Dubai Summer Surprise
Farook invited me to go to the Dubai Chamber of Commerce Summer Surprises series of lectures called ‘Mind’s Pleasures,’ or ‘watanabi.’ This is a strangely unadvertised and unattended Summer Surprise.
The speaker was someone who has studied multiculturalism in the UK and compared it with the US.
Back in school, the term we learned was acculturation. We learned that, in the US, everyone was acculturated. Of course, that was not altogether accurate, but that’s what we learned. It was a term the speaker never used.
In the US, all Europeans moved into neighbourhoods with their fellow countrymen, but their children had to attend schools with children from many different ethnic groups, schools in which English was the only lingua franca. Usually, the children intermarried children from different ethnic backgrounds.
The parents only spoke the language from their native country, and only read newspapers in the language of their native country. But, after 1921, the US banned most immigration, and the children could neither speak nor read the language of their parents, so the non-English newspapers all folded.
Now, in the US, people of Italian descent eat spaghetti on special occasions, Poles eat pirogues on special occasions, and Scandinavians eat lutefisk on special occasions, but most of the time they all eat hamburgers and hot dogs, and it’s hard to tell one from the other.
East Asians, Africans, and Hispanics were not acculturated in the US before World War II. East Asians could never become US citizens (in violation of the US Constitution, but violations of the US Constitution have a long history in the US), so they went to schools where they learned their own language. Africans were sent to pan-African schools where they learned Ebonics. And Hispanics had no tradition of schools, and were not allowed in US schools, so most remained illiterate Spanish speakers.
Now, East Asians and Hispanics who can prove that they are legal must attend regular schools, and most become fully acculturated, while US citizens of African descent may be able to attend Ebonics schools, or may be sent to acculturation centres.
The UK had a radically different experience. In the UK of the ‘70s, immigration was largely limited to people from Canada, the Antipodes, and (on a case by case basis) people from Southern Africa. Then the Brits felt guilty, let in anyone who had a Commonwealth Passport, and gave them a UK passport. Then membership in the EU meant that the UK had to admit people from Eastern Europe, and anyone with a European passport is free to enter the UK on a permanent basis.
The recent UK immigrants continue to follow their native practices, and continue to cheer for the sports teams from their grandparents’ countries.
So, the speaker asked, ‘Which is best, the US method or the UK method?’
It was a rhetorical question, so we didn’t get an answer.
And no one told him that the UAE, while certainly a multicultural society, has very little in common with the US or the UK.
The speaker was someone who has studied multiculturalism in the UK and compared it with the US.
Back in school, the term we learned was acculturation. We learned that, in the US, everyone was acculturated. Of course, that was not altogether accurate, but that’s what we learned. It was a term the speaker never used.
In the US, all Europeans moved into neighbourhoods with their fellow countrymen, but their children had to attend schools with children from many different ethnic groups, schools in which English was the only lingua franca. Usually, the children intermarried children from different ethnic backgrounds.
The parents only spoke the language from their native country, and only read newspapers in the language of their native country. But, after 1921, the US banned most immigration, and the children could neither speak nor read the language of their parents, so the non-English newspapers all folded.
Now, in the US, people of Italian descent eat spaghetti on special occasions, Poles eat pirogues on special occasions, and Scandinavians eat lutefisk on special occasions, but most of the time they all eat hamburgers and hot dogs, and it’s hard to tell one from the other.
East Asians, Africans, and Hispanics were not acculturated in the US before World War II. East Asians could never become US citizens (in violation of the US Constitution, but violations of the US Constitution have a long history in the US), so they went to schools where they learned their own language. Africans were sent to pan-African schools where they learned Ebonics. And Hispanics had no tradition of schools, and were not allowed in US schools, so most remained illiterate Spanish speakers.
Now, East Asians and Hispanics who can prove that they are legal must attend regular schools, and most become fully acculturated, while US citizens of African descent may be able to attend Ebonics schools, or may be sent to acculturation centres.
The UK had a radically different experience. In the UK of the ‘70s, immigration was largely limited to people from Canada, the Antipodes, and (on a case by case basis) people from Southern Africa. Then the Brits felt guilty, let in anyone who had a Commonwealth Passport, and gave them a UK passport. Then membership in the EU meant that the UK had to admit people from Eastern Europe, and anyone with a European passport is free to enter the UK on a permanent basis.
The recent UK immigrants continue to follow their native practices, and continue to cheer for the sports teams from their grandparents’ countries.
So, the speaker asked, ‘Which is best, the US method or the UK method?’
It was a rhetorical question, so we didn’t get an answer.
And no one told him that the UAE, while certainly a multicultural society, has very little in common with the US or the UK.
posted by Dubai@Random at 2:00 am
8 Comments:
I can't speak for the accuracy of his statements on the UK, but your speaker has very little grasp of how the U.S. actually works or worked.
"but most of the time they all eat hamburgers and hot dogs, and it’s hard to tell one from the other."
As a child of a first generation immigrant, I can say that we did not subsist on hamburgers and hot dogs. I would agree w/ the last person who left a comment.
We Americans are always (and frequently justly) accused of being ignorant of the rest of the world. Thank you for demonstrating that this works both ways. Thank you so much for the laugh.
As a citizen and rsident of the UK all I can say is the multi-cultural approach to immigration in the UK has failed. By that I mean it has created divided and conflicting communities. Why should we be surpirsed when that conflict leads to violence and discord when everybody feels disenfranchised. The US model of (almost) forced integration is a much better system.
Thank you for (unwittingly) hilarious post.
I do soo agree with brn and ctbritt.
@ shygate
Being a second generation American I can tell you there is no forced integration in the US. Not even "almost". That's precisely the problem with the UK, there are too many who think integration is the problem.
The fact is the UK brought in too many people and spread them across too little square footage all at once. Of course they clumped in ways they felt comfortable, according to common traditions. Now it's irreversible, you've made them officially entrenched minority communities.
The US by contrast may accept more people from all over the world, but they spread out. There is no forcing, immigrants aren't given the message by the rest of society that they aren't welcome, so integration is casual, gradual, and automatic. In the UK, immigrants are ghettoized almost the moment their feet touch British soil, and expectations are instantly lowered. It is constantly hammered into them that they have to act British or else. In my experience telling people to do something, especially youth, breeds counter-culture.
Of course US hostility towards Hispanics means that the situation with the Hispanic community in the US will rapidly become just as bad as the immigrant community in the UK, wait and see.
Can you post some more details on this? Who was the speaker? And are there other such lectures planned? Would love to know more.
"Africans were sent to pan-African schools where they learned Ebonics. And Hispanics had no tradition of schools, and were not allowed in US schools, so most remained illiterate Spanish speakers." This is the stupidest thing I have ever heard and it amazes me that you swallow this "expert's" hook, line, and sinker. Now I know not to trust anything you report here.
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