Multiculturalism has failed.

[Brienne the Beauty]

I am not sure that Chinatown (and to a MUCH lesser extent little italy) is representative of the typical immigrant experience in America. Still, there are strong elements of assimilation within both communities. For example, students from Chinatown and Little Italy who attend public school still attend an English speaking public school with a curriculum not set by a Chinese or Italian board of education. They learn subjects that are in line with students not only in their city, but also their state and country.

I've been to Little Italy and Chinatown in Manhattan. They are next to each other. Here's my outsiders view. Little Italy seems a great example of assimilation - it doesn't seem to exist anymore bar a few Italian restaurants. Chinatown is big and thriving. Yesterday I heard people talking about that the best public schools in Manhattan were in Chinatown, and how a non-Chinese family moved there specifically so their child could attend the schools. Multiculturalism is clearly working there.

Multiculturalism/assimilation only really seems to have problems when a large amount of very poor people all arrive at once. It sorts itself in the end, but sometimes it takes longer. Noticed any Huguenots swarming the East End of London, destroying native London culture with their alien French ways? Oh wait, they got so assimilated they just disappeared. In fact, you've probably never heard of them. But when they first appeared in London, people said all the same things they say these days about Muslims or Black immigrants.

[DNking]

Well, as until 1999 immigrants weren't even allowed to become German, it seems unfair, not to mention premature, to criticise them for a failure to assimilate.

Well yea criticizing them individually is stupid but as a society due to different reasons they do seem to stay as a 'Muslim minority' instead of becoming German. And well that's the danger they will soon stay a minority no longer.

I think the problem is that when they decide to immigrate into Germany they're thinking more of the economic change rather then the fact it means for them to become German and leave some stuff behind. It seems the Islamic way of life seems to be harder to put behind, especially when they still live together in certain places instead of spreading out across the country.

[Hereward]

I'm not sure it's any fairer to criticise a community for having failed to assimilate when, until 11 years ago, the state's policy was that they were not allowed to assimilate. Actually, I would also argue that changing the constitution to allow immigrants to become German was not in itself an attempt to encourage assimilation, so that hasn't actively been tried yet, either.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

Multiculturalism/assimilation only really seems to have problems when a large amount of very poor people all arrive at once. It sorts itself in the end, but sometimes it takes longer.

That really cuts to the core of the issue for me. I agree completely with the first part, but I'm not so sure about the second. I think that in parts of the U.S. that have seen rapid hispanic immigration, the dominant culture is hispanic, and I'm not sure assimilation will ever occur because those folks aren't living in a place where American culture predominates.

I greatly prefer assimilation to multiculturalism. The reason Germany, and Britain, and the U.S., and Japan, and other countries offer a higher standard of living, freedom, and a greater respect for human rights isn't because of race or ethnicity, but because of their culture. If you allow large numbers of immigrants from different cultures, with different values, to immigrate faster than they can reasonably be assimilated, you run a significant risk of losing or diluting the culture you value in your home country.

[Guest Raidne]

Well, as until 1999 immigrants weren't even allowed to become German, it seems unfair, not to mention premature, to criticise them for a failure to assimilate.

I have no idea what's fair or unfair, nor did I state any opinion one way or the other. The fact that immigrants were not allowed to apply for German citizenship until 1999 is news to me.

As much as I can judge a situation I know very little about, I'd say the whole debate seems a bit premature.

Does anyone know - what immigrant populations are applying for German citizenship, and at what rate? And what kind of immigration program was Germany running before they allowed people to apply for citizenship?

I think that in parts of the U.S. that have seen rapid hispanic immigration, the dominant culture is hispanic, and I'm not sure assimilation will ever occur because those folks aren't living in a place where American culture predominates.

Hey! FLOW! "Hispania" is not a country with a national character! "Hispanic" is an ethnicity. If you want that sentence to make sense you should probably say "white people" instead of American culture.

One positive thing I can say about Houston is that it has a vibrant Latino American culture. And it sure as hell is American. There is also not much ethnic divide between Latino people in Houston and white people (although don't get me started on how segregated the black population is).

