all the way up until the end of the second World War, and the “troubles” in the Balkans suggested it survived in Europe long after that as well.
In the United States we never became married to the idea of the nation-state. We’ve always been a state of many nations. However, it’s not been easy for us to assimilate new ethnic groups.
Europe I believe has trouble for two big reasons, one is the long cultural history of one nation dominating a European state decisively. The other is, Europe has not frequently been the target of huge numbers of immigrants who are clearly of different ethnic, cultural, and religious back ground. That Europe is having trouble assimilating Muslim immigrants isn’t surprising, in fact it is to be expected.
In the United States, where we’ve never been married to the idea of “nation-state” we’ve still had our issues. Probably the group we most easily absorbed was the Germans. German-Americans represent the single largest ethnic group in the United States, and Germans were the single largest group of immigrants to come to America. By the time we ratified the constitution they constituted 9% of the total population. German immigrants tended to be better off, financially, than many following waves of immigrants. They also were predominantly from the Protestant states of Germany, not the Catholic ones. So they did not clash religiously with the rest of the country. And finally, the German settlers tended to settle on the frontier in their own communities. By the late 1880s most German-Americans were bilingual with English being their dominant language. By the end of the first World War most German-Americans only continued to speak German in Church, a practice the children of that generation didn’t follow.
It’s somewhat interesting that despite being the best received immigrant group, the German-Americans, who had become almost ubiquitous in American culture were faced with a wave of anti-German sentiment during World War I. Many people today have no idea they have significant German ancestry because their grandparents had to anglicize their names in the early 20th century. (During World War II this pattern did not reemerge, in fact Eisenhower and Nimitz were both of German ancestry and Eisenhower went on to win the Presidency.)
The Irish and Italians were much less warmly received. They were predominantly Catholic, and were in general poorer immigrants than the Germans. Instead of settling on the frontier, they settled on the east coast and became vilified by Americans for becoming a major source of competition for factory employment. The massive strength of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s was fueled significantly by anti-Catholic sentiment (the KKK was virulently anti-Catholic, and anti-pretty much anything not white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant.) There were even political parties in the 19th century primarily organized around the ideals of being anti-Irish/Italian, anti-Catholic and anti-Immigration.
Another significant “immigrant” group are African Americans. They came over in chains, remained in chains for around 250 years, and were officially discriminated against (in both North and South–Seattle was infamous for example for having restrictive covenants attached to real estate which locked blacks out of white neighborhoods for decades.)
Irish-Americans and Italian-Americans have become mostly assimilated, but despite having immigrated over after African Americans, and despite being Catholic (while most American blacks are Protestant) they have ultimately become better received–in no small part of course because they’re white, and it’s not all that easy any more to tell who is of English, Italian, German, or Irish stock save by last name (and even then most of us are a mix of many different ancestries.)
Asian immigration has traditionally be problematic. We outright prohibited Chinese immigration in response to many of them coming over during the 19th century. And with Japanese immigration, we ended up having widespread panic about our Japanese-Americans during World War II.
The relevance is to the op’s claim that “Europeans have been moving among one another’s countries for ages, and as far as I’m aware have been assimilating in roughly similar ways as happened in the US.” (Italics mine.) And specifically to the using Disraeli as evidence of that. You may be exclusively talking about current assimilation and multiculturalism, but the op was making a broader case. That is how on earth it is relevant to the current discussion.
I certainly understand your basic point: the subjects of the Empire had already become enculturated as British and when they “immigrated” were assimilated fairly easily. Yes, yes, those who came from subject lands brought ethnic identification with them … foods and clothes and music … but they indeed already had “many of the vital qualities needed to be British.” I hope that you understand my point that such immigration, of already enculturated subject peoples, is a different sort of issue than the integration of an other that is not already enculturated, and magnitude of difference from the integration of an other that wishes to maintain a seperate identity in addition to becoming active citizens of a new society.
You may be trying to counterpoint my claim that to assimliate in Europe is as unto becoming Borg, but I have already ceded to you on that on several occassions. The discussion has moved past that. That was an overstatement, especially in regard to the case of Britiain.
I am at this point much more interested in how integration of immigrants in America is a different sort of process than that in Europe. A related subthread is specific to the difficulties various European countries are having integrating various Muslim groups and why, and how that difficulty may be related to historic experiences, and why America may deal with this sort of absorbtion differently than even England.
I am, I think, repeating myself, but I must be articulating poorly because it does not seem to be understood. America has a long experience with taking in groups that have no previous enculturation to American society. America has a long history of segments of those groups staying somewhat insular for a generation or more and still being considered part of the dynamic mix of everchanging American identity as some greater shared “Americanness” seeps into their subculture and some of their subculture seeps out (and sucked out as well) into the broth of the stew. Sometimes the process has occurred quickly and sometimes it has taken a few generations. The new mixes that result: Spanglish; obscene Saint Patricks Day celebrations with city rivers died green; jazz; Creole; bagels died red for St. Joseph’s Day for goodness sake! - are quintessential Americana.
