Things That Are Bothering You, Got You All Hibbeldy-Jibbeldy, or just downright pissed, RIGHT NOW!

[EL72]

Originally Posted by Get Smart

Yes I believe in a "this is America so speak English" attitude. Without taking this into CE territory where it's all conversations that spin wheels....

To put it as succintly as I can, I see that kind of behavior as cancerous, where *you* can say "oh just let them be" but that complacency will snowball to a point there is no more national identity and as much as the lefties might decry it or even welcome it, it's not a road I want to see my country go down.

I won't go down that road with you now but say that I think you are dead wrong about the potential consequences of this so-called complacency.

Also, I am far from being a lefty. In fact, unlike most lefties, I believe in letting the market make the rules for what language signs must be in - not some populist government agenda driven by irrational and xenophobic fears of losing a national identity.

Edit: I come from Quebec, where the Kafkaesque language and signage laws have done nothing for their so-called national identity but create more government bureaucracy and needless restrictions on businesses.

 

[Get Smart]

EL72, I'm a firm believer in national identity, whether it's American, Canadian, Chinese, Swedish etc....It's what brings the citizens of a country together on a level that's generally unspoken, but you feel it and know it. When that identity is in crisis you have dissent and ill feelings towards each other.

 

[EL72]

Originally Posted by Get Smart

EL72, I'm a firm believer in national identity, whether it's American, Canadian, Chinese, Swedish etc....It's what brings the citizens of a country together on a level that's generally unspoken, but you feel it and know it. When that identity is in crisis you have dissent and ill feelings towards each other.

I'm not disagreeing with that and I respect your beliefs. I nevertheless think you are dead wrong about Chinese-only signs playing a significant role in shaping this identity.

First, these people can run their businesses in Chinese AND be proud and patriotic Americans; those are not mutually exclusive. Second, do you really think their children will continue down this road. The history of immigration in North America shows that this is a first-generation phenomenon that is virtually guaranteed to disappear as the second generation becomes more integrated into the US society. The same happened with Italians, Jews... last century and so it goes.

There is no identity crisis but in the minds of those who are pushing an agenda of intolerance.

 

[Get Smart]

I'm using the Chinese signs as an example since that's the local phenomenon (it's also Korean and Vietnamese in these parts), but it could be Polish or Swahili for all I care.

The mindset regarding immigration has vastly been reshaped. I would say maybe up til the 80s, immigrants had a mindset of assimilation, learning American customs and the English language. Recently the new breed of immigrant has a more defiant attitude of "cater to me and my ____ background".

imo, "our" National Identity is in crisis because of this new generation of immigrant who come here to create a microcosm of wherever they came from and have pocket communities as such, hence my "cancer" reference, where the host organism allows these cancer cells to develop, and soon enough it's too late and the cancer has taken over.

It's not intolerance at all. Look at the various men's clothing forae. SF has an identity of sorts. as does AAAC, FNB, LL, GQ etc. If someone came onto MC forum and posted thread after thread of "Hugo Boss and Armani are the best" *we'd* be annoyed and those threads would be full of dissention and vitriol. The innate harmony of these forae depend on the majority of users adhering to its identity. It's a simplific analogy, but one I think that is accurate.

 

[imageWIS]

Originally Posted by edmorel

That's exactly what worries me

Ew dude, I didn't mean it in that way! Why is your mouth open like that????

Jon.

 

[Saucemaster]

Originally Posted by Get Smart

this new generation of immigrant who come here to create a microcosm of wherever they came from and have pocket communities as such

Hasn't this always happened with every generation of immigrants in America ever? It was certainly the case that the Irish settled with other Irish immigrants and formed their own little pocket communities; the Italians did the same thing; so did the Poles, etc etc. I could see someone arguing that the current emphasis on multiculturalism might make it more common to have second- and third-generation immigrants who are still unassimilated, but I'd want to see actual hard data on that, because I doubt it's had any effect at all on the actual assimilation process. Hell, in my experience, by the second generation, the asian kids are listening to hip hop, and only know enough Mandarin/Cantonese/etc to get their grandparents off their asses.

 

[gdl203]

Originally Posted by Get Smart

hence my "cancer" reference, where the host organism allows these cancer cells to develop, and soon enough it's too late and the cancer has taken over
This is scary stuff GS. It's almost *** scary

 

[LabelKing]

If there's anything more annoying than an Asian who doesn't know English, it's an "Americanized" Asian from the more recent generations.

