[danielrpa]

I'm a Latin American immigrant. When coming to the US, I decided to fully integrate myself in the culture: attain a high proficiency level in English, US history and culture, marry a native and raise my child in the local culture. I believe that if you are moving to a new country, you are deciding to an extent leave your old country behind and start a new journey helping build your adoptive country.

When looking at other Latin American immigrants, I tend to see a strong desire to do the same. Latin Americans often join the US armed forces, become patriotic and even conservative Americans. In particular with Cuban immigrants, there is hatred towards some of the original values (communist/revolutionary Cuba) and a strong embrace of the new world. While you can always find examples to the contrary, I believe that Latin American immigrants in the US have done a terrific job at integrating, perhaps because of our cultural and religious values being already somewhat compatible with the US.

This is not the same for all other immigrant cultures. I don't want to point fingers to not start flame wars. However, I've seen communities of different cultures refusing to mix with locals: they will not marry locals in general for religious and sometimes even racial reasons. For them, the US is just a convenient location with Costcos and Targets, but they often despise our cultural roots and don't even bother to learn the culture or language. Their children are of course better integrated, but their community still frowns upon departing their culture circle.

We Latin Americans still, of course, stay around our community and speak our native language with people sharing our cultural heritage. We still like "our" food. But when you talk to people in the community, they are complaining about how things are bad in Latin America and how much better they are in the US. In some other cultures, it's the opposite; they complain about how things are bad in the US, and how much better they were back home!

[eesmith]

> I believe that if you are moving to a new country, you are deciding to an extent leave your old country behind and start a new journey helping build your adoptive country.

The decisions of refugees is far less voluntary than yours. Your personal experience isn't a meaningful comparison.

> there is hatred towards some of the original values (communist/revolutionary Cuba)

I don't think you sufficiently understand the Cuban migration experience. The first wave in the late 1950s and 1960s were there because they rejected the new values of communist/revolutionary Cuba.

> and a strong embrace of the new world.

Many expected the revolution to end soon, and they would be able to return home to Cuba, and even get their land and houses back.

You can see strong counter-evidence to your position in the Wikipedia entry for the 1970s TV series ¿Qué Pasa, USA? at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C2%BFQu%C3%A9_Pasa,_USA%3F :

] The series focused on the identity crisis of the members of the family as they were pulled in one direction by their elders—who wanted to maintain Cuban values and traditions—and pulled in other directions by the pressures of living in a predominantly Anglo-American society. This caused many misadventures for the entire Peña family as they get pulled in all directions in their attempt to preserve their heritage.

That's very different than your characterization - no doubt partly because what you know about Cubans in Miami now is after 40-60 years of integration.

The recent refugees in Sweden have not had nearly so long.

> This is not the same for all other immigrant cultures

What's your issue with the Amish? That's an immigrant group which fits your description. It sounds like you want to force them to integrate with the Anglo-American society?

For the matter, Swedish immigrants to the US peaked around 1890, but it took generations before the Swedish descendants in Minnesota stopped using Swedish as their mother tongue.

We can even see this in the 1970s TV series The Mary Tyler Moore Show where her friend and landlady Phyllis Lindstrom occasional repeats Swedish phrases from her husband, or in "A Prairie Home Companion" where host Garrison Keillor would occasional say something in Swedish, and joke about "Norwegian bachelor farmers". That's nearly a century later.

[danielrpa]

I said what I had to say, so did you. A comprehensive refutal and clarification of my points would be tedious.

Nonetheless, I'll address one of your points, the one of the involuntary experience: if your hosts are having you out of the goodness of their hearts because you're a refugee, you better do everything in your power to pay it back and play by their rules, not yours. You are not entitled to their welcome.

[eesmith]

> you better do everything in your power to pay it back and play by their rules, not yours. You are not entitled to their welcome

That's what you think about the Cuban refugees in Miami who didn't do what you think is right and give up their Cuban culture and heritage?

Because otherwise nothing so far fits your complaint.

Everyone we've talked about is following the rules.

Look, you finished your first 5K. That's impressive.

But that doesn't mean your 5K experience can meaningfully judge that someone halfway through their first marathon - 21 km in with 21km more to go - isn't doing enough.

Why do you think they aren't already doing exactly what you think they should be doing?

