UK vs. US editions

[joanne0012]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., "GulPlum" <plum at c...> wrote:
> "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? 

Are you saying that there's some reasonable way to get granny to learn a new 
language and change her cooking habits?  I doubt it!  My point was that there's 
nothing that can be done to accelerate this process, human nature being what it 
is,  but it does happen.  The experiences of first, second and third-generation 
Americans have proceeded in similar patterns for those 200 years and frankly I 
can't imagine it any other way. I'm curious how you visualize some other process 
would actually happen.

> 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.

I can't recall hearing those terms at all for decades, and I think I'd remember, 
since two of my grandparents were born in Italy and another was Irish.  Even 
here in Boston, the stragglers who are holding on to the old ways (especially the 
Irish enclave in Southie; the new Irish immigrants swear those folks are living in a 
time capsule) are gradually, finally, acculturating.  These things take time.