Won't end well: Making naturalized citizens of immigrants who often don't share our customs/values/traditions

You’re weird OP.

Something off about OP.

OP, what are "our" values? Everyone has different values. You lecture Muslims for supposedly being antigay but you vote for Republicans like Mike Pence and Mike Johnson who believe in "curing" gays

Enough OP. To ether you shall go.

OP thinks immigrants should be forced to observe Christian holidays, apparently

[quote]Lots of born and bread Americans couldn't care less about this holiday.

Oh, dear!

[quote]born and bread Americans

Leave me out of this!

"Born and bread"? I can see that spelling isn't your bread and butter, OP.

I don’t know any born and bread citizens who couldn’t care less about this holiday.

At least OP got the "couldn't care less" part right.

In addition to OP generally needing a life, it is beyond ironic he/she is criticizing these two immigrants for traveling only to their respective homelands — when the average American *doesn’t even a passport* (and is among the most insular of the western world).

She doesn't celebrate.... Easter?

Apart from stuffing yourself on chocolate eggs, how exactly do YOU celebrate Easter?

This is the culmination of the destruction of the American middle class started by Reagan.

We are no melting pot, we are no mosaic, we are all sleeper cells.

I was born in America and I don't know anyone that really cares about Thanksgiving. No one mentions the Pilgrims or coming to America or anything about Thanksgiving.

What most people enjoy is having the day off or visiting with relatives they haven't seen in a while. And THAT'S IT.

Among the other inanities in the OP, I sort of agree on feeling put off by fellow citizens (who have been here for years) not celebrating Thanksgiving. That's our national holiday. Do your own version.

[quote]There was a time when immigrants were supposed to learn about and participate in customs/values/traditions of the country where they became naturalized citizens but now that's considered no considered the case..

Blame it on the Democrats, who actively encourage immigrants NOT to assimilate to American culture. At least Republicans are proud to be American.

My mother is a 'woke' ultra-liberal ESL teacher who has taught lots of Latinos and Hmong people over three decades and I have personally witnessed her tell them to stick to their traditions because the USA is a terrible role model and not someone to emulate.

Needless to say, we have become estranged in recent years. I consider myself a centrist (we need a balance of both liberal/conservative values), but she has become very far-left and anti-America... and anti-men despite being married, but my stepfather is a Marxist NY Jew who he doesn't seem to mind being emasculated.

OP is right. Make fun of a typo all you want, but he's 100% right.

OP is clearly not a native English speaker, so his critique of another non-native is interesting. He mentions several holidays which are specific to the Christian tradition and wonders why a Muslim doesn't celebrate them. The ONLY values that an immigrant needs to pay attention to are the values laid out in our constitution and in the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of rights, and so forth. Most immigrants quickly figure out that they have to learn English to be able to work in this country, and most want to work, so that starts to happen. It might be broken English, but it is learned. We should all be supporting public education, because that is the one institution in the US in which children of different races, ethnicities, religions, nationalities are thrown together and where people can see with their own eyes that all people are similar in some important ways and we shouldn't be scared of people for being different that we are.

OP, that was way too long a post. You are showing a contempt for our dear fellow D/Lers when you could just say “I hate muslims”.

To be fair though, your post wasn’t just long: it was boring too.

[quote] enjoy...visiting with relatives they haven't seen in a while.

Or not.

You think this is any different than other cultures/people that have immigrated here? It takes a generation or two to assimilate. This is the case with EVERYONE going back to the first immigrants who came here.

Not many Jews are into Christmas Eve, Christmas or Easter, either.

OP I here peddling “its ok for Israel to annihilate the Palestinian people because Muslims are weird.”

Using OP’s logic then Jews are also a danger to America because no one makes a bigger stink about not celebrating the Christian holidays than Jews. I’ve known Muslims and Hindus as well and they don’t have their non-participation on full blast and cranked to 11 like that.

They love our money, not our values.

[quote] They love our money, not our values.

Isn’t that one and the same? ;)

I sort of get what you're saying, OP.

Earlier waves of immigration worked to the benefit of the US because those immigrants embraced the melting pot and embraced all aspects of their new country.

This is less so in the 21st century - we have a lot of Mexican and Central American refugees who don't want to be here and don't embrace the culture or learn the language. Somewhat similar with Muslim immigrants. We are a temporary spot to make money, not a new home for them.

Bingo. What's missing is the gratitude for being here.that my grandparents felt and which spilled over to later generations. That's a bit different from "let's get ours from the fat capitalist assholes." They may do very well but there's not a sense of duty to better the US. It's them not us.

