You made unsupported claims about Somalis being “unassimilated.
First gen large scale immigrants rarely assimilate. Especially when the modern practice is to promote multiculturalism, which slows or halts assimilation.
It's not a hard rule, of course, but generally speaking, the initial adult immigrants don't assimilate very well. The children born of adult immigrants in the country of immigration overcorrect - they tend to reject their cultural heritage and adopt the new culture, sometimes in an almost caricatured fashion. The third generation (second gen born in country) tend to be well-assimilated, meaning that they actually acculturate to the new country but also retain some appreciation and respect for their heritage. That's where the melting occurs.
There's a significant amount of variation, of course. People immigrating from similar cultures assimilate very quickly; people from very different cultural backgrounds assimilate more slowly. Voluntary immigrants assimilate faster than refugees and asylum seekers. Immigrants who are geographically concentrated assimilate more slowly.
In the case of Somalis in Minnesota, you've got a large number of recent refugees who are geographically concentrated, and who come from a very different culture with significant differences in beliefs and values. In another 30 years they'll probably be assimilated, assuming we avoid balkanization.
IMO, without a definition that translates into observable assessment, your analysis isn’t very helpful to me.
It's funny how selective people are about sociology. If it supports whatever point they're trying to make, it magically becomes science, and often gets treated as if it's hard science. If it doesn't support whatever point they're trying to make, they just hand-wave it away.
The process of assimilation into a host culture isn't exactly a mysterious and new-fangles experiment with no observations behind it. But whatever. Apparently noting that a geographically concentrated group of refugee immigrants from an extremely different cultural background with a very different values and beliefs hasn't yet assimilated into US culture is a horrific insult that wounds you to your very core.
Instead of making excuses and insults, why not give a rational explanation for the basis of your conclusion other than “cuz I say so”. It ought to be easy since it is not a mysterious and new-fangled experiment.
A whole lot of work with demographics and marketing, with a lot of consideration for degree of assimilation and how that plays into how you design products and frame messaging over the course of many years...
You could just go do some basic research on cultural assimilation in immigrants over the course of generations. Or you can just decide to dismiss what I've said without bothering to give it any consideration or thought. Your choice.
You haven’t explained the basis for your claim that they have not assimilated or what you even mean by “assimilated “. Basic research on cultural assimilation shows that “assimilation” is a continuum. Until you are clear about what you mean, there is nothing you’ve said to dismiss.
I think they mean that the Somalis are still black and largely Muslim.
If you feel compelled to take jabs at me to an extent that you can't control yourself, just come out and fucking say it instead of this backhanded made up bullshit.
Skin color has nothing at all to do with assimilation. Religion has a material impact, and it's not somehow bigoted to be aware of that. If a group of mormon moved to Afghanistan, they wouldn't integrate into a predominantly muslim culture very quickly either.
Oh, Emily! That wasn’t about you. If the shoe doesn’t fit, why complain? Just don’t wear it.
I'm the one in this discussion string. Why would I assume you're talking about someone else when you're directly responding to a conversation between me, you, and LD?
If the shoe isn't meant for me, don't throw it at my head.
How well do you think that Amish are ‘integrated’ into US society? Fundamentalist LDS members? Hasidic Jews?
Not very well on all accounts. Fundy LDS arguably more than the Hasidic Jews, Jews more than Amish or Mennonites.
Have you ever been to Chinatown? Little Korea? Little Italy? I recall a friend talking about his Italian American grandmother who never learned to speak English.
In my town, a couple of generations ago and a century before that, people of Polish descent lived on one side of a major street and people of German or Norwegian descent lived on the other and nobody crossed that street.
In many cities, towns and communities, people of similar backgrounds—religious, ethnic, class tend to live in clusters, generations after their ancestors immigrated.
Are you working from the assumption that "unassimilated" is some kind of insult or derogatory term?
Which reminds me: What about white peopke in the United States? Talk about failing to assimilate! We killed off most of the people living here and shoved the rest onto reservations or drove them underground so that many people with indigenous roots hid that ancestry. Of course, there are always those who claim to be 1/8 or 1/16. Or 1/32 Cherokee.
*Sigh* Yes, you're right. Some hundreds of years ago some white people who I'm not at all related to came over with a more technologically advanced culture, a more cohesive set of values shared by a larger population, and the overrode the existing undeveloped indigenous population and were complete assholes to them.
So the fuck what? The romans overrode the gauls, nords, angles and saxons and imposed their culture over that of less advanced civilizations. Before that, the Greeks did the same thing to a substantial portion of the groups living around the mediterranean. And before that, the Babylonians did the same thing to pretty much everyone they could reach.
What's your point supposed to be other than "white people bad"? Do you *want* to see US culture subsumed by islam, and see a sharia-governed theocracy put in place instead? Otherwise, what point do you think you're making here?
