6 ms·

America is undisputedly the best country at assimililating immigrants. It comes from doing it for centuries. We are one of the only countries with complete mixe

America is undisputedly the best country at assimililating immigrants. It comes from doing it for centuries. We are one of the only countries with complete mixed ethnicities and a strong nationality. But that doesn't really work for blacks because they aren't a different culture, they are a subculture. Their culture has been a part of American culture from the beginning. For almost all of American history they were essentially banned from mainstream culture. So nobody can make them assimililate. They didn't come here as an immigrant. Their ancestors were kidnapped and enslaved here. FYI the world thinks France is particularly bad at assimilation. I don't know if that is just a stereotype but that's how it's viewed.

fortes 11y ago
> America is undisputedly the best country at assimililating immigrants. > It comes from doing it for centuries. We are one of the only countries with complete mixed ethnicities > and a strong nationality. I'll dispute that. In my experience, Brazil is a better melting pot. Anecdotal example: In Brazil, you don't see people claiming they are Irish when their families have lived in the US for generations.
- rhino369 11y ago
  >Anecdotal example: In Brazil, you don't see people claiming they are Irish when their families have lived in the US for generations. That is actually the key to Americas success. The total separation of ethnicity and national identity. It allows an immigrant to keep their ethnic identity and merely add an American one. It's also helps when a white 5th generation american thinks they are Irish and American. They'll be less likely to believe that a newly arrived Mexican isn't really American. They intuitively know you can be both.
  - vinceguidry 11y ago
    That is something we inherited from the British. You can be British and any ethnicity. The US just took that idea and rolled with it. America's success results largely from its geography. Being isolated from Europe by a large ocean and having the mighty Mississippi river system to build an agricultural powerhouse from made it pretty much inevitable.
  - fortes 11y ago
    I disagree completely, I think that type of attitude leads to the notion of "Real" Americans. Keeping the ethnic identity is the opposite of the melting pot. In Brazil, you're just Brazilian, regardless of color.
    - apalmer 11y ago
      Brazil has a pretty significant and open classism via race issue. Not sure we should hold them up as a superior melting pot...
    - umanwizard 11y ago
      100% of the Brazilians I have met (I'm in the US) are middle class and above. Also, as if by magic, 100% of them appear white (or mostly white), despite non-whites making up a large fraction of Brazil's population. It's absurd to act like everything is great for racial minorities in Brazil.
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
  - rpgmaker 11y ago
    Except that Brazil is known to be pretty racist, even by Latin American standards. There is, somewhat surprisingly, a lot of racism in Latin America.
- jnbiche 11y ago
  Perhaps not, but you have people who honor their US Confederate ancestry after living in Brazil for generations: http://www.vice.com/read/welcome-to-americana-brazil-0000580-v22n2 http://www.vice.com/read/welcome-to-americana-brazil-0000580... But I agree that Brazil overall is an impressive melting pot, on par or better than the US.
dang 11y ago
Canadian disputes this.
- Joof 11y ago
  At least to Canadians we can point out 'French' Canada. The people are different, but still Canadian.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - umanwizard 11y ago
    You really want to hold up Quebec's relationship with Canada as a shining example of good integration?
    - Joof 11y ago
      Not at all. But it seems like a good example of very separate cultures developing in the same nation.
worik 11y ago
"But that doesn't really work for blacks because they aren't a different culture, they are a subculture" There you have it. Deep racism.
- umanwizard 11y ago
  I think you just misunderstand what "subculture" means. "sub" here has a meaning like "subset", not like "subhuman".
vacri 11y ago
> America is undisputedly the best country at assimililating immigrants. I'll dispute it. - Foreign-born US citizens: 14% - Foreign-born Australian citizens: 28% (without British, 21%) Despite all the accusations of racism that Australia gets, we have a far higher proportion of foreign-born citizens than any other western democracy. The country seems to be doing fine. edit: US is 14%. UK is 12% (as I originally had it). The comparison doesn't really change much, though.
- underdown 11y ago
  Foreign-born immigrants are recent immigrants. If you change your time frame the results might be different.
  - vacri 11y ago
    If you're born in a country, you're not an immigrant. These people are sometimes called "second-generation immigrants", but they're not actually immigrants themselves. Australia has plenty of those as well (like any postwar new-world Anglo country does) Still, I'm interested to see how you'd fiddle with the timeframe to make the results functionally different. Show me how you see it being different.
sidek 11y ago
So, your claim to being undisputedly the best is just wrong. The United States has immensely hateful, mainstream discourse about immigrants. Case in point : Donald Trump. That's one big strike against success claims. Furthermore, it's not just African-Americans who are other-ised into a distinct grouping. Hispanic immigrants are, to some extent, other-ised into their own cultural subset. I was shocked when I started going to college in the states, because you can even feel the racial divide in how people eat. There literally are black tables and hispanic tables and jewish tables and white tables. If you're in the `desired' immigrant groups in the states, for example you are European or East Asian, you won't have much trouble integrating, and nor will you face much prejudice. But if you're not in those `desired' groups, you will not. Canada, where I'm from, doesn't really have these problems to the same extent at all. We have our own; for instance, we other-ise First Nations groups. But that's pretty much all we other-ise. Certainly the United States does a pretty good job. Hong Kong, for instance, is horribly behind the USA despite itself doing a decent job. But good != "undisputedly the best".