If you allow large numbers of immigrants from different cultures, with different values, to immigrate faster than they can reasonably be assimilated, you run a significant risk of losing or diluting the culture you value in your home country.

Let's unpack this a little bit - let's take immigrants from Latin America. What are the aspects of their culture that are different from our culture that will dilute our culture leading to a loss of our success and respect for human rights?

I should ask you to specifically use Cuban immigrants as an example, but that not even fair.

[Happy Ent]

The fact that immigrants were not allowed to apply for German citizenship until 1999 is news to me.

To me as well.

It’s been a while since I’ve been good at this, but the Big Change in 2000 was that you could apply for German citizenship without losing your original citizenship. (The rules for double citizenship are exciting and differ greatly between countries.)

But I’m probably wrong, maybe Hereward can explain.

[Lummel]

That really cuts to the core of the issue for me. I agree completely with the first part, but I'm not so sure about the second. I think that in parts of the U.S. that have seen rapid hispanic immigration, the dominant culture is hispanic, and I'm not sure assimilation will ever occur because those folks aren't living in a place where American culture predominates.

I appreciate your concern over hispanic immigration but as Brienne the Beauty pointed out above - who now remembers the Huguenots in London's east end ? In the modern USA you have systems & ideas that attract newcomers into the American cultural mainstream like 'the american dream' & a rich availibility of media and systems that oblige newcomers to integrate in order to gain access to employment, the law or credit. It was in the past that groups like the Pennsylvania Dutch could maintain a separate culture for hundreds of years while today however intently new immigrant groups try to maintain their original culture it is going to change in the face of influences from the mainstream. Those unassimilated Turks or Hispanics may not be considered German or American enough in Cologne or Colorado but they also aren't going to be Turkish enough for Ankara or Mexican enough for non-migrants south of the border.

Assimilation is anyway a two way process - the host culture has to be prepared to accept the incomers otherwise however much they change to conform to our values they will be left knocking at the door of our society.

[Lord Varys]

Germany never had an official immigration policy. Merkel's party, the CDU (German Conservatives) still don't see Germany as a country in need of immigration. All immigration we had since World War II were

- people marrying Germans (only their children were allowed to be citizens of two countries)

- the so-called 'foreign workers' (later dubbed 'guest workers') - poorly educated people from Southern Europe and Middle Eastern states we invited here (originally only for a limited period of time) to do jobs we did not want to ourselves (this started back in the 50s/60s)

- people marrying people who already live in Germany

- the so-called 'Spätaussiedler' - Germans by blood which lived in the former Soviet states until the 90s.

There has never been a real immigration program here since 1999. Actually, you were only a German due to heritage. Other factors don't enter into the equation. At least until 1999.

[Spastic Plastic]

I greatly prefer assimilation to multiculturalism. The reason Germany, and Britain, and the U.S., and Japan, and other countries offer a higher standard of living, freedom, and a greater respect for human rights isn't because of race or ethnicity, but because of their culture. If you allow large numbers of immigrants from different cultures, with different values, to immigrate faster than they can reasonably be assimilated, you run a significant risk of losing or diluting the culture you value in your home country.

What you're doing is thinking "us" (Americans) and "them" (all immigrants, who are an identical mass).

The thing is, Latino immigrants don't have a very different culture from white Americans. They're easy to assimilate. Their religion, values, traditions and such are pretty similar to those of white Americans about 40 years ago.

I agree that Muslim immigrants are a bigger culture-crash. They really need to be in a separate category. But I live currently in Sweden, one of the European countries with highest levels of Muslim immigrants - and I've never had any problems with them. Sweden goes for the "multicultural" approach, and it's worked pretty damn well. Of course, we have our ghetto neighborhoods, but the immigrants there haven't rioted the way they do in France. The xenophobic whining that goes on in Germany and Switzerland is pretty absurd.

(The Swedish government's policies may have something to do with that. Most of the newer immigrants in Sweden come from diverse countries - Serbia, Turkey, Iraq and Somalia. All of them with different languages, so immigrants are forced to learn Swedish quickly. This is of course the government's intent.)

