UK vs. US editions

[GulPlum]

"joanne0012" <Joanne0012 at a...> wrote:
> --- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., "GulPlum" <plum at c...> wrote:
> > For a nation of immigrants which used to use the term "melting 
pot" 
> > to describe itself, the US is doing very badly at opening its 
> > constituent ethnic groups to each other.
> 
> I don't understand why you say this.  The immigrant experience has 
changed very 
> little in the past 100 years

<snip>

Thank you. That is *exactly* my point. As a nation of immigrants, 
surely it should be expected that after 200 years (how many 
generations does that make), it would have had integration of other 
cultures and values sussed? 

Looking at it from outside, one of the major problems the US has is 
that its (non-WASP) society remains largely ghettoised, and more 
disturbingly, *wilfully* ghettoised, both by the power structures in 
place (how many times does one hear in American elections of 
the "Irish vote", the "Italian vote", etc) and by the people 
themselves.

Hand on heart, how many Americans really mix with people of different 
ethnic backgrounds?

Please don't misunderstand me: I am well aware of and painfully 
understand problems of integration and ghettoisation. My own elderly 
parents are (WWII) Polish immigrants and managed the process of 
integration very badly, for a million and one reasons, most stemming 
from their own lack of formal education and personal circumstances. 
However, even they appreciate the need to have learned the local 
language (even if not particularly well) and to accept certain mores 
which they perhaps don't fully understand in order to make their 
lives a success and to bring up their kids. My sisters all married 
English (or, in one case, Welsh) men, but bring up their own kids as 
British but with an appreciation of their mothers' heritage. 

I have a deep personal understanding of what it means to have split 
national loyalties (for good reasons I won't waste time explaining, I 
am the most "Polish" of my siblings), and have no problem with 
feeling equally 100% British and 100% Polish (other than whenever 
England plays Poland in soccer). :-) However, in my day-to-day life, 
I live in this country, and this is where my priorities lie.