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This is a fair take. And my experience with Arabs who are well off and relatively secular in France and Spain, and even more so Maghrebis who quietly identify a

This is a fair take. And my experience with Arabs who are well off and relatively secular in France and Spain, and even more so Maghrebis who quietly identify as Berbers, tracks with what you mean as far as their integration and acceptance. But I did live in Avignon for awhile and saw some of the worst of the well-meaning welfare state in action, just outside the city walls. I'm not blaming the character of the French any more than the character of the Arabs, I just think the system is not built in a way like America where assimilation is the goal of either party.

underlipton 2y ago
If you don't mind, I'll chime in with an American perspective. America is itself not a perfect case on immigration. Beyond high-profile recent developments under Trump: per our history of official, state-led segregation - within living memory, and certainly within the memory of much of our existing municipal and physical infrastructure, and which famously was, in part, a model for what the Third Reich aimed to achieve - the road to assimilation for the individuals and populations seeking it is not of equal length and equally unimpeded for everyone. Being educated helps a lot. Being wealthy helps a lot. Speaking English helps a lot. Being white helps a lot. Not having these attributes is not a deal-breaker (we DID manage to elect a black president), but they do significantly effect how someone and their children might be able to access the greater community, education, jobs, and more, and particularly outside of the immigrant community they might belong to. This is exacerbated by the state of our geography: America is big, and spread-out, and was built in its current form with an eye toward advantaging car-ownership and ethnic/economic segregation. It is possible to come to this country as someone who is not American, become American, and then become fabulously successful as an American, but it's not a given, and there are often headwinds. It's a difficult problem. We shouldn't despair because our governments haven't been able to tackle it. It's one worth continuing to try at because the alternatives (terrorism and internecine violence on one end, a form of genocide on the other) are horrible.

underlipton 2y ago

If you don't mind, I'll chime in with an American perspective. America is itself not a perfect case on immigration. Beyond high-profile recent developments under Trump: per our history of official, state-led segregation - within living memory, and certainly within the memory of much of our existing municipal and physical infrastructure, and which famously was, in part, a model for what the Third Reich aimed to achieve - the road to assimilation for the individuals and populations seeking it is not of equal length and equally unimpeded for everyone. Being educated helps a lot. Being wealthy helps a lot. Speaking English helps a lot. Being white helps a lot. Not having these attributes is not a deal-breaker (we DID manage to elect a black president), but they do significantly effect how someone and their children might be able to access the greater community, education, jobs, and more, and particularly outside of the immigrant community they might belong to. This is exacerbated by the state of our geography: America is big, and spread-out, and was built in its current form with an eye toward advantaging car-ownership and ethnic/economic segregation. It is possible to come to this country as someone who is not American, become American, and then become fabulously successful as an American, but it's not a given, and there are often headwinds. It's a difficult problem. We shouldn't despair because our governments haven't been able to tackle it. It's one worth continuing to try at because the alternatives (terrorism and internecine violence on one end, a form of genocide on the other) are horrible.