Taking Hopite14gr's suggestion, I'm starting a thread about immigration and the desire to change a local culture to be more like the one you just left.
Does anyone else think it's illiogical to leave one place because you want what the other place has to offer then proceed to make the new place like the place you just left?
When I lived in Texas, I saw a lot of Mexican immigrants who came to the US because they wanted better jobs and an opportunity to improve their lives, yet they wanted to make Texas exactly like Mexico.
hock:
Quote:Does anyone else think it's illogical to leave one place because you want what the other place has to offer then proceed to make the new place like the place you just left?
If you write it like this, it is indeed a bit illogical. On the other hand, the migrants I know (I live in Amsterdam, which has a lot of immigrants) usually pick up a lot from their new culture, while retaining only a few customs of the country they have left. My neighbor, a boy named Muhammad, was born in Morocco, but he wears Nike's and Levi's, and is every inch as materialistic as a Dutch boy. My friend Sharona, born in Tehran, refuses to drink wine and beer, does not eat pork, and is more polite than Dutchmen, but is in all other aspects fully assimilated to her new country.
This is, however, an observation from the old world. It may be different in the Americas. After all, the migrants who settled there, were able to take their European culture with them, and forced the native population to adapt to the western way of life. The Mexicans settling in Texas and taking their culture with them, seem to be part of this tradition. But this is, as I already said, a view from the old world, and I may be wrong.
Hallo MARIVS TARQVINIVS VRSVS,
to a certain extent you are right! I have just recently moved from Europe to Canada. When it comes to movies, books home decoration or even plant seeds, yes I prefer what I can get from Europe.
When you have been to several places in the world you just have a wider horizon as those who have stayed there life time in one place (exceptions possible) and so you just don´t settle for only that what you can get locally, I mean with the internet the world has become very small and things from far of places easily available, so why not use the possiblities to the fullest? :?
Martin
It also is often the case that you personally prefer certain things, which are inherent in your original culture. Christmas dinner might be a good example. So maybe the Mexicans in Texas regard certain things in their own culture as preferable to U.S. culture. It is also a question of identity. If they are in a foreign country it is for most people necessary to 'preserve' their original identity, usually because they feel that they are not really a part of where they went to. In countries with a very nationalistic common sense this becomes even more important for the immigrants, I guess.
Quote:When I lived in Texas, I saw a lot of Mexican immigrants who came to the US because they wanted better jobs and an opportunity to improve their lives, yet they wanted to make Texas exactly like Mexico. hock:
Erm.. This may come as a shock, but Texas was originally Mexican.
hock:
So if you're thinking this through, it would be a return to an older culture, before the US conquered Texas.
But even before the Spanish settled Texas, it was settled by American Indian tribes, whose culture was of course so much different from the European settlers that the seeming differences between US citizens and Mexican newcomers is so small it's a moot point.
So, isn't this very natural for anybody who moves away from home and makes a new home is a new are? Don't we all do that?
Many Dutch holidaymakers went to Spain for summer holidays in the 1970s, and many stayed for the winter. But instead of integrating with their Spanish neighbours, they shop at stored with Dutch food and Dutch staff, they go to Dutch doctors, etc.
I think we all want to take our home with us to a better new place. I guess it's better than being homesick - it's natural.
Quote:Marius_Ursus:3iuaypfy Wrote:When I lived in Texas, I saw a lot of Mexican immigrants who came to the US because they wanted better jobs and an opportunity to improve their lives, yet they wanted to make Texas exactly like Mexico. hock:
Erm.. This may come as a shock, but Texas was originally Mexican. hock:
So if you're thinking this through, it would be a return to an older culture, before the US conquered Texas.
But even before the Spanish settled Texas, it was settled by American Indian tribes, whose culture was of course so much different from the European settlers that the seeming differences between US citizens and Mexican newcomers is so small it's a moot point.
So, isn't this very natural for anybody who moves away from home and makes a new home is a new are? Don't we all do that?
Many Dutch holidaymakers went to Spain for summer holidays in the 1970s, and many stayed for the winter. But instead of integrating with their Spanish neighbours, they shop at stored with Dutch food and Dutch staff, they go to Dutch doctors, etc.
I think we all want to take our home with us to a better new place. I guess it's better than being homesick - it's natural.
Yes, that's true. However, I'm not talking about conquering nations, and I'm not talking about being homesick and creating an atmosphere to remind you of where you came from. What I'm addressing is the idea that a community in England where pig farming has been a cultural mainstay for centuries is under attack from the Moslems who moved there because the statue of the pig in the town square is offensive to them. I'm talking about the fact that 25% of the bandwidth on my cable TV carrier is Spanish programming...and I live in New York...
I'm talking about 5% of a population moving somewhere they want to be and then trying to force the remaining 95% to bend to their wills.
That sort of thing just doesn't make sense to me. If I moved to China, I'd hardly expect to make butchers take the duck carcasses out of their windows just because it hurt my delicate American sensibilities. :wink:
Quote:Hallo MARIVS TARQVINIVS VRSVS,
to a certain extent you are right! I have just recently moved from Europe to Canada. When it comes to movies, books home decoration or even plant seeds, yes I prefer what I can get from Europe.