What a bunch of bs r26. People are here because of strife in their home country and/or to provide a better life for their families. Why do you think Europeans don’t come here anymore? Because life is pretty good there! And believe me, read through history, the immigrants who came here were never welcome by the people who were already here. They made it by sticking together and helping each other.

Global dynamics will continue to spill over into the American experiment. Of the babies born worldwide today, almost 50% will be in Asia, 30+% in Africa.

America is a melting pot, the refuge of the huddled masses, the tempest-tossed. A vessel that absorbs the flotsam and jetsam of humanity, giving rise to the ambitious and blessed.

Like it or not, demographic change is inevitable.

I digress. To OP's point, France and other European countries don't really celebrate Thanksgiving, either. Often, being clever is more important than being grateful.

As I understand the cultures of Asia and Africa, success and prosperity are social currency. People I know from the subcontinent, or descendants thereof, are extremely transactional in their relationships with whitebread Americans. Here in the northeast, I see those values carrying more momentum, more pressure (OP would say more threat), than Christian Latin Americans pressing on our southern border.

Why would anyone other than an American (Native ones excluded who tend to think of it as a day of mourning) celebrate "Thanksgiving" R30? It's a great holiday for the US to celebrate the arrival of Europeans predominately from the British Isles who then proceeded to murder the locals, for being local, with shouts of "my land now!"whilst they munched on a turkey leg.

R30,

People in European countries don’t celebrate Thanksgiving at all. It’s not our tradition, it’s American.

American Thanksgiving has already been annihilated by crass capitalism. If you follow the media, it's become more about the biggest bar night of the year on Thanksgiving Eve and appliance sales on Black Friday.

To meet the challenge of a multiracial society, the only viable pathway to a stable civilization of racially and ethnically different people is a single, shared culture.

Some nations can find collective success as a single homogenous people like Japan or Switzerland.

Or equally, but with more difficulty, nations can prosper with heterodox peoples—but only if united by a single, inclusive culture as the American melting-pot once attested.

But a baleful third option—a multicultural society of diverse, unassimilated, and often rival tribes—historically is a prescription for collective suicide.

We are beginning to see just that in America, as it sheds the melting pot, and adopts the salad bowl of unassimilated and warring tribes.

I was born here and I don’t care about Easter, Christmas Eve or Christmas. I’m Jewish. This country is not a Christian theocracy and nowhere in our founding documents is Christ or Christianity mentioned. Your friend sounds fine. She’s working and educating herself. She travels to her country of origin to visit her people. There is nothing threatening here.

"Thanksgiving in Europe" friend needs to travel more

I truly think the Muslim religion is frightfully backward and horrible. I can't stand it and wish it didn't exist. Ditto all dogmatic religions.

But I would never expect a Muslim to give two shits about Christmas or Easter. I don't. And I'm an American atheist. We have freedom of religion here.

That said, if I Muslim tries to force his religion on me? In ANY way? Meaning anti gay shit or calls to prayer or anything else? They can kindly fuck off. My fear is that, as they increase in numbers, they will try to do this. I pray to whatever god is listening I'm wrong. But I don't think I am.

R37, just replace Christian for Muslim and you can see that what you’re saying is already happening.

[quote]Blame it on the Democrats, who actively encourage immigrants NOT to assimilate to American culture.

Yeah, that never happened, but thanks!

R38 I hate the Christian faith. Hate it. As I said, I loathe all dogmatic religions. But I don't really fear Christians. Not anymore. We've faced them at their very worse and managed to live to tell the tale. Hasn't been easy and I wish they'd go the fuck away. But we can't make them go away. They live here among us. Interwoven in the very fabric. Sadly.

I DO, however, fear rabid Muslims and I do hate the Islam faith. It's the current worst of the worst. You can be a liberal (I am) and also admit this. Because it's true. I will not apologize for or rationalize a shitty dogma just because we want to root for the underdog. Islam is NOT the underdog. We get no liberal brownie points for saying otherwise.

And why in the world would I want to have to live among and deal with the ample negatives of yet ANOTHER shitty religion? I can't get rid of Christians. But why in the hell would I want to invite another nightmare group of religious zealots? Honestly, why? It goes against every Democratic impulse I have. It makes no sense whatsoever: You hate us? Great! Come on in! Water is fine!

If we could be sure to weed out the radicals from the normals? Hell yeah. That'd be cool. But we can't. This has been proven over and over and over.

