Anyone who claims that North African and Middle Eastern Muslims have been brought up to believe the world owes them a living doesn’t know what they’re talking about.
I also find the idea that large numbers of second-generation Swedish immigrants can’t speak Swedish to be beyond preposterous.
Not racist at all. And if you are not aware of secong and third and fourth generation immigrants who do not speak the language of the country they have found themselves in, then you ought to get out more. Visit California or Texas, for example.
They are not North African and Middle Eastern Muslims. They are Swedish 2nd generation North African and Middle Eastern Muslims. In general there are much fewer problems with 1st generation immigrants.
What lies beyond preposterous? I’m assuming that Sweden in this regard is somewhat like Denmark (actually Denmark is said to do better than Sweden in this regard, so the problem may be worse in Sweden), and here it is in fact a common problem that 2nd (and 3rd) generation immigrants speak bad Danish when they start in school. This deficiency haunts them throughout their school years and ensure that they perform much worse than the general population. In fact so bad that 1/3 never learn to read despite being in school for 10 years. And if you cannot read then there are very few legal avenues to make a decent living in a post-industrial economy.
The idea that there are sizable numbers of third and fourth generation immigrants in American who dont speak English is even stupider.
What’s always funny about such xenophobic nonsense is anyone who’s spent time amongst immigrant communities whether they’re Latino, Vietnamese, Chinese etc. a common complaint amongst all of them is how quickly the young people “Americanize” and how many their children can’t speak or can barely speak Spanish/Vietnamese/Chinese etc.
There was a time when second generation immigrants from Mexico learned English as a matter of course and acted as translator for the family (this is my experience in California in the 80s}. Current experiences have shown this is no longer the case. Many people, in their twenties or thirties, living both in CA and TX, no longer have the ability to communicate in English except very basically, and certainly do not read or write English. I am sorry if you think this is somehow due to my prejudice but it is just a fact.
That 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants have a problem with sufficiently mastering Danish is pretty much both generally agreed upon and so completely uncontroversial that you’d think to use a word like preposterous or racist for it tells me you haven’t the first clue what is going on. Here’s I think the latest report by the Danish state on it from a few weeks ago: SFI (summary). From it – if you know Danish and can read – you’ll find that 65% of 2nd generation immigrant children in 2nd grade perform “below average” or “clearly below average” on Danish language. The same number for the general population is 28%. And as it also says, the same trend can be found when the children leave school 8 years later. Now it may be that the picture is 100% completely different 2km away in Sweden, in which case I shall readily admit I’m mistaken
Given that it has already been quite amply demonstrated that it is not a fact, I would be very interested in seeing you explain how it is not your prejudice.
I didn’t say anything about your prejudice, I asked you for a cite of 4th generation immigrants unable to speak English. Apparently, you don’t have one which does not surprise me.
First of all, my challenge to that poster was about his or her claims about the US, not Denmark or Sweden. And secondly, it is not surprising that children who don’t speak Danish at home are going to not do so well in the 2nd grade. But if your school system doesn’t get them proficient in Danish by the time they are in High School, then the problem is with your school system, not the kids.
As for my own experience, there are thousands of Hispanic immigrants where I live, and I work with lots of them. Many speak English only marginally, but I have never met any 2nd generation kid who wasn’t perfectly fluent in English. The problem they have is that they lose their good Spanish, not English.
The major reason for such problems in Sweden is that, in the words of a friend from the Denmark, “beyond flowery words, they do little to integrate them into society.”
<try to embed themselves into a society>
Perhaps the problem is that they don’t try to integrate into the host society, but prefer to keep seperate.
In the UK when I lived there, problems were caused by ethnic communities building seperate communities with different mores from the majority- ie educating children in religious schools that had no point of reference with the host communities.
Seems to me that whatever the reason they immigrate, they don’t want to be “British” or whatever, they want to have their own ethnic community in another country, and change the host country to suit themselves, rather than assimilating into the host community.
Anyway, whenever there is an economic downturn, the “stranger” will always be the first to suffer, leading to the problems we see everywhere in the western world now, not least because politicians will use “stranger danger” to curry favour among the electorate.
Let’s face it, we are all immigrants if you go back far enough, so it’s simplistic to blame it all on immigration.
IMO, if immigrants want to be accepted, get out and assimilate.
Who doesn’t like Sweden?
My maiden name is Swedish (Sahlin) so I have a soft spot for my ancestral homeland.
Honestly the riots were pretty tame compared to what happens here in the States when we riot, and even more tame than the football hooligan riots you see in England.