[Hereward]

To me as well.

It’s been a while since I’ve been good at this, but the Big Change in 2000 was that you could apply for German citizenship without losing your original citizenship. (The rules for double citizenship are exciting and differ greatly between countries.)

But I’m probably wrong, maybe Hereward can explain.

My recollection may be wrong, but as I recalled, the Nationality Law was changed in 1999 to allow naturalisation, the previous law requiring one parent to have been a German.

http://eudo-citizenship.eu/NationalDB/docs/GER%20Nationality%20Act%20(1913,%20as%20amended%201999,%20English).pdf

Seems my recollection was not 100% accurate (there's a surprise), naturalisation having been possible before then, though rarely achieved.

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

Quotes from a summary of the change found in this PDF: http://www.london.diplo.de/Vertretung/london/en/07/other__legal__matters/Citizenship/Reform__Germanys__citizenship__DD,property=Daten.pdf

The new law substantially changes the principle of descent (jus sanguinis) which has long

been the country's traditional basis for granting citizenship. Now, it will also be possible to

acquire German citizenship as the result of being born in Germany (jus soli) as is the case in

most other European countries. Further, the reform also takes into account the fact that more

than seven million foreigners live in Germany on a long-term basis. One third of them have

lived here for more than 30 years; half of them have lived in Germany for at least 20 years.

The lives of most of the foreign nationals living in Germany center around Germany. The new

citizenship and nationality law offers them a shorter mandatory waiting period for

naturalization.

Children who are born in Germany to foreign nationals will receive German citizenship when

one of the respective child's parents has resided lawfully in Germany for at least eight years

and holds entitlement to residence or has had an unlimited residence permit for at least three

years. Under the new law, such children acquire German citizenship at birth. In most cases,

they will also acquire their parents' citizenship under the principle of descent (depending upon

the other country's laws). For this reason, such children will have to decide within five years

of turning 18 – in other words, before their 23rd birthday – whether they want to retain their

German citizenship or their other citizenship.

Before the new legislation went into force, foreign nationals were granted entitlement to

naturalisation only after 15 years of residence in Germany. Now, a foreign national is entitled

to naturalization after lawfully residing in Germany for eight years when he meets the

following requirements: (my note: list goes here, including renouncing the previously-held citizenship, except in cases of hardship)

This article from March of this year seems to indicate that dual citizenship is still not allowed for German-born children of foreign-born individuals. (I'm unclear as to whether this applies only to children of non-naturalised foreign-born individuals, or those of *any* foreign-born individuals. Given that Germany seems to require renouncement of the previous citizenship, in theory the naturalised foreign-born individuals would be considered German at the time of the child's birth, and the standard jus sanguinis rule could/would apply to their children.)

ETA:

Bah. Oops, I'm too late. Oh well, I hope this isn't too long to keep up, regardless.

[DNking]

I'm not sure it's any fairer to criticise a community for having failed to assimilate when, until 11 years ago, the state's policy was that they were not allowed to assimilate. Actually, I would also argue that changing the constitution to allow immigrants to become German was not in itself an attempt to encourage assimilation, so that hasn't actively been tried yet, either.

I agree they can't be the blamed for the lack of assimilation but the reasons for that can be dealt with.

The largest reason i can think of is the fact they tend to leave together while speaking their former language and continuing the exact culture they had back home.

The second one is their old culture that tends to go down on other cultures (non Islamic cultures that is) and that makes them stay away from assimilating when they have a choice of keeping their Islamic culture.

Both of those reasons can be dealt with if they spread over the country so they couldn't keep their closed Islamic communities anymore.

[Old Nan]

As he later points out, Germany will lose 10 million people in the next 50 years due to it's low birthrates. That virtually requires them to begin accepting more immigrants.

It does no such thing. Continual growth is cancer, and that liberal capitalism and social democracy seem to require it is a great indictment.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

Hey! FLOW! "Hispania" is not a country with a national character! "Hispanic" is an ethnicity. If you want that sentence to make sense you should probably say "white people" instead of American culture.