Eh, whatever. It's going to happen whether I bitch about it or not.

[quote]Of the babies born worldwide today, almost 50% will be in Asia, 30+% in Africa.

True. People on DL are so scared of GOP, but one way or another, very soon there will be more people with conservative values in the west and the liberalism and particularly lgbt rights will be over. This is probably the first and the last generation to have had the marriage equality.

[quote]but my stepfather is a Marxist NY Jew

Funny how these people misinterpret Marx worse than Stalin did. At least Stalin cared about the housing. Funny how they interpret marxism as some anti western ideology, when marxism was rooted in western philosophy and was about class exploitation, not about racial and cultural self hatred.

R41, why do you say that? I don’t buy it for one.

It’s funny because this thread reminds me of when people here ask why black people in the US only count as “diversity” and “representation”, especially in media.

And it’s because most US blacks are Americans. They are not immigrants.

Latinos, Asians, Muslims, Indians, etc identify with their countries.

That’s why all those Latino musicals flopped a few years ago cause Latinos watch Mexican cinema and Spanish-language films.

African Americans don’t have another country outside the US. So that’s why they’re the top of diversity in Hollywood because they’re treated like immigrants.

R43 Because the cultures from which the immigrants are coming are conservative, only western world, major part of Europe and countries in which European descendants make majority, have liberal values. Some Asian cultures are developed, but they have traditional, conservative values. I say it with respect, these people are hard working, creative and intelligent, but they are not liberal. African cultures are very conservative and anti gay.

Naturally, when there would be more of them they would elect the officials that will represent their values, like it already happened in Michigan.

R40 looks like future is rather gloomy for the western civilization. In this moment, those who are ready to control immigration and uncontrolled influx of people coming from very different cultures are right winger who want to take away gay and women’ right.

Liberals and leftists, on the other hand, will bring in the western countries people with, mostly extremely conservative values, that would eventually take away gay and women’s rights.

We are screwed either way, but not in a good sense.

Do you think OP knows how much of a twat he is?

We knew where this was going from the thread title, OP.

[quote] We've faced them at their very worse and managed to live to tell the tale.

I feel like they've been getting steadily worse since the Tea Party wingnuts. And now Mike Johnson can stand up and proclaim that he believes in theocracy - and he's still the Speaker of the House! Wouldn't have happened in the... whole 20th century?

Or do you mean we faced them at their worst when they were burning witches in the 1600s?

Wow OP is an ancient fabulist laying it on very thickly. The Maghreb? Oh, honey.

I guess you can bury your head in your ass.

In 2015, many liberal residents in Hamtramck, Michigan, celebrated as their city attracted international attention for becoming the first in the United States to elect a Muslim-majority city council.

Many of those same residents watched in dismay as a now fully Muslim and socially conservative city council passed legislation banning Pride flags from being flown on city property that had been intended to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community. Muslim residents packing city hall erupted in cheers after the council’s unanimous vote, and on Hamtramck’s social media pages, the taunting has been relentless:

“Fagless City”, read one post, emphasized with emojis of a bicep flexing.

“If I went to your country, I wouldn’t be coddled the same way now would I? What would you expect if I came to Rejectstan?”

R48 I agree Mike Johnson is a nightmare. He's cartoon villain bad. But you and I, as liberals, can agree on this. Colbert and Oliver can mock him on TV. The NYT times can deride him as the religious nutjob he is. There's a liberal consensus that he's a backward, anachronistic idiot. We collectively see the forest for the trees and justifiably hate him. And we all live in actual reality and that reality is that he's a dangerous moron because of his shitty beliefs.

But we can't do the same thing with Muslims who are just like Mike Johnson (just replace The Bible with The Koran). And even though we know they are often just as bad as Johnson, we have to act like they're beacons of pure diverse light. And if we don't? We're right wingers. Or some other untrue slur. It's really bizarre.

Of course, I don't WANT to have anything against Islam. I don't have any issue with Buddhists. Or Hindus. Or Sikhs. Why? Their beliefs don't really interfere with the larger secular world. And when they do? It's minor and rather unobtrusive. They do their thing and I can do mine in relative harmony.

Islam, like Christianity, actively hates me. I just don't have the energy for that yet another brand of that sort of "god". One is enough.

R37 said it better than I could. What people do (or don't do) on traditional holidays is the least of my worries.

Born in the USA, MAGA, evangelical Christians are just as alien to me as any immigrant could be. And they only vacation in places like Branson and Lake Havasu...eek!

[quote]To OP's point, France and other European countries don't really celebrate Thanksgiving, either.