fortes 11y ago

> America is undisputedly the best country at assimililating immigrants. > It comes from doing it for centuries. We are one of the only countries with complete mixed ethnicities > and a strong nationality. I'll dispute that. In my experience, Brazil is a better melting pot. Anecdotal example: In Brazil, you don't see people claiming they are Irish when their families have lived in the US for generations.

rhino369 11y ago
>Anecdotal example: In Brazil, you don't see people claiming they are Irish when their families have lived in the US for generations. That is actually the key to Americas success. The total separation of ethnicity and national identity. It allows an immigrant to keep their ethnic identity and merely add an American one. It's also helps when a white 5th generation american thinks they are Irish and American. They'll be less likely to believe that a newly arrived Mexican isn't really American. They intuitively know you can be both.
- vinceguidry 11y ago
  That is something we inherited from the British. You can be British and any ethnicity. The US just took that idea and rolled with it. America's success results largely from its geography. Being isolated from Europe by a large ocean and having the mighty Mississippi river system to build an agricultural powerhouse from made it pretty much inevitable.
- fortes 11y ago
  I disagree completely, I think that type of attitude leads to the notion of "Real" Americans. Keeping the ethnic identity is the opposite of the melting pot. In Brazil, you're just Brazilian, regardless of color.
  - apalmer 11y ago
    Brazil has a pretty significant and open classism via race issue. Not sure we should hold them up as a superior melting pot...
  - umanwizard 11y ago
    100% of the Brazilians I have met (I'm in the US) are middle class and above. Also, as if by magic, 100% of them appear white (or mostly white), despite non-whites making up a large fraction of Brazil's population. It's absurd to act like everything is great for racial minorities in Brazil.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
- rpgmaker 11y ago
  Except that Brazil is known to be pretty racist, even by Latin American standards. There is, somewhat surprisingly, a lot of racism in Latin America.
jnbiche 11y ago
Perhaps not, but you have people who honor their US Confederate ancestry after living in Brazil for generations: http://www.vice.com/read/welcome-to-americana-brazil-0000580-v22n2 http://www.vice.com/read/welcome-to-americana-brazil-0000580... But I agree that Brazil overall is an impressive melting pot, on par or better than the US.

dang 11y ago

Canadian disputes this.

Joof 11y ago
At least to Canadians we can point out 'French' Canada. The people are different, but still Canadian.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- umanwizard 11y ago
  You really want to hold up Quebec's relationship with Canada as a shining example of good integration?
  - Joof 11y ago
    Not at all. But it seems like a good example of very separate cultures developing in the same nation.

worik 11y ago

"But that doesn't really work for blacks because they aren't a different culture, they are a subculture" There you have it. Deep racism.

umanwizard 11y ago
I think you just misunderstand what "subculture" means. "sub" here has a meaning like "subset", not like "subhuman".

vacri 11y ago

> America is undisputedly the best country at assimililating immigrants. I'll dispute it. - Foreign-born US citizens: 14% - Foreign-born Australian citizens: 28% (without British, 21%) Despite all the accusations of racism that Australia gets, we have a far higher proportion of foreign-born citizens than any other western democracy. The country seems to be doing fine. edit: US is 14%. UK is 12% (as I originally had it). The comparison doesn't really change much, though.

underdown 11y ago
Foreign-born immigrants are recent immigrants. If you change your time frame the results might be different.
- vacri 11y ago
  If you're born in a country, you're not an immigrant. These people are sometimes called "second-generation immigrants", but they're not actually immigrants themselves. Australia has plenty of those as well (like any postwar new-world Anglo country does) Still, I'm interested to see how you'd fiddle with the timeframe to make the results functionally different. Show me how you see it being different.

sidek 11y ago

So, your claim to being undisputedly the best is just wrong. The United States has immensely hateful, mainstream discourse about immigrants. Case in point : Donald Trump. That's one big strike against success claims. Furthermore, it's not just African-Americans who are other-ised into a distinct grouping. Hispanic immigrants are, to some extent, other-ised into their own cultural subset. I was shocked when I started going to college in the states, because you can even feel the racial divide in how people eat. There literally are black tables and hispanic tables and jewish tables and white tables. If you're in the `desired' immigrant groups in the states, for example you are European or East Asian, you won't have much trouble integrating, and nor will you face much prejudice. But if you're not in those `desired' groups, you will not. Canada, where I'm from, doesn't really have these problems to the same extent at all. We have our own; for instance, we other-ise First Nations groups. But that's pretty much all we other-ise. Certainly the United States does a pretty good job. Hong Kong, for instance, is horribly behind the USA despite itself doing a decent job. But good != "undisputedly the best".