Pork or nothing: how school dinners are dividing France

[hifiguy]

168. Outstanding post, Aerows.

An immigrant from, I dunno, say Thailand, to the US, Canada or Western Europe doesn't expect to be able to translate the entirety of their home nation's culture to their new residence. Many Muslims want to do just that, including 'cultural norms' that are ery far indeed from secular or egalitarian. And it is absurd to say that immigrants who are in a new country only because of the generosity of the host country, have any right to think they should be able to immigrate without assimilating the basic cultural norms of their host country much less replace the host country's cultural norms with their own.

I've lived in Minneapolis all my life. The Twin Cities had a very large wave of Vietnamese/Cambodian immigrants in the 1970s and early 1980s. They assimilated without a hiccup, though Grandpa and Grandpa may still speak the language of the old country and traditional holidays are still celebrated (the Norwegians and Swedes who have been here for 125 years do exactly the same thing), those who were born here and embraced American culture - all of them for every practical purpose - are as American as Beaver Cleaver or Theo Huxtable. I do not see that happening with the Somali immigrants, who seem very much to recreate their culture here in toto, right down to hijabs and women sitting at separate tables in this very Starbucks, with as little assimilation as possible.

When in Rome do as the Romans do is ancient and excellent advice.