Quite, but it's difficult in a piece like that to keep on pointing out you're aware of that, and of wanting to avoid generalising about all Americans, and of wanting to talk about progressive Americans and particularly those who comment on blogs and particularly here... I used the old "Amerika" a couple of times to signify the state, the military-industrial complex, rather than the notional nation America or the American people.
On flags and national pride -- I'm glad we don't do this in Europe. I think it's pro-gress. What I'd like is to see us have more enthusiasm and will to try to do things.
Western Europeans have this occasionally annoying tendency to forget about the rest of the continent...
And I am saying the American way of relating to the nation is specific and not to be found in Europe
Take France, add the identity as an immigrant nation and subtract the French experience of horrible victory (WWI) and defeat (WWII).
First point: you're right and I was thinking it as I wrote to DoDo.
Second point: yes, but I'm talking above about the result of these processes, meaning the way Europeans relate to the nation today.
That France has a certain historical similarity with the US in that both are nations with pretensions to universality is true, but my point in the above piece concerns how the concept of the nation is experienced by the majority of the people, how the nation is perceived. And there I think there are decisive differences.
Can you differentiate that comment with view to political allegiances? *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Regarding your first point, I don't see your consideration of non-Western Europe reflected ("small minority"), unless you only considered 2004 new EU members. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Who knows. I'd imagine that those who don't vote are less political than the others - whether vaguely social-liberal young people in the thriving cities or vaguely fundy in the impoverished countryside. Though there's also increasingly the question of the effect of mass migration to Western Europe on voting patterns. That probably hurts the PO most of all - much younger than average, and somewhat more educated, and young university educated people are the PO's strongest demographic.
add the identity as an immigrant nation
I agree with the rest, but I disagree with this bit. France is just as much an immigration nation as the USA, and sees itself as one. The integration takes a totally different form (assimilation, "nos ancêtres les gaulois", etc), but that's another point. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
France is just as much an immigration nation as the USA
I think this is one of those terms that means different things to different people. In the American context, "immigrant nation" doesn't mean "a nation with a lot of immigrants," it means "a nation where (almost) everyone is descended from immigrants." In other words, part of that American national myth that redstar was talking about, i.e. "we're all immigrants." I doubt that France thinks of itself as a nation of immigrants in the same way.
I doubt that France thinks of itself as a nation of immigrants in the same way.
Because all immigrants become French, not hyphenated French. Their status as immigrants is irrelevant.
But we are a nation where (almost) everyone is descended from immigrants. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
your confusion may be that Americans that are a couple of generations away from the "old country" are usually curious and interested in where there ancestors come from. But you are totally off base in thinking you understand America on this point. this is a great example of either not understanding, or just trashing America.
I wonder too if those young people rioting last year just consider themselves French?
As to this:
If you read ET at that time or later, you'd know that the answer to that is an unambiguous and resounding YES. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
But this is absolutely not the reaction that my friends would have. In fact, it is quite common among my group of acquaintances for people to go back to their home country. I have an Indian friend who has gone back. I have another Indian friend that is retired, and spends about 40%, he and his wife, of his time in India. They have family there,,,it just is not at all surprising, and literally no one is sad for them, or thinks they've fallen off the cliff. The same with Europe. I have an English friend who thinks "America is the place to earn a living, because you're not caught up ina class system, and the economic system allows hard work to move you to the top", but, he says, "Europe is the place to retire,,,Europeans know how to live the better life, with the culture, etc." We'll see on him--his kids are still fairly young, and they seem pretty American to me,,,,I'm not sure if he and his wife will want to be away from them, and the grandkids--down the road.
I would like to someday have a place in London, and spend a significant amount of time there. It's my favorite city in the world--too bad about the prices. -:}
I could continue with these examples, because I have many--and vice versa as well,,,Americans living in Europe and staying,,,others coming back.
It is just not accurate to generalise the reactions you describe to Americans.
</snark>
My black friends think of themselves as American. My Norweigan, Italian, Irish,etc friends think of themselves as American. My Indian friends think of themselves as American.
So explain why you think this please.
Ten generations, sure - there we're talking about those who are descended from before the big 1880-1920 wave of immigration. But from then on it gets different. Perhaps not out west where the Italians and Irish and Poles no longer have any ties to the old village-like urban enclaves, but in the Northeast and the metropolitan areas of the industrial Midwest things are different. Here you get fourth generation Italian kids going wild over Italy's soccer team, waving their flags as they run through the streets. Kids who don't follow soccer, have never been to Italy, and don't speak any Italian - but they sure as hell are Italian, and Italy won.
