'Tunnel of Oppression' sheds light on prejudices

The Daily ^ | 02/08/06 | Meghan Peters

[LibertarianInExile]

"We need to go to the Swiss system, where immigrants get kicked out if they can't learn the local language in a reasonable amount of time (conversational, not necessarily fluent)."

Heck, we need to go to the Swiss system of a federal government, too.

[TheBrotherhood]

"The tunnel was sponsored by Housing and Food Services, and included displays and videos to raise awareness about issues such as homophobia, xenophobia, white privilege and gender inequality."

In other words, an anti white hate day.

[talleyman]

I myself am addicted to Wurst. Doch, die Wurst ist sehr gut.

Bratklopt (sp?) - I followed this guy's cart all around the square. "More bratklopt, please?" (don't sprechen Deutsche...)

[A message]

I'm not sure what that is.

Klopt is a Dutch word that means correct, or it is correct.

While Brat is a German word meaning roast.

He could have been saying buy my correct roast or more literaly, I have the good sausage/food. Buy my bratklopt.

Otherwise I'm not familiar with that term or food.

[Riverman94610]

Fascinating bio,radiohead.
I grew up in an all white suburban California world and my first interactions with "Negroes",as we called them at the time,were with the radical militant Afrocentrists on the college campuses at the time.I know that segment of the black community is much scorned here and in many ways deservedly so,but I learned a lot from them.Unlike many of todays"playas"and greed hustlers,they were passionate and cared about more than looking fly and getting their hook up on.
I will never forget the black conservative young man who was debating this bearded white liberal in Union Square in San Francisco back in 1968 and absolutely ripped his arguments to shreds.Till that time I had never met a black conservative and was way more left leaning myself. Yet that black man really got me to think out of the box that day and that unknown individual still often circulates through my mind when people try to box the black population into the liberal trap.
I am grateful for both my conservative upbringing AND all the time I spent"in the hood".I feel comfortable in both environments and this cultural shape-shifting has allowed me to intermingle in circles I would have otherwise been excluded from.
And you mentioned white feminists and I pose the question-Have you EVER seen a car with"I Believe You,Anita"driven by a black woman?
Me neither!
Riverman

[talleyman]

Re: "Bratklopt" -

It looked like sausage patties - I assumed it to be mangled wurst cooked as patties. All I know is that it was really good... But thanks for trying to decipher my mangled verbiage.

[Clemenza]

Were hit by their German, Italian, Polish, etc. parents for speaking German, Italian, Polish, etc. because the Europeans who came to America before WW2 came her because they wanted to be Americans and wanted their children to be Americans

Not always true. German schools and German speaking enclaves existed in this country from the colonial period until WWI and the anti-German hysteria.

Most Italian and Polish immigrants settled in ethnic ghettos where the first generation only associated with their own countrymen and spoke their languages. My great-grandmother never learned more than a few words of English. None of my grandparents learned English until they went to public school.

This "we're all Americans" stuff is a product of WWII.

[Question_Assumptions]

My family is from Depression-era Jersey City and while there were certainly ethnic clubs (including the infamous German-American Bund), my familiy did in fact know people whose parents so wanted them to be American that they'd get hit at home if they spoke their parents' language at home instead of English. And my grandfather did sit my two Scotland-born uncles down, when my grandmother finally joined him in the US with my uncles, and tell them that they were American know and if they wanted to be Scottish, they could go back to Scotland. You are correct that there were people who lived in ethnic ghettos but there were plenty more who realized that their ethnicity was contributing to their problems who wanted to be Americans.

[Clemenza]

The Jersey City of my grandparents was an Italian Ghetto where one did not need to know English if they didn't want to. My grandparents did not know English until the went to public school and had to act as interpreters for their parents. The same was true of my father's family in Newark, who attended Polish language parochial schools, but learned English out on the street or through movies.

We must be careful before we idealize the past. It was World War II that assimilated the European ethnics, and made them realize they were Americans. Then came the red scare of post-WWII in which to be "foreign" was to be suspect. The "everyone wants to be American" concept is largely a product of postwar America.

In any event, it doesn't matter, every child of Colombian, Cuban, Cambodian, and Korean immigrants I have met speaks English better than their parent's language.