They don't celebrate it at all full stop R30. Because it's an American tradition which has no relevancy to European people. We also don't celebrate Thanksgiving in Australia and New Zealand at all. Because it's an American tradition...

I know I shouldn't be but I'm regularly surprised at how insular and deeply self-absorbed American people are.

"There was a time when immigrants were supposed to learn about and participate in customs/values/traditions of the country where they became naturalized citizens"

When was this?

Mainstream media is keeping quiet about difficult situation in European countries who have big Middle eastern Muslim immigration, particularly France, Germany, Sweden and UK. Women are sexually assaulted by immigrants, people are afraid to go out after dark, crime is rising, many immigrants are on welfare, not willing to work, some quarters in Swedish cities are like warzones after dark.

I am not saying that all Muslims are like this, for eg. I know Turks are the friendliest and nicest people, hard workers.

Add inflation, low real wage value, housing crisis, lack of prosperity. It is a recipe for disaster. And upper class liberal dicks in their protected neighborhoods will be in shocked how ever on earth people are voting far right.

On New Year eve in Cologne on 2016. crowd assembled in the square in front of the central railway station, right next to the city's landmark gothic cathedral. Nothing unusual for the city in the state of North-Rhine Westphalia. But this time, a throng of about a thousand young men was forming in the crowd. Most of them were from the North African-Arabic region.

The atmosphere was uninhibited, aggressive. Fireworks were pointed at people, passers-by harassed, cellphones and wallets were stolen. The police were surprised and overwhelmed; there were too few officers on duty.

A total of 1210 criminal complaints were made, 511 of them involving sexual assaults. Rape or attempted rape accounted for 28 complaints. Similar scenes occurred in other German cities including Hamburg, Frankfurt am Main and Hanover, albeit not on the same scale.

Sweden has gone from having one of the lowest levels of fatal shootings in Europe to one of the highest in just a decade. Well-established criminal gangs, largely run by second-generation immigrants, are no longer just killing each other but increasingly relatives and, in the case of Saad and others, innocent bystanders.

Ulf Kristersson, the prime minister of Sweden, offered his diagnosis for the unprecedented violence, directly blaming “irresponsible immigration policy and failed integration”.

Fuck off, OP

Thanksgiving is the most American holiday. It has no religious connection so it can be celebrated by everyone as a family holiday. The history is problematic but it’s still probably the most celebrated of all holidays in the US.

Americans are pretty stupid so they barely know what most holidays are about. By the second generation, I think most immigrants get with the program.

Prey: Immigration, Islam, and the Erosion of Women’s Rights” argues that immigration from majority-Muslim countries imperils the hard-won rights of European women.

European women face endemic sexual harassment and violence. Even worse, in an effort to not be seen as xenophobic or feed into rising right-wing nationalism, liberal Europeans are complicit in their own mounting oppression, playing down misogyny as mere multiculturalism even as Western women are criminally assaulted, told to cover their bodies and driven from the streets of their own cities.

Wondering how many native American traditions OP participates and celebrates. Aside from these first peoples in the Western Hemisphere, we are all immigrants from somewhere else. We have in fact brought the majority of our 'our world' traditions and customs with us. Why is OP so angry? Eat a fucking Turkey leg and enjoy the day.

Of course, the journalist in the article, like the dutiful liberal from New York dismissed the data that Ayaan collected from law enforcement officials, people who work on immigrant assimilation efforts and average citizens.

The journalist concluded that Hirsi Ali ( a black woman) seems to latch onto the trope of men of color threatening virtuous white women, a particular kind of fearmongering with a long and ugly history.

'Our world' should be 'Old World' ..Sorry,,I have not had my turkey leg yet.

Ironically OP writes like he grew up in ESL.

[quote] Bingo. What's missing is the gratitude for being here.

I actually don’t believe an immigrant (expat if you’re nasty) owes a new country, or its people, gratitude. They owe respect. But not gratitude.

Dear R56, I cannot comment for other countries but for the UK fuck off with your utter bullshit, the only people that believe that claptrap are the far right cream faced loons and those of a generally diminished intelligence. Go create your mischief elsewhere.

The same arguments were made about Irish and German immigrants in the 1840s, then about the Chinese in the 1870s. Then about Greeks, Italians, Slavs, and Jews in the 1890s.

[quote] The same arguments were made about Irish and German immigrants in the 1840s, then about the Chinese in the 1870s. Then about Greeks, Italians, Slavs, and Jews in the 1890s.