When you have been to several places in the world you just have a wider horizon as those who have stayed there life time in one place (exceptions possible) and so you just don´t settle for only that what you can get locally, I mean with the internet the world has become very small and things from far of places easily available, so why not use the possiblities to the fullest? :?
Martin
I understand what you're saying. Having grown up in Europe and North and South America, I have a pretty wide horizon about other cultures...but this is my home, and I don't think it's right for a small group of people who move here to expect me to cater to their political and social desires any more than I would expect them to cater to mine. Even within this one country, if I wanted New York to be like Texas, I wouldn't have moved here.
I think the 25% TV-programs in a foreign language are not bad at all. Accept it as a chance to improve your Spanish.
On the other hand, the example of the pig farm is indeed shocking. If muslims don't like it, they shouldn't settle there.
On the other, other hand, I think that those people are a minority; just like there are always people who do not adapt to modern technology. Some people are more flexible than others.
Quote:I think the 25% TV-programs in a foreign language are not bad at all. Accept it as a chance to improve your Spanish.
On the other hand, the example of the pig farm is indeed shocking. If muslims don't like it, they shouldn't settle there.
On the other, other hand, I think that those people are a minority; just like there are always people who do not adapt to modern technology. Some people are more flexible than others.
That 25% is - in fact - only Spanish programming. There are an additional two channels for Japanese, Persian Farsi, Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Italian, Greek, and German language programming. It doesn't seem untoward to have a couple of channels for various languages, but there are 14 Spanish channels alone.
...and I spent six months learning Spanish 8 hours per day, five days per week for the Army, then spent three years in Panama. I don't
want to practice my Spanish, Sarge!
14 Spanish channels sounds like a lot, but on the other hand, you have about 100? And how many of those are crap? How good is the content on the Spanish ones? So...what are you missing?
Quote:I don't think it's right for a small group of people who move here to expect me to cater to their political and social desires any more than I would expect them to cater to mine.
While I do agree with you, Marius, I don't think the immigrants are to blame ([size=75:3bd4uq9k]I'm not saying that you are, just making a point[/size]). Rather, domestic quislings ,which every nation has, are responsible for imposing conformity on the native majority in the name and guise of multiculturalism/tolerance. It's always the enemy within that's the most dangerous - like Cicero said two thousand years ago :wink: .
I think I'll just quote him :
"The enemy is within the gates; it is with our own luxury, our own folly, our own criminality that we have to contend."
"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear."
-Marcus Tullius Cicero
Quote:14 Spanish channels sounds like a lot, but on the other hand, you have about 100? And how many of those are crap? How good is the content on the Spanish ones? So...what are you missing?
Eh, good point.
Actually we have close to 250 channels, and they're almost all crap. :lol:
Quote:That 25% is - in fact - only Spanish programming..... I don't want to practice my Spanish, Sarge!
Errmmm, hate to state the obvious - don't watch the Spanish channels. Nobody's forcing you to watch Latin TV (no irony intended), but if the demand is there, which it seems it is, that's the way a free market goes. Look on the bright side; they create jobs.
I don't understand what's being lost here? Will it be compulsory to speak Spanish in ten years in the USA? Nope. Will the British have to give up bacon with their breakfast? Nope. I'm sure the statue will stay in that British town as well (I imagine there'd be a riot if they try to take it away).
Alluding to a related thread, Christmas has not been banned in the UK either, it's just that public money is not being spent on single faith decorations. There are public Christmas lights all over the place, and if you want to put your own up with
"MERRY CHRISTMAS!!" strung across your house you can. Personally, I'd rather see the public funds go towards a worthy cause (ironically, it being Chrimbo), like sheltering and feeding more homeless. Not being the religious type, I couldn't care less either way about the words "Merry Christmas" (except after 5 pints probably) - and it's become so commercial I think it's lost most of its real value.
Cheers,
Ebeneezer.
But I do hope it snows.
Quote:Actually we have close to 250 channels, and they're almost all crap.
More or less the same over here in Holland. I never regretted the day when I gave my TV to a friend. Living has a lot more quality without TV.
Quote:Marius_Ursus:2co30ncg Wrote:That 25% is - in fact - only Spanish programming..... I don't want to practice my Spanish, Sarge!
Errmmm, hate to state the obvious - don't watch the Spanish channels. Nobody's forcing you to watch Latin TV (no irony intended), but if the demand is there, which it seems it is, that's the way a free market goes. Look on the bright side; they create jobs.
I don't understand what's being lost here? Will it be compulsory to speak Spanish in ten years in the USA? Nope. Will the British have to give up bacon with their breakfast? Nope. I'm sure the statue will stay in that British town as well (I imagine there'd be a riot if they try to take it away).
Do you think it fosters the feeling that after moving here, there's no need to learn the language?
There are also Spanish-only commercials making their way onto mainstream TV, and HBO has a series that started out on their HBOL ("L" for Latino) that is now aired on the main channel.
I don't really care that much about TV anyway, but it's an example of a broader issue. There have always been ethnic neighborhoods like Chinatown and Little Italy, but it's now becoming that my own home and area where I have chosen to live is slowly being turned into Puerto Mexilombia.