If segments of an immigrant Islamic community want to wear burkas, let alone veils, they won’t be considered as rejecting being Americans for it. Sure there will be discrimination and sure America will have those who will resent the newcomers, as Martin Hyde provides examples of, but it is unlikely that anyone will be upset that someone has come over and doesn’t want to eat my food. (Sure you sit there eating your own food but I’m going to look at it and eventually you may let me taste it … or want me to. I might like it. Or it might give me an idea about how to flavor my food a little differently. And I saw you look out of the corner of your eye and see how I cooked the chicken and how you changed how you cooked yours a little after that.)
The European attitude seems to be (and you seem to express it as well) that Muslims as a group are rejecting becoming part of their new nations cultures. In the case of Britian that conclusion seems to have been reached mainly because the process of becoming comfortable with the new identity hasn’t been as rapid as that of those who were already enculturated subject peoples. And no offense but what a stupid expectation to hold. Given time Western and country specific values will seep in.
Now I readily recognize that the problem is exacerbated by the sheer numbers that are being dealt with in much of Europe. (In America those numbers are reached only in parts of Michigan.) And that some sizable minority of Muslims have views are actually antithetical to Western values and not merely considering themselves more their ethnicity or religion than their new country. I do not know how that should be dealt with but I think that Britian’s attempt to integrate more than assimilate is preferable to France’s approach, for example.
And please expand on the “fake asylum seekers” issue …
A difficult comparison. France’s Muslim population is generally estimated as being about 12%, whereas the UK has about 3%. Although there are certainly some strong philosophical arguments in favor of the UK approach, it’s worth pointing out that you see women in burqas in the UK and not in France, and there sems to be a growing problem with homegrown islamist terrorism in the UK (this may have more to do with law enforcement practices and ‘the curve’, France had the GIA problem in the 90s).
How would you define the criteria for a preferable outcome ? Is the ultimate goal a homogeneous society ? Nations within the nation ? Minimal strife ? Social justice ?
Currently I’d say that the main factor influencing the difference in outcomes in the US and Europe is the US policy of selecting it’s immigrant population on the basis of their ability to to succeed in US society (education, money, clean record etc.). There is generally no such process in Europe, it was one of the bones of contention in France’s presidential election - the winner, Sarkozy has proposed that such a system be set up in France - ‘immgration choisie’. It is widely held here that such a system is unjust, keeping out the needy, and harming poorer countries by ‘kidnapping’ their intelligentsia.
Obviously illegal immigration makes an end-run around the US selection policy, but even if half the US immigrants are illegals, you’re still going to end up with an immigrant population which is more ‘success’ oriented than Europe’s. On a similar note, it can also be argued that where to a large degree immigrant’s to the US are actively embracing the ‘American Dream’ (they are pre-selected on this basis) a large part of Europe’s immigrants don’t necessarily buy into the ‘European Dream’ (whatever that is), but are simply fleeing their circumstances. This is most obvious with current African immigration.
Having said all that, I’m not sure that there is a greater problem regarding the ‘assimilation’ of immigrants in Europe. There are 5 -10 million muslims in France for example. They are geographically concentrated. If there was substantial tension between Muslims and the ‘mainstream’ (which is pretty diverse), we’d be seeing more than occasional youth riots.
There is an issue with ‘racism’ (in both directions) and a degree of insularity/exclusion in Muslim communities, but not much different from what I’ve seen with Puerto-Rican communities in northern American cities. I guess the ultimate test is whether things get better or worse over time.
“Preferable outcome”? Minimal strife and social justice seem high on the list but also a society that is able to, over a period of time, benefit from its diversity even more than just tolerate it.
Your point about the selected nature of American immigrants is cogent. Even illegals have had to demonstrate a certain degree of drive and success orientation to get past the borders.
But it is, indeed, exquisitely relevent. Your sentence about Hispanics not being well assimilated betrays a very specific worldview.
In short, you are positing a very narrow view of “assimilation”. A more astute observer would say that- given that Hispanic culture in much of these areas predates Anglo culture- it is us who have not assimilated well with them. But even that simplifies things. I never realized how much of my very white self is very Californian, and by that pretty darn Hispanic-American culturally- until I moved away. You simply cannot seperate the two. Now that, my friend, is intergration.
And I think that is where we are better at assimilation. For the most part, we don’t freak out when people speak Spanish or wear burkas or dance Irish jigs in the streets. Except for a few annoyingly vocal people, we recognize that in a couple generations things will have evened out, and American culture will be reinvented anew once more. It’s not that we are better at assimilating people- creating the “borg”- as much as we don’t worry too much about it and (surprise!) things seem to work out well.
Even the most prejudiced American bigot has been influenced by these factors by what they eat, what they say, and even what they watch on TV.