4 ms·

>As educated white people, you'll be fine. Does that response change if the OP and his wife were educated, in the US but not white? (I am not asking for the he

by akat 15y ago

>As educated white people, you'll be fine. Does that response change if the OP and his wife were educated, in the US but not white? (I am not asking for the heck of it, seriously interested in your thoughts)

sgentle 15y ago
Ha, sorry. I should have said educated people from a mostly-white country. It's funny, immigration is a big issue here (see this, for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_immigration_detention_facilities http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_immigration_detentio... or this video of our last federal election debate, where two people fall over each other for 10 minutes talking about how much better they'll be at stopping The Boats: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUBrpzRPMf4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUBrpzRPMf4) but Australians really only worry about a horde of Southeast Asians and Chinese (and lately Arabic countries too). As a slight digression, the African-American situation in the USA is quite unique. We have a dark-skinned indigenous population, but they are more similar to Native Americans in terms of proportion, perception and public policy. 12% of Americans are African-American, vs 1.3% Native American; 2.5% of our population is indigenous. We never really had anything like the USA's race riots of the '60s. Affirmative Action based on race never really happened here except in a quite minor way (special government grants and university positions). No Martin Luther King, but we did have Eddie Mabo, who fought and won a famous native title claim. Which is a roundabout way of saying that, while race is certainly an issue for some Australians, we are, as a culture, much less aware of the distinction between ethnicity and country of origin. We're not worried about "Americans", we are worried about "Chinese". As far as I know, there's nothing even on the immigration forms about skin colour, so even if the government were prejudicial in that way there'd be no way for them to know. When we discriminate, it's by country of origin. You can check out this hilarious table that categorises student visas by "immigration risk": http://www.immi.gov.au/allforms/pdf/assessment-levels.pdf http://www.immi.gov.au/allforms/pdf/assessment-levels.pdf - note, for example, that a Puerto Rican studying a PhD gets a level 2, while an American doing a hairdressing course gets a level 1 (highest). I should say as well, lest I give a bad impression of Australians, that the majority of people you're likely to meet are fine. As you get further away from the city centres, you get lower incomes, less education, more babies, and more racism. I think that's probably the same anywhere though. Unfortunately, politicians need their votes as much as ours, which means some crazy immigration grandstanding sometimes.

by akat 15y ago

sgentle 15y ago

Ha, sorry. I should have said educated people from a mostly-white country. It's funny, immigration is a big issue here (see this, for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_immigration_detention_facilities http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_immigration_detentio... or this video of our last federal election debate, where two people fall over each other for 10 minutes talking about how much better they'll be at stopping The Boats: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUBrpzRPMf4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUBrpzRPMf4) but Australians really only worry about a horde of Southeast Asians and Chinese (and lately Arabic countries too). As a slight digression, the African-American situation in the USA is quite unique. We have a dark-skinned indigenous population, but they are more similar to Native Americans in terms of proportion, perception and public policy. 12% of Americans are African-American, vs 1.3% Native American; 2.5% of our population is indigenous. We never really had anything like the USA's race riots of the '60s. Affirmative Action based on race never really happened here except in a quite minor way (special government grants and university positions). No Martin Luther King, but we did have Eddie Mabo, who fought and won a famous native title claim. Which is a roundabout way of saying that, while race is certainly an issue for some Australians, we are, as a culture, much less aware of the distinction between ethnicity and country of origin. We're not worried about "Americans", we are worried about "Chinese". As far as I know, there's nothing even on the immigration forms about skin colour, so even if the government were prejudicial in that way there'd be no way for them to know. When we discriminate, it's by country of origin. You can check out this hilarious table that categorises student visas by "immigration risk": http://www.immi.gov.au/allforms/pdf/assessment-levels.pdf http://www.immi.gov.au/allforms/pdf/assessment-levels.pdf - note, for example, that a Puerto Rican studying a PhD gets a level 2, while an American doing a hairdressing course gets a level 1 (highest). I should say as well, lest I give a bad impression of Australians, that the majority of people you're likely to meet are fine. As you get further away from the city centres, you get lower incomes, less education, more babies, and more racism. I think that's probably the same anywhere though. Unfortunately, politicians need their votes as much as ours, which means some crazy immigration grandstanding sometimes.