> I live in one of the more multicultural cities in the Western world. I have seen little evidence to suggest that even second and third generation immigrants assimilate into the host culture more than superficially. I have seen plenty of evidence to the contrary, which I will not list here due to it being tangential and often mistaken for malice.
What city do you live in, exactly?
I live in Los Angeles - one of several metropolises that I've lived in on several continents - and the vast majority of second and third generation immigrants I've met have had no trouble assimilating into their host culture. As an immigrant, in fact, I have struggled to find any zero or first generation immigrants that do not bemoan that their offspring are completely detached from their culture. They consider themselves lucky if their grandkids still speak their "native" tongue at a primary school level.
What I have seen everywhere, however, is a lot of small minded people who are only capable of differentiating each other by superficial ethnic stereotypes, dominated by skin color and religion. They've always got "plenty of evidence" that they "will not list here due to it being tangential and often mistaken for malice."
My apologies if I've got the wrong impression, but perhaps your understanding and methods of "assimilation" are fundamentally flawed.
From the perspective of someone who is not living in a large city I think you are primarily talking about the properties of large cities, not about assimilation in general. Large cities tend to form an excessive amount of enclaves because they allow hyper specialization. I always hear about people wanting to live in large cities because you can find a large group of people or go to businesses specializing in what you like no matter how niche your interest is. Cultures are not exactly niche. Millions of people can share the same culture.
However, what you seem to fail to grasp is that what you are seeing isn't actually the native culture of these people. It's actually an "americanized" (or localized) version of Bangladesh culture. If you forced them to go back to Bangladesh they would be considered too "americanized" and treated almost like outsiders there.
> From the perspective of someone who is not living in a large city I think you are primarily talking about the properties of large cities, not about assimilation in general...
No, I am talking about assimilation. I'm only concerned with the end product of the immigration. I'm not opposed to large-scale urban multiculturalism on some spiritual basis, I'm opposed to it because I don't believe it produces an actual desirable outcome. It sounds like you've just spoken to my point: That in large cities immigrant populations do not assimilate to the host culture because of the availability of said enclaves. If you're the one immigrant in a village of 100, you may need to make a bigger effort to assimilate into the host community. This is true. Your post seems to agree with me on the point that many immigrants favour large cities because there is less obligation to integrate with the host culture.
> However, what you seem to fail to grasp is that what you are seeing isn't actually the native culture of these people...
I fail to see the significance of this. I have my own doubts as to its accuracy. True or not, I still don't see the relevance. One possible way of interpreting your post would be that this is their attempt at assimilating into the host culture. If immigrant populations in large cities forming racial enclaves and ghettos that exclude the host culture is the best possible outcome, then why are we obliged to believe this multicultural experiment is a good thing?
FYI: I am an immigrant myself, having come to this country as a child.
> If immigrant populations in large cities forming racial enclaves and ghettos
This is a very... loaded way of talking about cultural precincts.
I've lived in the most multi-cultural city in Australia, and in one of the least, and I much prefer the diversity of the former. I love having a Chinatown that has legitimately maintained aspects of Chinese culture, and other Asian cultures, for example. The Chinatown in my previous city was essentially a cardboard prop in comparison.
In general, I think you may be confused. It seems that what you really care about is collective ethics and social contracts, and yet what you seem to be talking about is this vague idea of "assimilation". I find it hard to believe that you really want a perfectly homogeneous culture, but if you do, fair enough. I think most disagree with you - cities that have a bunch of legit cultural precincts are generally more interesting to me. I don't know how to say it exactly, but to me a monoculture city feels a little "boring" in comparison. This is, of course, just opinion.
If you happen to think that immigrants are statistically more associated with crime, then, in general, you're mistaken[0]. Foreign-born residents are generally underrepresented in prison populations, and studies I've read suggest that it takes around 3 generations for crime rates of immigrants to reach that of the native population.
[0] "Most studies in the U.S. have found lower crime rates among immigrants than among non-immigrants, and that higher concentrations of immigrants are associated with lower crime rates. For men between the ages of 18 and 39, the demographic with the highest propensity for crime, the incarceration rate for immigrants is one-fourth that of native-born Americans." Data with citations on more countries here --> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_crime
> Multiculturalism is fine at the scale of a football team.
Multiculturalism worked for the Austrian Hapsburgs from ~1520 - ~1920.
There was a time in the US when JFK was considered too insufficiently assimilated to elect, because irish catholics had lived in large immigrant enclaves.
> I have seen little evidence to suggest that even second and third generation immigrants assimilate into the host culture to a more than superficial degree.
Works great here in Canada. My neighbors are Lebanese, Iranian (although he calls himself Persian), Polish and Brazilian. All very Canadian, which is not a synonym for assimilated.
I think your comment is downvoted because, to be blunt, it sounded like the author is an asshole, but for the content, it gives me a weird chuckle that racially segregated slavery/human importation is still the first suggestion to labor problems in an American forum like it’s 1920 or even 1820...
I think it is very weird that you compare less restrictive immigration policies to slavery. Slavery takes away people's freedom. Less restrictive immigration policies grant people more freedom than they already had. People can decide for themselves if they want to immigrate.
It is also weird how you call it racially segregated when it is possible for white Americans to immigrate to India and obtain an Indian citizenship and then have trouble going back to the US.
The closest thing we have to slavery is civil wars where prisoners of war are being forced on overloaded boats that are heading toward Europe. These people probably suffer from the same pain that African American slaves have suffered from but they are not slaves, they are refugees and rejecting them will just result in more suffering, not less. You can call this human importation but it was not initiated by the receiving nations which were actually tightening their borders.
Having lived in London for a decade, I have to ask: what do you mean "assimilate"? Because I'd point to where I lived as "it working demonstrably well".