[glimshe]

I had just one sentence in my original message about Cuban immigrants, my writeup was not about them in particular. It was just an example of one of the things I was saying, basically that I know that many Cuban immigrants wanted to reject their old regime - not necessarily their culture, which is not in conflict with "the rules" as I see it. I see in Latin Americans refugee a desire to live the US life while preserving their values (which is also the case for other immigrant groups, but NOT all of them).

I was actually praising the integration of law-abiding Latin Americans in the US, including Cubans. In my community, we all eat our food, celebrate our culture and speak our language among ourselves, but we're proud to be American and actually want the American way of life for ourselves and our family. Many of these immigrants easily integrated and even married locals. My wife, who's American, hangs out with Latin American women of different countries, all living a "Latin America spiced" US life.

[eesmith]

The context of this thread is the large number of mostly Arabic speakers who have moved to Sweden, often fleeing for their lives. By bringing up your views about "law-abiding Latin Americans" in that context, you are implicitly saying that Arabic speakers are not law-abiding, and/or not integrating to your satisfaction.

And you are using your own experience as a voluntary immigrant, to judge the much more severe hardships of refugees.

Stop that.

Or let loose your xenophobia and say you think Arabic-speaking immigrants just aren't as good as your Latin American compatriots, and simply aren't trying hard enough.

I brought up Cuban refugees in Miami as an example of how one's native language at home has no relation to the citizenship language requirement. Sweden doesn't have a Swedish language requirement for citizenship, and has many native speakers of Arabic languages. The US does have an English language requirement for citizenship, and has many native speakers of Spanish, including in households from recent Spanish-speaking immigrants.

Just like my Norwegian-speaking ancestors kept their at-home language for a couple of generations after moving to America.

Since I agree with the OP that there's no connection, I asked the OP why it was relevant to bring it up in the first place. That's the thread you jumped into.

> actually want the American way of life for ourselves and our family

Stop comparing yourself to refugees! Refugees want to survive. They want to raise their family. They don't all 'actually want the American way of life'.

Here's a specific example I read about over the weekend: many of the current Ukrainian refugees in Sweden don't want to become Swedes. They want the war to end so they can go home.

They get about $10/day in support from the state - which is great! - but $300/month doesn't go far. Those who cannot speak Swedish or English can't easily find employment, outside the expensive cities. They don't have a Swedish social security number, making it hard to register for rental housing. Nor do they have the option for state-funded Swedish language courses; the account I read mentioned a Ukrainian refugee family that re-located to Norway, which did offer Norwegian courses.

Your 5K experience that you did voluntarily is nothing like the grueling marathon run-for-their-lives of many refugees.

> the American way of life

I don't know if you understand how that phrase sets off alarm bells. It means very different things to different people. To xenophobes, it means immigrants like you must not use Spanish in public, even as "spice."

During the 1950s, "un-American" included anyone who supported communism, or socialism, or criticized America's unfettered- and state-supported capitalism. (Socialism was also quite popular with the then-recent Eastern European immigrants to the US, who were early in the assimilation process, and were still seen as too foreign.)

We can see this in microcosm with recital of the Pledge of Allegiance. Is that part of the American way of life that you aspired to?

If so, you would part of the millions who agree. Many even want that required of all school children, like it once was. And politicians added "under God" during the 1950s, in the view that (Christian)[1] religious faith was part of what it meant to be American.

Mandatory recital of the pledge was struck down by the Supreme Court, because, as it turns out, some Christians interpret the "no idol before me" scriptural injunction to include flags. Children were being punished for breaking that law, when following their religious beliefs.

Another view is the "American way of life" is the 'melting pot' metaphor. We can have an American way of life where Jehovah's Witnesses aren't required to say the pledge. We can have an American way of life where the Amish not only keep their immigrant culture for generations, but where the laws change to accommodate them. We can have an American way of life which includes Spanish New Mexicans and Puertorriqueños whose native language for centuries has been Spanish. Which includes Native Americans, and Hawaiians, and Aleuts.

And which includes Arabic speaking refugees.

That latter support for diverse cultures is what you mean by "American way of life", right?

If not, what's wrong with the Amish?

[1] "Christian" in name, but they meant "Protestant". Catholic JFK even needed to say he would not be subordinate to the Pope, when he was running for president.