refuse to learn English I don't remember where, maybe Language Log?, I saw someone comment that it's pretty tough finding English classes in the US. All classes filled, and it's expensive, and they may not give class at time practical for someone who works a lot to survive. Learning a language isn't that easy. The government could probably help there kind of thing by funding more classes for recent (and not so recent) immigrants.
When my grandparents immigrated to France, I'm pretty sure it was as much to make money (which they were rather successful in) as to flee antisemitism in the Eastern Europe. I don't think there's anything bad there, I think it rather help integration, actually schemingreader recently made a post about the loss of bilinguism for second generation immigrants, and that's true for my family too, my father never learned any of the languages that my grandparents used to speak. That's something rather sad, too.
I think the issue of ghettoes and what people call "communotarisme" in France is rather more complicated than people wanting to keep to themselves and refusing to assimilate. I don't think we should ask people to just drop their culture away, their cultures are rich, sophisticated, complex, it actually enriches hosting countries even in such a shallow way as pizzas, Thai food and couscous. There are issues of human rights, and that's what European racism often concentrates on, implying that Arab culture is intrasequaly misogynist and barbaric... but I think those two things should be treated separately.
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Re: International Blog Against Racism Week: Central European perspective
Date: 2007-08-10 09:03 am (UTC)I don't remember where, maybe Language Log?, I saw someone comment that it's pretty tough finding English classes in the US. All classes filled, and it's expensive, and they may not give class at time practical for someone who works a lot to survive. Learning a language isn't that easy. The government could probably help there kind of thing by funding more classes for recent (and not so recent) immigrants.
When my grandparents immigrated to France, I'm pretty sure it was as much to make money (which they were rather successful in) as to flee antisemitism in the Eastern Europe. I don't think there's anything bad there, I think it rather help integration, actually
I think the issue of ghettoes and what people call "communotarisme" in France is rather more complicated than people wanting to keep to themselves and refusing to assimilate. I don't think we should ask people to just drop their culture away, their cultures are rich, sophisticated, complex, it actually enriches hosting countries even in such a shallow way as pizzas, Thai food and couscous. There are issues of human rights, and that's what European racism often concentrates on, implying that Arab culture is intrasequaly misogynist and barbaric... but I think those two things should be treated separately.