Lol, multiculturalism was a known lie from day There has never been a country with multiple distinct and wildly different cultures that have been successful. It is always the most successful culture that takes the burden while the others drag it down.
Even the US founders in personal letters were like "It's fine for people from any country to move here, but we wouldn't want America's English culture to get taken over by Germans or Italians."
At least Americans can say they've been bombarded with "We've always been a nation of immigrants!" propaganda for the last 100 years. Canadians have no excuse.
"It's fine for people from any country to move here, but we wouldn't want America's English culture to get taken over by Germans or Italians."
That's my take. Or rather, it's always been my opinion that, if you move to another country, you learn their language, take on your culture as best you can. "When in Rome, do as the Romans do," as the saying goes. I could never be Japanese, or Nigerian, or even English for that matter (and one side of my family originally came to the US from JoLlY oLd EnGlAnD) but I could still learn the ways of whatever respective place I move to and try to integrate as best I can.* As a foreigner, the host nation wouldn't be nor should be obligated to bend over backward for me, a complete outsider. If things were sensible the US would have this stance and encourage assimilation into the host culture and discourage the continuation of others, but it hasn't. Mores the pity for us. Multicultural states tend to fall apart into chaos and discord sooner or later over it.
But then again, things tend to get messy when such is put into practice. Idk.
I just know I wish we still encouraged the idea of the US as "melting pot"—the immigrants of the respective places shedding their old identities and joining under a new, American, culture—instead of the current idea of the US as "salad bowl"—each group retaining their own culture, separate from a greater all-encompassing American culture.
But in developed nations, the dead weight manages to latch themselves onto the justice system to the point where the productive people of the nation are punished for trying to purge them.
Switzerland superficially seem to makes it almost work, but it has strict linguistic territorialism for its 3 prestige languages. I wouldn't call it a real example of successfully making its native ethnic groups thrive though.
The smaller native languages, as always, got shafted and are declining into oblivion ( arpitan, lombard, jurassian, romanche, walser, alemanic, will go extinct in a few years / decades depending on how far gone they are ).
Even among the 3 prestige languages, French, Hochdeutch and Italian, French has been encroaching on previously alemanic territory ( rather than Hochdeutch taking that role ) and Alemanic + Hochdeutch encroached on Lombard ( rather than Italian taking over ).
Romanche is getting chewed like the other tiny languages mentioned above ( Lombard, Arpitan, Jurassien, Walser ), but much slower because its speakers had a much more sharp ethnic/linguistic consciousness. No Romanche speaker thinks they are inferior for speaking "degraded Italian" and should speak Italian and educate their children in Italian. Maby having Alemanic then Hochdeutch chewing their up rather than Italian spared them the "I speak degraded X" shame.
Speakers of the other tiny languages think they speak "degraded Insert Bigger Language Here, please assimilate my kids to that through school please".
Lol, multiculturalism was a known lie from day There has never been a country with multiple distinct and wildly different cultures that have been successful. It is always the most successful culture that takes the burden while the others drag it down.
Even the US founders in personal letters were like "It's fine for people from any country to move here, but we wouldn't want America's English culture to get taken over by Germans or Italians."
At least Americans can say they've been bombarded with "We've always been a nation of immigrants!" propaganda for the last 100 years. Canadians have no excuse.
That's my take. Or rather, it's always been my opinion that, if you move to another country, you learn their language, take on your culture as best you can. "When in Rome, do as the Romans do," as the saying goes. I could never be Japanese, or Nigerian, or even English for that matter (and one side of my family originally came to the US from JoLlY oLd EnGlAnD) but I could still learn the ways of whatever respective place I move to and try to integrate as best I can.* As a foreigner, the host nation wouldn't be nor should be obligated to bend over backward for me, a complete outsider. If things were sensible the US would have this stance and encourage assimilation into the host culture and discourage the continuation of others, but it hasn't. Mores the pity for us. Multicultural states tend to fall apart into chaos and discord sooner or later over it.
But then again, things tend to get messy when such is put into practice. Idk.
I just know I wish we still encouraged the idea of the US as "melting pot"—the immigrants of the respective places shedding their old identities and joining under a new, American, culture—instead of the current idea of the US as "salad bowl"—each group retaining their own culture, separate from a greater all-encompassing American culture.
*not to say I would or plan to leave the US.
But in developed nations, the dead weight manages to latch themselves onto the justice system to the point where the productive people of the nation are punished for trying to purge them.
Switzerland superficially seem to makes it almost work, but it has strict linguistic territorialism for its 3 prestige languages. I wouldn't call it a real example of successfully making its native ethnic groups thrive though.
The smaller native languages, as always, got shafted and are declining into oblivion ( arpitan, lombard, jurassian, romanche, walser, alemanic, will go extinct in a few years / decades depending on how far gone they are ).
Even among the 3 prestige languages, French, Hochdeutch and Italian, French has been encroaching on previously alemanic territory ( rather than Hochdeutch taking that role ) and Alemanic + Hochdeutch encroached on Lombard ( rather than Italian taking over ).
Romanche is getting chewed like the other tiny languages mentioned above ( Lombard, Arpitan, Jurassien, Walser ), but much slower because its speakers had a much more sharp ethnic/linguistic consciousness. No Romanche speaker thinks they are inferior for speaking "degraded Italian" and should speak Italian and educate their children in Italian. Maby having Alemanic then Hochdeutch chewing their up rather than Italian spared them the "I speak degraded X" shame.
Speakers of the other tiny languages think they speak "degraded Insert Bigger Language Here, please assimilate my kids to that through school please".