[lit-ideas] Comparing U.S. to European Imigration Policies
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Lit-Ideas" <Lit-Ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 21:09:28 -0800
[Page 55 of Bawer's While Europe Slept] "The pillars of U.S. immigration
policy are integration and employment; officials in Western Europe, by
contrast, thought they were doing immigrants a favor by not requiring - or
even encouraging - either. One might wonder why European authorities didn't
try to learn from the spectacularly successful history of U.S. immigration.
I've lived in Europe long enough to know why: they didn't see it as a
success story. In the eyes of the Western European establishment, America
is a fundamentally racist and materialistic nation that cruelly compels
immigrants to shake off their identities and fend for themselves under a
heartless, dog-eat-dog economic system. Accordingly, when large-scale
immigration to most European countries began a generation ago, political
leaders deliberately chose a non-American approach - one they saw as humane,
sensitive to multicultural considerations, and respectful of other cultures.
"In America, immigrants tend to make the switch to English relatively
quickly; by contrast, many European children of immigrants are barely able
to speak the language of the country in which they were born. Immigrants
to the United States are, moreover, far more likely to enter the workforce -
and are better paid - than are immigrants in Europe. Indeed, while
immigrants to America are encouraged to become full members of society - and
are rewarded for doing so - in Europe (where the native-born children and
grandchildren of immigrants are actually called 'second- and
third-generation immigrants') the establishment prefers its minorities
unintigrated. Why? The supposed reason is that it respects differences;
the real reason, as I gradually came to understand, was a profound
discomfort with the idea of 'them' becoming 'us.' Immigrants to "Europe are
allowed to perpetuate even the most atrocious aspects of their cultures, but
the price for this is that no one, including themselves, will ever think of
them as Dutch or German or Swedish. . . ."
Lawrence
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