And the country would have been better off if those white-adjacent and Oriental mongrels had stayed home!

Exactly, R68. And you could point to a lot of nativist literature in that period (I've read stuff up the the 1920s and 30s!) that refused to consider those groups (except for Germans) to be "white"—they'd fret about Italians and Hungarians "mixing with our native Yankee stock."

R50

The crying disappointed liberals of Hamtramck ran off all the old polish people and took over a polish catholic fairly religious town they had no business taking over except for the fact that they had money. Fucking squatters.

Then the Muslims came in and gave the silly libs a does of their own medicine.

Hamtramck should still be a polish town today. But change and evolution keeps moving along.

R67 sorry, looks like in UK Pakistani men are only raping, drugging and trafficking young girls, not women

It was just 1400 children R67. Nothing to see here.

Oh R72, do keep up, why are you referring to the now sacked disgraced former Home Secretary known for going off on immigrants who clearly has never looked in a mirror?

I suspect R72 is also R72, so you put up in your argument a 9 year old article written by that well know right wing philosopher Robert Scruton (deceased) as being a fact led piece? Oh dear.

Roger/Robert -meh.

I am both 72 and 72 an anyone who states the unpleasant facts is a right winger.

R72 has yet to state any facts, so I think you're masquerading as 72 and 72.

Protests in Dublin because a Middle eastern immigrant stabbed with knife 5 and 6 year old children and their teacher. I believe it is the first protest of that kind in the west. Easy to call the protesters far right. Maybe they are just people fed of impotent politicians and police who are playing woke at citizen's expense.

Imagine Irish, who were never colonizing nor exploiting others, in fact they have been brutalized by English through centuries.

The incident took place outside Gaelscoil Coláiste Mhuire on Parnell Square East as children were coming out of the school, which caters to primary-age children.

R79 I haven’t read anywhere that the attacker was middle eastern. Did you read that somewhere or are you just saying it for some personal reason?

R81 of course you are not going to read that, media always says, a man. If he was Irish than there would be more information. People who live in Dublin say on social media that he is Algerian.

R82 since when is Algeria in the Middle East?

Sorry miss, seems it is North Africa.

We should send him to you, so you can question him more thoroughly R83 and suck his cock.

When the majority decides to vote these fuckers out for putting everyone in danger they’ll shut their pants.

R84 weird reply. I was just asking to see if there had been a report of where he was from, like you had said.

Might be a good time for a couple of geography lessons for you ;)

Miss, I admitted I was wrong, but you didn’t admit of being a hypocrite pussy

It’s like my mother. She thought I was ugly and talentless. It’s in my book, which I wrote myself. I’m a deep political thinker & put my passion in thinking deeply on the issues of the day.. Not that my mother noticed my deep thinking.

What is it about Jewish mothers? Did Babs do a better job with Jason?

R68 that's very true. But the simple fact is that distrust of Greeks, Italians, and Hungarians was simple fearing the Other. Their is nothing endemic to Greeks, Slavs, etc. that make them dangerous EXCEPT being "other" and maybe some minor other differences too. It was good old fashion ethnicism (I coined a phrase I think!). Not anything to be proud of.

Distrust of Muslims is totally different. It's the justifiable distrust of a religion that, by definition, hates western values. Very, very big difference between, say, the 1890s Slavs and current Muslims.

A good litmus test: If the same people who don't want Muslims also don't want Mexicans? Then they're probably right wing nationalists. But if they are okay with Mexican immigration, but not so sure about Muslims? This means they probably understand the important difference between fearing dangerous ideologies like Islam while not leaning into dangerous predilections like nationalism.

Op, you are psychic. Just after you started the thread the first major riots connected with mass illegal immigration in Europe erupted.

R13 is the "Reagan is the source of all evil in today's world" troll.

The end of the American middle class as it had been known post WW2 started in the early 70s for many reasons, including the changes in tax codes, inflation from the arab oil embargo and Vietnam, and the gutting of American industry over the previous decade.

So the cunt OP claims to know one person and then projects her anecdote into a "macro trend."

Fuck you, troll. Fuck you.

Quite a few people here seem to be making the assumption that a religion is an indelible part of someone, like eye color. A fairly large proportion (25%) of Muslims immigrating to the US end up not practicing the religion. Of course there's push back to that choice, and people often have to choose between maintaining the relationship with their birth parents and their religious choice (which by the way is also true of Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, and a large proportion of Evangelicals). The best solution to having immigrants fit into a new society, is to make that society attractive and welcoming.