Quote from tradermaji:
Asian immigrants typically flock together and try to maintain a separate identity. However, within a generation, they assimilate with the mainstream but still manage to maintain a strong feeling towards their heritage. That to me is commendable.
What if Americans of English descent wished to 'maintain strong feelings toward their heritage'? Would that be commendable? Or would they be denounced as the new Klan?
Or what if Christians began pouring into, say, Iran, and wanted to 'maintain strong feelings towards their heritage'? Would Iranians see that as 'commendable'? Or would they, instead, lament that these Christians, with their church bells and their pork butchers and their two piece swimsuits were ever let in to the country?
Every group of immigrants bring both their good and bad qualities to the melting pot. That is what makes the US what it is... the greatest nation.
That is a load of codswallop. Of course, in modern America you simply can't go wrong claiming it, at every opportunity. Indeed, there's probably no more effective penance
than to claim it. (So I beat my wife, but Your Honor, I celebrate
diversity. It's our greatest strength!)
If one has never lived in a homogenous society, and he's had the rite of diversity drilled into him since childhood, I suppose it's understandable that he wouldn't know any different. But I have lived in a homogenous society. And I find it vastly preferable. I simply can't think of anything positive that I'm missing out on.
There's something to be said about living in a community where people share common cultural assumptions. Where you don't have to worry about 'offending' someone's cultural sensitivities. Where you can simply go about celebrating your own culture without worrying about whether it's 'inclusive' enough or not. Where you don't have to worry about racial quotas. Where you can walk the streets without fear that you're in the 'wrong area'. Where you can admonish a stranger's child for behaving badly safe in the knowledge that the child's parents would thank you for it (since everyone feels the same way about child rearing). Where you can call Christmas Christmas and Easter Easter. Where... need I go on? Far from missing out on anything, there's almost no end to the things I
don't have to worry about.
And no, I'm not talking about life in Australia. I'm talking about life in Serbia. Sure, for the moment, life in Australia is economically preferable. But I estimate about another 5-10 years and I'll have enough to comfortably live out my days in Serbia (or Macedonia or Bulgaria; all the same to me).
(That's probably why I feel 'safe' 'exposing' immigrant attitudes in Australia; southern and eastern Europeans haven't assimiliated to Australia nearly as well as those groups did in America; you can state to any souther or eastern european group here that "Aussies (Anglo-Celtic Australians) are idiots" and find widespread agreement; it's taken as casually as mentioning the sky is blue; Arabs and Asians have even lower opinions.)
I just hope those countries can avoid the foolishness that has characterized western countries' immigration policies. Though, it's not looking good. Belgrade already has a small Chinese community. I just don't get it. Unlike America, Serbia doesn't have any pretensions to being a 'universal country'. Serbia's culture isn't universal, it's particular. It's blood and soil and history. And while an Orthodox Macedonian, or Bulgarian or Romanian or a Russian - ie anyone racially and culturally compatible - may, in time, come to share it, it's effectively closed off to everyone else (well, western europeans in small numbers, and over time, are theoretically possible, I guess). In this sense, what possible good does importing Chinese do? Now, while their numbers are small, okay, I admit, it's amusing to hear them speaking fluent Serbian, and it's pleasing to see them bow to the superior position occupied by Serbian culture (ie, none of this Australian nuttiness that claims an eqal position for Chinese culture here). However, the western model
isn't to keep numbers small (and therefore managable). It's to keep on keeping on. No western country can bring itself to say, okay folks, I think we've got enough now. On what basis can western countries say it's enough? As long as there's room, you have to keep on bringing them. To object is be dismissed as a despicable racist. That's why the debate on immigration in America is so unnatural. Pundits agonize over economic minutiae, trying to determine the economy's ability to absorb more immigrants, or over whether there should be a 'path to citizenship' for illegals - as though
those are the reasons that large majorities of Americans object to Mexican immigration, instead of that it is
Mexicans (or in western Europe, Africans), no more no less, overrunning their cities. Even a staunch immigration reformer like Buchanan resorts to mouthing pc hogwash in an attempt to get his point across - I caught him a few weeks ago on Hannity saying how when he was growing up in Washington, it was 50% white and 50% black, and how he liked that ethnic mix (his point being that Mexicans have disrupted it); yeah,
sure Pat, I'm sure you absolutely
loved living in a 50% black/white mix.
