About assimilation
Feb. 8th, 2011 11:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
airiefairieHehe it is becoming like a habit of mine to pick up comments that I have made elsewhere and put them here.
There was a discussion about multiculturalism, the melting pot paradigm, cultural assimilation of immigrants, etc... Well what can I say. This is a complicated issue indeed. Here you have an Icelandic couple living in a country like South Africa and amidst a culture as remote from home as it could be...and having two very young children who will obviously grow up in their new home, among South Africans...mostly of the Afrikaner community but also with some English speakers around and quite a lot of Xhosa (i.e. black) friends in school and on the street. They still speak Icelandic at home but when the kids go to the street they will probably have to speak Afrikaans and a little Xhosa, and English in school. They will mix up with a palette of cultures, from white Afrikaner to coloured to white English to black Xhosa to Malay and even some Zulu coming to town from other places. Should the two kids try to blend to such an extent that they would no longer feel themselves being Icelandic, and their kids would not speak a word of Icelandic one day, and they would name their kids with Afrikaner names instead of Nordic ones? How far does the cultural assimilation stretch, and with what speed should it occur? How much should the original identity be erased for the sake of cultural integration? All complicated questions...but I think when left alone to live their life as they see fit, and without being pressured, eventually these things would settle themselves naturally and without too much drama. The problem is that in countries like most of Western Europe where the economic crisis has stung really hard, people become much more sensitive about the issues of immigration, cultural differences and social controversies than they would have under more 'normal' circumstances.
There was a discussion about multiculturalism, the melting pot paradigm, cultural assimilation of immigrants, etc... Well what can I say. This is a complicated issue indeed. Here you have an Icelandic couple living in a country like South Africa and amidst a culture as remote from home as it could be...and having two very young children who will obviously grow up in their new home, among South Africans...mostly of the Afrikaner community but also with some English speakers around and quite a lot of Xhosa (i.e. black) friends in school and on the street. They still speak Icelandic at home but when the kids go to the street they will probably have to speak Afrikaans and a little Xhosa, and English in school. They will mix up with a palette of cultures, from white Afrikaner to coloured to white English to black Xhosa to Malay and even some Zulu coming to town from other places. Should the two kids try to blend to such an extent that they would no longer feel themselves being Icelandic, and their kids would not speak a word of Icelandic one day, and they would name their kids with Afrikaner names instead of Nordic ones? How far does the cultural assimilation stretch, and with what speed should it occur? How much should the original identity be erased for the sake of cultural integration? All complicated questions...but I think when left alone to live their life as they see fit, and without being pressured, eventually these things would settle themselves naturally and without too much drama. The problem is that in countries like most of Western Europe where the economic crisis has stung really hard, people become much more sensitive about the issues of immigration, cultural differences and social controversies than they would have under more 'normal' circumstances.