This town is a mosaic of tribes and sub-tribes for whom their ethnic identity is an essential part of both their intense local identity and their national (American) one. Even when they move out into the suburbs they retain their ethnic identities, thus giving us phenomena like Congressman Peter King (R/Sinn Fein-NY) whose Irish Republican allegiance takes precedence over his US Republican one.
The new immigrants here have been replicating the same pattern - settling in concentrated groups, filling their neighbourhoods with markers of the old country - all as part of the process of assimilation. My impression is that this is also true of Latino and Asian immigrants in California.
Kohn suffers from a guilty conscience, because he had a fallout with Grün and feels it was his own fault. So he goes to the rabbi, tells him the story and asks for advice. "You have to say sorry!" "Do I really have to say sorry?" "Definitely." "Can I also do it on the telephone?" "Yes." Hearing this, Kohn goes home and dials Grün's number. The other end of the line answers: "Hallo?" "Hallo... is that Mr. Smith?" "No, I1m Mr. Grün." "Then sorry." *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
I guess my experience in Chicago and California is that these enclaves break down over a generation or two. The German area in Chicago I believe is now Latino, with people moving out to the suburbs, or just marrying and moving. In California I live in an area that is 40% Asian (lots of countries when I say Asian) and 60% everything else. However the various China town areas do seem to maintain their Asian roots--but some of that seems business related. Like in that area in London just south of Soho,,,very Chinese/Asian it would seem, and everyone knows where to go to get various varieties of Chinese food.
Actually that is the point.
It is a country of immigration, where immigrants are expected to become French. How is that different from the USA, a country of immigrants where immigrants are expected to become Americans?
Are you saying that the way the French define being French somehow negates the fact that it is a country of immigrants? In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
France is a country of French people, regardless of your origins which, to boot, it is illegal to keep track of. Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides
This discussion is about national identity - i.e. self identification. So it has to do with self perception, and the way Americans relate to the immigrant experience is very, very different than the way the French do. To take one example, the political calendar of NYC, and every other old line city, is littered with celebrations of its constituent groups - St. Patrick's Day, Columbus Day, Puerto Rican Day, gay pride day, MLK day, etc - waving their flags as they march down Fifth Ave, with every local politician jockeying for a place at the front of the parade. Affirmative action and de facto ethnic quotas have a long history here predating the Civil Rights movement and were used as a way of integrating the various groups.
I fully agree with what you say on national identity. The one thing I don't like is when Europe in general, and France in particular, is described as a place not welcoming to immigrants, which is the logical next step (which YOU did not make) of the point you state about integration. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
Well I might make it, though it would be even France, not particularly France, - I think it's pretty clear that there is considerable anti-immigrant feeling in France and that there is a racial component to it - but that's obviously true in the US as well. In fact just now it's been stronger in the US, but that goes in waves in both countries so the reverse has been true as well.
I also think that Germany is substantially more unwelcoming than either France or the US - think of the Christian Democrats campaign against changing the law to grant children of long term permanent residents citizenship.
Where I have problems with France has to do with my liking of the hyphenated model, and my instinctive distaste as an American liberal for what is effectively a model very similar to the one promoted by the pro-immigration faction of the US right, albeit embedded in a very different historical context. I think that some parts of the US liberal model - namely affirmative action or actually allowing the governent and researchers to collect data based on categories of ethnicity and race - would be helpful in France, and feel that there is a bit of a kneejerk little c conservative tendency to reject such changes out of hand. Other parts, like ethnic and race based political mobilization, which has been one of the most powerful integrative forces in the US, probably aren't transplantable to France's political system and culture.
And while Americans are pretty well homogenized, don't think that people here are unaware of their immigrant background. Everyone is aware of their heritage, and while they might not know any details about what it means to be Russian, or German, or Irish, and while it might not matter on a day-to-day basis whether somebody is from one background or another, people are very much aware of it and they do take it into consideration at times of marriage, for example. "Is he Irish?" or "Is she Russian?" or "What church will they go to?" are standard considerations.
I simply do not understand how you can group France and America (both U.S. and Canada) together on this point. It is one of the (few) significant differences between our backgrounds.
Everybody knows their background, but only minorities seem aware on a day-to-day basis, and viceversa, for obvious reasons. Our knowledge has surpassed our wisdom. -Charu Saxena.
France is mostly populated with people descended from families who have lived there since pre-history, is that not correct?
That is not correct. It's been an immigration country forever. Romans, Normans, all the Celts, The English later on, and, in more recent times, Russians, Poles, Germans, Italians, Iberians, Arabs, Africans, Vietnamese, etc...
Fun fact: France has the highest number of different surnames of all countries in the planet. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
No. It is a small minority in some regions, it is even a majority in other regions (including Western ones, I'd put for example Spanish Basque lands in there). *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
