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I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American and failed

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Re: I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American and failed

#481

Post by kalleboo »

mc32 wrote: post #226
sliverstorm wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Culture is not totally benign. The export of America's culture has had a huge impact on the world, for better or worse. I think people who want to preserve their own culture have reasons aside from simple nostalgia.

Up and till approx the 40s we imported our culture from Europe -as did much of the rest of the economies of the world. American culture exports didn't become popular till the US became an economic power to contend with. In Asia, however, the cultural exporters, at the moment, are Japan and Korea, not so much China, despite its economic size. Fortunately and unfortunately, Asia is more pragmatic about cultural imports…

> There isn't the OMG our indigenous culture is being subverted and devoured

South Korea has laws literally banning Japanese TV and music. One South Korean song was banned from broadcast because it had one Japanese word in it.

Re: I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American and failed

#482

Post by JesperRavn »

murbard2 wrote: post #12

I personally consider that opening borders is a moral imperative, but I understand why it is controversial. I understand that the arguments against "letting everyone in" have some merit, though I ultimately disagree with them. What is a real head scratcher to me is the US policy on highly-skilled immigrants. There are certainly some political constituencies in favor of those, but I can't think of anyone against, at l…

The problem with your question is that you assume that all policy is driven by lobbying by big business. Political ideology and voter sentiment are also drivers of policy.

Other explanations are inertia (the system started out restrictive, and has been gradually loosened), or appeal to voters regarding either jobs or general dislike of immigration.

Re: I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American and failed

#483

Post by JesperRavn »

kingmanaz wrote: post #250
shas3 wrote: post #68

The US legal immigration system is perfectly described by the adjective, Kafkaesque. In terms of the arbitrariness of bureaucracy, it has more in common with what I saw in the socialist days of India and what one reads in books by Solzhenitsyn and Kafka. The iniquities have been discussed repeatedly in popular press, with almost no changes wrought in the process. Many years ago (yes, 2011 was 4 years ago) Newsweek ra…

A nation exists to serve the will of /its people/. With rampant illegal and legal immigration, a nation cannot know who /its people/ are. A nation serving no one people is a nation serving no one, it instead arbitrates in favor of whichever group screams the loudest. Diversity leads to division. Division leads to divestment. Divestment leads to dissolution and war. America is more than a place to make money, it is mo…

Your viewpoint would be quite acceptable in liberal US politics if you would just replace "America" with "Israel" and "North-Western European" with "Jewish".

Re: I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American and failed

#484

Post by mavdev32 »

rrss1122 wrote: post #70

I'll supply an anecdote of my own. My parents both immigrated to the US, both obtained permanent residency, and are both on the path to citizenship. This guy has been trying for 15 years. It doesn't explain in the article why he doesn't at least have his residency yet.

did you actually read the article?

Re: I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American and failed

#485

Post by deerpig »

diego_moita wrote: post #272

Disclaimer: I am a Canadian permanent resident. > I like it here. This is the real problem, you have a severe case of non-reciprocal love. In that case the answer is obvious: move over, find another love, come to Canada or go to Northern Europe. U.S. immigration is an American problem,since they are the ones loosing talent and entrepreneurial people. It is not an immigrant's problem, since they don't have the powers…

> non-reciprocal love

Very true... same thing happened to me in Thailand -- 16 years there and finally got tired of the government's xenophobia and relentless efforts to push foreigners out of the country.

I am an American citizen, and the more I think of it, that is one reason I left America too....

Best to embrace a personal identity as an expat. It's a tribe or sorts, but it's more a state of mind. You lived in America as an immigrant. Live there as an expat, the attitude will free you, safe in the knowledge that if things really get bad, you can always find another place that /will/ love you... until they don't :)

Re: I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American and failed

#486

Post by mavdev32 »

overgard wrote: post #476

Wow, as an american I find this situation intolerably embarrassing. People like this built this country, and the fact that some useless bureaucratic entity designed by xenophobes and racists is kicking people out is incredibly depressing. I'd rather deport the inventors of these idiotic rules, we'd all be better off for that.

nothing is going to change, not anytime soon. At a minimum, this generation of immigrants is doomed.

Re: I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American and failed

#488

Post by prawn »

danielweber wrote: post #179
Nadya wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It is not unreasonable for people to want to preserve culture. It has sentimental and historical value, but I don't think it's particularly important. We can argue cultural identity, but that's only important so long as there are various cultures. In a monoculture world, the idea of cultural identity would be a lost concept. Cultural anthropology, which while highly interesting and informative of human relations, is…

The reason people want to move to the US is the US's culture. The people share a wide agreement for rule of law, want to resolve issues through the political process, can usually be shamed into supporting freedom of speech, and don't want to kill their neighbors for having the wrong religion. It's not something magical about the soil that makes people want to move to the US. It's the culture. The more people that can…

It's absolutely not the culture and legal/political process. And occasionally Americans do seem to kill their neighbours for having the wrong religion or skin colour.

It's almost entirely money/opportunity. That drives everything.

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