Huh? What about black Americans, or Americans of hispanic descent who have assimilated? Or people of asian descent? No, I think "white people" would be just plain racism. I think the American culture is far more than just skin deep, perhaps in an almost unique way compared to most other nations. Don't you?

Let's unpack this a little bit - let's take immigrants from Latin America. What are the aspects of their culture that are different from our culture that will dilute our culture leading to a loss of our success and respect for human rights?

I don't think anyone here is capable of drafting an agreed-upon set of "aspects of Mexican culture". For that matter, I suspect that experts themselves would disagree on any such list. But it's not necessary to isolate aspects of the culture anyway. It's enough to know that nations generally reflect their culture, and I think the U.S. is a better place to live than Mexico, economically and otherwise. Therefore, I value the culture here over the culture in Mexico, no matter how you'd choose to parse out various "aspects" of those cultures. Inconsequential things like food, etc., don't matter.

The only concrete example I can give from my own experience, and I can't say how widespread it is, was an attitude towards working/saving I saw among migrant laborers in a case I had down in Texas. Those workers were very hard working people, but their only interest was in earning enough money to go back home, and not work at all, living off the savings. Then they'd come back up for another stint. The idea of earning enough to save and advance themselves in life seemed foreign. I'm not sure if these people were outliers, or if their attitude is part of a more general national culture among a certain segment of the population. And in a sense, I don't even care. All I know is I greatly prefer the U.S. to Mexico as a place to live.

I should ask you to specifically use Cuban immigrants as an example, but that not even fair.

Why not? It's actually a pretty good example of successful assimilation, apart from the language issue.

ETA:

I'm not fond of the whole dual citizenship thing, either. Pick one or the other.

[Spastic Plastic]

I'm a dual citizen, FLOW. I kind of take offense to that last one.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

I'm a dual citizen, FLOW. I kind of take offense to that last one.

Why would you take offense? I hardly think it's unreasonable to expect citizens of the U.S. to have their primary loyalty given to this country. And I'd say the same thing for any other country as well.

And I don't blame the individuals at all. Why not get it if you can? I just don't think countries (or at least, my country) should permit it.

[Spastic Plastic]

What, is it a crime to be an American and also a citizen of your original country?

I really don't have an "allegiance" or "primary loyalty" to any government. I'm a citizen of the U.S. and Greece. I'm living in Sweden.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

What, is it a crime to be an American and also a citizen of your original country?

I really don't have an "allegiance" or "primary loyalty" to any government. I'm a citizen of the U.S. and Greece. I'm living in Sweden.

I don't have a problem with the folks who take advantage of dual citizenship. There's no downside, so it makes sense to me from an individual perspective. What I don't understand is why it is in the interest of the nation as a whole to permit it.

[Old Nan]

Huh? What about black Americans, or Americans of hispanic descent who have assimilated? Or people of asian descent? No, I think "white people" would be just plain racism. I think the American culture is far more than just skin deep, perhaps in an almost unique way compared to most other nations.

Well, white people aren't exactly white-skinned. On the one hand, you're right, because black people can never be white, but I think of assimilated Asians of any color scheme as white, and Hispanics as white even if they aren't assimilated.

[Lummel]

I agree they can't be the blamed for the lack of assimilation but the reasons for that can be dealt with.

The largest reason i can think of is the fact they tend to leave together while speaking their former language and continuing the exact culture they had back home.

The second one is their old culture that tends to go down on other cultures (non Islamic cultures that is) and that makes them stay away from assimilating when they have a choice of keeping their Islamic culture.

Both of those reasons can be dealt with if they spread over the country so they couldn't keep their closed Islamic communities anymore.

Economic migrants go to where the work is, there's no incentive to setting off on your own to the Lausitz if your not going to be able to a job there. The Islamic culture of second generation immigrants from rural Anatolia to Cologne is not going to be the same as that of their cousins in Turkey - how could be given that they are exposed to a hugely different culture which they participate in. Why shouldn't they speak their own language amongst themselves and at home, you can hear ethnic germans returned settlers from the former soviet union speaking in russian amongst themselves in Germany - whats the difference between them and the turkish population?