I'm an American citizen born in America, but I'm non-white. This piece is pretty accurate (and frankly, I would say I assimilated better than most of my peers, given how abysmal my fluency in my family's non-English native language is.)
Also shameless compliment, your kids sound cool and your blog is cool too.
It's interesting to me as the child of a white immigrant to notice how similar many of my experiences are to children of non white immigrants. Of course there are additional barriers for non white immigrants, but I had a friend whose mom is Italian and her cultural mannerisms are still very different (and sometimes embarrassing) to her American child.
We have so many commonalities with which to make connections.
I had to chuckle at your piece because my mom has a story of when she first moved to this country (from a mostly white, largely English-speaking one) in the 1960s, went to a store with my sister, and asked where they kept the rubbers.
She meant boots and still laughs about it half a century later.
My general understanding is no first-generation immigrant really truly assimilates (unless they migrate before their teen years) while by the second generation people predominantly identify with the country of their birth, and by the third they are fully assimilated. Certainly it's working this way for modern immigrants to the U.S. just as well as it did with earlier groups.
The issue with expats from the U.S. and other wealthy countries is with few exceptions they are childless or their children have long since grown. They are not planning on helping to make a new generation in the country they move to - they generally will not unless they are relatively young and happen to marry a local.
There are always obviously exceptions to this, but my impression has always been expats tend to look for something like English-language private schools if they happen to have young kids, which effectively stops the process of second-generation assimilation, since public schooling is the primary method in which immigrants assimilate.
Hot take: Assimilation is just reading the room
Shameless plug: https://erinetheridge.substack.com/p/code-switching
I'm an American citizen born in America, but I'm non-white. This piece is pretty accurate (and frankly, I would say I assimilated better than most of my peers, given how abysmal my fluency in my family's non-English native language is.)
Also shameless compliment, your kids sound cool and your blog is cool too.
Shameless gratitude: thank you.
It's interesting to me as the child of a white immigrant to notice how similar many of my experiences are to children of non white immigrants. Of course there are additional barriers for non white immigrants, but I had a friend whose mom is Italian and her cultural mannerisms are still very different (and sometimes embarrassing) to her American child.
We have so many commonalities with which to make connections.
I had to chuckle at your piece because my mom has a story of when she first moved to this country (from a mostly white, largely English-speaking one) in the 1960s, went to a store with my sister, and asked where they kept the rubbers.
She meant boots and still laughs about it half a century later.
not shameless glad i found it
Bob, youтАЩre a mensch
My general understanding is no first-generation immigrant really truly assimilates (unless they migrate before their teen years) while by the second generation people predominantly identify with the country of their birth, and by the third they are fully assimilated. Certainly it's working this way for modern immigrants to the U.S. just as well as it did with earlier groups.
The issue with expats from the U.S. and other wealthy countries is with few exceptions they are childless or their children have long since grown. They are not planning on helping to make a new generation in the country they move to - they generally will not unless they are relatively young and happen to marry a local.
There are always obviously exceptions to this, but my impression has always been expats tend to look for something like English-language private schools if they happen to have young kids, which effectively stops the process of second-generation assimilation, since public schooling is the primary method in which immigrants assimilate.
I began elementary school with a thick Irish accent. One year of half-day kindergarten and it was gone.