<p>One of the biggest reasons I decided to leave behind my life in the US was this sense of Americanization I noticed in the people around me. I am a strong believer in the “cultural mosaic” theory, whereby immigrants retain the culture of their homeland but also accept the culture of their new home. The opposite would be the “melting pot” theory, in which immigrants lose almost all traces of their former culture and soon possess only their new home’s culture- a phenomenon worthy of jeering, pity, and hatred. </p>
<p>The latter scenario might simply be more prevalent in Chicagoland than in other areas of the country, but I bet that you probably know someone who recently came to the States who was trying his/her hardest to become a full-fledged American, i.e. attempting to gain the standard American accent, adapting the customs of his/her homeland to fit the American mould, etc.</p>
<p>This is not the case in Canada, where the newly-arrived are encouraged to mix the customs of their former country with the customs of the Great North. Such a practice has resulted in urban environments like Toronto, Vancouver, and Montr</p>
<p>I know exacty where you are coming from. I myself am an immigrant from Switzerland, but my family (well actually my mom) said that she would not want to move to the states. I have absolutly nothing against the states, don’t get me wrong, but I prefere the multiculturalism from Canada to the americanization of the states. I still speak swiss at home with my parents and I’m planning on teaching my children swiss, because I believe that our culture and our language should be kept alive and used. I live in a small town in alberta, and we even have a multicultural centre, which shows the cultures of the world, and the influences it has had to canadians. I think that Canada is an amazing place to keep your own culture alive, but to except the canadian culture as well. I don’t really have an accent anymore in my english, which I am proud of, and I love canada. So I guess you can call me a true canadian, because most canadians aren’t real canadians anyways. ;)</p>
<p>Multiculturalism can backfire, as immigrants who seemingly retain TOO much ethnicity will rankle the native population. I live in Vancouver, and here, the Greater Vancouver area has splintered into gigantic ethnic factions. Richmond is basically Hong Kong, while Surrey is known as “Brown Town”. Pretty much anywhere else is pure white country, except for cosmopolitan Vancouver of course.</p>
<p>It annoys me to no end when immigrants here (in Australia) absolutely refuse to intergrate, speaking only their language, sending their kids to special schools and language schools, and living cloistered in their ethnic community. What’s the bloody point of immigrating, if not to give yourself to the new culture? Why transplant your whole life to another country (unless your parents/yourself has been transferred, in which case it’s different)?</p>
<p>I have a friend here in Sydney whose parents are Chinese, they’ve lived here for over twenty years, own a Chinese restaurant, sent their kids to Chinese schools, eat Chinese food every night, read chinese magazines, watch chinese tv and movies, listen to chinese radio, and who talk to their kids in nothing but Chinese. My friend (whos 20 now) has a baby sister who last time i saw her was 3 years old, and she didn’t know a single word of english! the parents don’t speak english (her dad does more than her mum, b/c he’s in the restaurant), and she told me that she had to learn english when she went into primary school from listening to the teachers, when SHE’S NOT AN IMMIGRANT!! she was born here (as well as her other two sisters, her brother, and her new baby sister). </p>
<p>WHAT IS THE POINT? Most immigrants say they wanted better quality of life, or a better life for their kids, but to surround yourself with an identical life in a completely different culture is ridiculous. </p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong: im not xenophobic. at all. im half-mexican (very rare round these parts) and half aussie, and have dealt with discrimination before, even though i grew up in the suburbs, speaking english and living like and with Aussies. but to move to take advantage of a stable economy or educational opportunities (for your kids, not intl students) and to make no move towards intergration at all is ridiculous. why not stay in your own country and work to improve it, so you and your children and your children’s children won’t feel compelled to move?</p>
<p>sorry if it seemed like a rant to you, but it’s something that’s actually all over the news here at the moment and something i feel very passionate about. </p>
<p>i understand that is hard to adults to completely abandon their culture, b/c it means so much to them, it IS them. but to make no move towards exploring and absorbing the new culture (when it was a choice, and hard one that took enormous effort, to move in the first place) is stupid and i have no pity for them. especially when they force the old culture on their new american/canadian/australian children. transplantation of a life from Xtown, China to Chinatown, [Big City in the West] is pointless. and it’s not just chinese that do it. all over my city are schools dedicated to the lebanese, vietnamese, greek, or italian communities.</p>
<p>As a Torontonian, I love multiculturalism. Why? When you live in a city like Toronto, you can pretty much spin a globe, close your eyes, and point at random to some country nobody’s heard of, and then say, “I think tonight I will go out and eat THIS food.” Ethnic cuisine is my life, and any city that promotes ethnic diversity and thus keeps my stomach happy has my full approval.</p>
<p>Believe it or not, I had that in my original post, but I took it out because I had second thoughts about it. But yeah Brazil might have some of the hottest chicks in the world. Although they do have a lot of plastic surgeons.</p>
<p>I agree with you on this point, but we must not lay all the blame on one side. One side may refuse to integrate, but is the other completely willing to allow them to? Certain ethnic groups may prefer to cloister themselves because the native groups tend to treat them like second-class citizens.</p>