 

[EL72]

Originally Posted by Get Smart

The mindset regarding immigration has vastly been reshaped. I would say maybe up til the 80s, immigrants had a mindset of assimilation, learning American customs and the English language. Recently the new breed of immigrant has a more defiant attitude of "cater to me and my ____ background".

This is your perception and I can appreciate that it is your reality but you should not state this as fact because it lacks any empirical support beyond your personal experience and anecdotes. Immigrants today are indeed different and many mistakes were made with policies of multiculturalism (and this is far worse in Canada) rather than integration. Nonetheless, immigrants still come here to build a better life for their families and there is NO evidence that immigrant ghettos (that have existed since immigration has existed) and conducting business in another language has a detrimental effect on a country's national identity or shared culture.

Originally Posted by Get Smart

imo, "our" National Identity is in crisis because of this new generation of immigrant who come here to create a microcosm of wherever they came from and have pocket communities as such, hence my "cancer" reference, where the host organism allows these cancer cells to develop, and soon enough it's too late and the cancer has taken over.

It may not be your intention but given it was used by Hitler to charactize Jews, I find your cancer analogy mildly disturbing at best.

 

[Get Smart]

Originally Posted by Saucemaster

Hasn't this always happened with every generation of immigrants in America ever? It was certainly the case that the Irish settled with other Irish immigrants and formed their own little pocket communities; the Italians did the same thing; so did the Poles, etc etc. I could see someone arguing that the current emphasis on multiculturalism might make it more common to have second- and third-generation immigrants who are still unassimilated, but I'd want to see actual hard data on that, because I doubt it's had any effect at all on the actual assimilation process. Hell, in my experience, by the second generation, the asian kids are listening to hip hop, and only know enough Mandarin/Cantonese/etc to get their grandparents off their asses.

The city where I live tried to bring in certain businesses the city felt would be good for the community in the later 90s (stuff like bagel shops, etc) and these businesses were given trial run cheap rents as an incentive to open up in town. Nearly all of them decided not to renew and closed down after a couple years, and I happen to run into one of the business owners who i had known before and asked her what happened and her response was that the "local asian residents" didn't like to support "white owned" businesses so her bottom line suffered from that mentality. As a result, I still don't have a ******* bagel shop in my hood but there's plenty of sketchy chinese furniture stores that no one ever seems to go into but have been there for years, like barnacles.

Again, I really believe that the arguments of how past immigrants had the same attitudes and eventually assimilated don't apply to the new breed. Even my mother, who still speaks with an accent, notices that immigrants today are vastly different in mindset than her generation. Sure the kids will learn english and be pretty Americanized, but talk to them and there's a very distinct "us against them" attitude that drives them at their core. Eventually these attitudes (if they stay the same) will manifest in ways that do affect us directly, when it comes to them being in positions of power and politics.

I don't have hard data. Just a gut feeling which has rarely been wrong for me.

ok, got a lot of **** to do at work today and these kind of threads take up too much time, hence why I never read the CE forum!!

 

[Get Smart]

Originally Posted by gdl203

This is scary stuff GS. It's almost *** scary

Originally Posted by EL72

It may not be your intention but given it was used by Hitler to charactize Jews, I find your cancer analogy mildly disturbing at best.

I'm not trying to sound like a facist...and if it comes off as disturbing words it's because I honestly feel disturbed by the way our current immigration policy works and the inherent dynamics of how immigrants perceive thier role in this country

Originally Posted by LabelKing

If there's anything more annoying than an Asian who doesn't know English, it's an "Americanized" Asian from the more recent generations.

QFT

 

[Get Smart]

to reiterate a point El72 made, I'm not bothered by the sign in Chinese itself, it's the underlying mentality that decided to put up a sign in only Chinese.

It's the same as a shop having a sign that says "We prefer no Blacks/Jews/etc to come in"

 

[EL72]

I think you've been hanging around skinheads too much GS.

 

[Get Smart]

Originally Posted by EL72

I think you've been hanging around skinheads too much GS.

oh c'mon now. That might be the silliest thing ever written on this entire forum

and with that, /thread for me. Hopefully no one was personally offended with any of that conversation

 

[vaclava krishna]

GS, I hope you are not, listening to, SOD .

I personal prefer the neighborhoods, that you can hear 3+, languages and, eat the same.