> To me it sounds like nativist BS. Anyone who wants to get ahead in the US learns English and learns it well, it's as simple as that.
On the contrary, many among these communities have been here 20 years, working as adults, and have no English at all. Are they getting ahead? They send money "back home" (they still call it home), so they feel they are ahead. But they want nothing to do with the melting pot culture. They subscribe to ethnic TV, shop in ethnic groceries, put kids in ethnic (native language) preschools. I regularly see grade school age children born in the United States who struggle with an English sentence, but speak fluent Russian or Spanish.
> In any case, I think it's good that people hang on to something. Interacting with various Italian groups in the past, when I was in the US, I'd meet middle aged people who spoke little or no Italian because their Italian parents or grandparents had not taught them. Many of them were sad that they'd never learned the language.
Hanging on to something is wonderful. That's the melting pot ethos -- a marvelous blend of the things worth hanging onto. Holidays, cooking, customs, cultural fairy tales -- I was raised with these almost to a fault. I think you see this approach to blending among Scandinavians in Minnesota, for example, and I applaud it.
> Forcing your kids to be monolingual is a travesty and something they can never get back as adults: only as a child will you really learn to speak several languages well.
On several of these points, you cite the opposite concept to an extreme, to more easily shoot that down. Well certainly, raising your kids monolingual would be a travesty -- and that's exactly what I'm decrying as well. If you moved to America then raise your kids to speak only your native tongue at the expense of any English, it's a problem.
I'm thrilled to have been raised among a smattering of languages and cultures. We'd listen to, and be spoken to, in the native languages of our grandparents. As a child, I understood several, improving my grasp of the mechanics of English. I'm also thankful to have lived my teens in Europe and Africa, with my folks putting us in local language schools instead of English language schools.
In short, I am not remotely "nativist". I encourage emigration and immigration alike, and do not believe immigrants "cannot be assimilated". That said, I believe if you move to a place, whether Denmark or America, "to make a better life" for yourself, it bears thinking that there's something about the way that place is that appeals to you more than the place you left, and it might be a good idea to be less hostile to adopting and adapting to a new way of life.
It seems to me the melting pot idea is: come to a country not to forget your roots or forgo your heritage (right of blood), but to make your new country your home (right of soil).
You sounded like you were extolling the virtue of immigrants who fit in by not speaking their native language around their children, apologies if I misunderstood your argument.
> (they still call it home)
Of course they do, because it is and always will be home, just as Oregon will always be "home" to me in some sense even though I wouldn't wish to live there, and indeed live on the other side of the world. I doubt it's "home" to their US born children in the same way, though.
> I'm thrilled to have been raised among a smattering of languages and cultures.
Is that a Freudian slip? :-) It actually sounds like you were raised amidst a fairly large variety of languages and cultures, rather than a 'smattering'.
As to 'hostility' at adapting, that's a very long and complex discussion, but suffice it to say it takes time and probably several generations for families to adapt completely.
I guess I just have a fairly laissez faire attitude about the whole thing. People who are rigid and don't adapt will have fewer opportunities than those who do. Their children will likely adapt in any case, whether they want it or not. I mean, English is the dominant global language right now, if people want to plug into that, they'll do so, if not, their loss.
On the contrary, many among these communities have been here 20 years, working as adults, and have no English at all. Are they getting ahead? They send money "back home" (they still call it home), so they feel they are ahead. But they want nothing to do with the melting pot culture. They subscribe to ethnic TV, shop in ethnic groceries, put kids in ethnic (native language) preschools. I regularly see grade school age children born in the United States who struggle with an English sentence, but speak fluent Russian or Spanish.
> In any case, I think it's good that people hang on to something. Interacting with various Italian groups in the past, when I was in the US, I'd meet middle aged people who spoke little or no Italian because their Italian parents or grandparents had not taught them. Many of them were sad that they'd never learned the language.
Hanging on to something is wonderful. That's the melting pot ethos -- a marvelous blend of the things worth hanging onto. Holidays, cooking, customs, cultural fairy tales -- I was raised with these almost to a fault. I think you see this approach to blending among Scandinavians in Minnesota, for example, and I applaud it.
> Forcing your kids to be monolingual is a travesty and something they can never get back as adults: only as a child will you really learn to speak several languages well.
On several of these points, you cite the opposite concept to an extreme, to more easily shoot that down. Well certainly, raising your kids monolingual would be a travesty -- and that's exactly what I'm decrying as well. If you moved to America then raise your kids to speak only your native tongue at the expense of any English, it's a problem.
I'm thrilled to have been raised among a smattering of languages and cultures. We'd listen to, and be spoken to, in the native languages of our grandparents. As a child, I understood several, improving my grasp of the mechanics of English. I'm also thankful to have lived my teens in Europe and Africa, with my folks putting us in local language schools instead of English language schools.
In short, I am not remotely "nativist". I encourage emigration and immigration alike, and do not believe immigrants "cannot be assimilated". That said, I believe if you move to a place, whether Denmark or America, "to make a better life" for yourself, it bears thinking that there's something about the way that place is that appeals to you more than the place you left, and it might be a good idea to be less hostile to adopting and adapting to a new way of life.
It seems to me the melting pot idea is: come to a country not to forget your roots or forgo your heritage (right of blood), but to make your new country your home (right of soil).