[CodeToad]

"No tears for queers"


Well, why would I cry for a homo who got AIDS by sodomizing someone??

[Question_Assumptions]

Well, Jersey City was a bit place and my family wasn't from the Italian area, so we probably have two very different windows on two pasts that existed right next to each other. Different ethnicities reacted quite differently and even the same ethnicities reacted quite differently depending on where they were from and why they came to the United States. Let's just say that Protestant opposition to Catholic immigration gave Protestants a reason to think of themselves as "Americans" and Catholics a reason to huddle together in ethnic enclaves and I am aware, via some specific anecdotes from my father, that the different Catholic ethnicities in Jersey City did discourage mixing. Of course that's why the whole idea of that whites were unified by a common culture from the Revolutionary War era and never practiced discrimination between white ethnicities is so absurd. But at least some of those who were descriminated against viewed assimilation (or "passing") as their way to escape persecution just as others escaped persecution by huddling in ethnic enclaves.

I'm fully aware that there as Hispanics, Asians, and others who are assimilating quite well into American society and wants to be American and I'm more than happy to have that sort of immigrant enter the United States. Regardless of where it started or how well it worked in the past in the United States, the "Melting Pot" was an admirable goal and far more sustainable than the multicultural ideals being preached by many academics. I'm by no means anti-immigration. I'm anti-multiculturalism to, the extent that many multiculturalists want to take it, and think America needs a single official language. If the people of India can understand the benefits of using English as an official language, despite it being almost nobody's native language in India, why can't Americans grasp the same benefits.

[HostileTerritory]

My grandfather, who is now in his mid 90s, came over to Jersey City from Eastern Europe when he was a young boy. If he'd stayed in Russia, his town would have been overrun within a week of Operation Barbarossa starting and he and his family would have been killed. Here, he raised a family and did very well for himself, growing up speaking English and working with all types of people.

You'd expect him to be as grateful to be an American as I am, given this record, but when I talked about it with him a few months ago he sounded like he was still a guest in this country and he didn't particularly feel like an American. Identifying with America, thinking about what it stands for etc. just wasn't relevant to him. Of course, he isn't Russian either, nor is he religious. He just is.

[Clemenza]

Good posts, and I agree.

I've spent alot of time speaking with older relatives. Despite the differing ethnicities (Polish on my father's side, Italian on my mother's), a common thread was that the first generation who came to this country never considered themselves "American", while their children largely became Americanized through popular culture and military service. After all, even though the second generation was born here, they nevertheless stayed in the neighborhood and played with other kids of their ethnic and religious background.

I think that popular culture, which is stronger than ever as an influence, position or negative, on today's youth, is the key factor in spreading English and American mores on the children of immigrants. Little Juan, Kim, Vladmir, or Joao may speak the language of their parents at home, but through watching television, going to the movies, listening to the radio, and hanging out in the school yard, they pick up the language very rapidly, despite the multiculturalist propaganda.

My belief is that America does have a unified culture, which is effective on both the conscious and subconscious level. Underneath that culture, there are many subcultures that are related to ethnicity, religion, region, etc. That's the way it always has been and always will be.

[Question_Assumptions]

My grandfather very much wanted to come to America and be a part of America. He became a naturalized citizen. My grandmother, on the other hand, always stayed more Scottish. My maternal grandparents were born here and lived in various places between New York City and Hudson County, NJ. The real value I get from talking to my older relatives, is understanding what it was really like here for immigrants and working class people. My maternal grandmother worked in a Greenwich Village sweatshop, the children worked to support their families, and all lived in cold water flats, apartments without their own bathrooms, had coal stoves and heating, ice boxes, etc. There seems to be a myth that white people all arrived in America and had it easy. It just isn't so. In fact, the reason why the Irish rioted in New York City during the Civil War was that they were concerned that blacks would take their jobs because the blacks were more desirable employees than the Irish.

As for assimilation, I agree with Clemenza for the most part. I'm fully aware that most ethnicities still assimilate within two or three generations. My concern is with ethnic ghettos that get large enough that they can drop out of American society indefinitely. You see that with Muslim immigrant neighborhoods in Europe and I think it's been happening in some Hispanic neighborhoods in the US, and I'm concerned about children who are taught in school in a language other than English so they never have any need to learn it.