Comment by yummyfajitas | Hacker News Reader

Comment by yummyfajitas | Hacker News Reader

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I don't know how you intend to test for cultural fit, but I am open to listening to ideas there.

My general feeling is that immigrants should be tolerant, hard working and individualist. The second generation should be integrated into mainstream America, rather than clustered into a ghetto.

These are, IMO, the shared values of the US. A skill/work based system should weed out the lazy. There are basically 2 behaviors I'd like to prevent:

1.) Racism. If someone has a problem with their daughter marrying a black guy, they should stay home. We have enough racists, we don't need to import more.

I'd measure this by intermarriage and cohabitation rates. I.e., if X Americans and X immigrants don't marry people of non-X descent very often, that suggests X's are racist. I'd give people from country X a big penalty on the point system.

2.) Strong family/social obligations. Basically, forcing people (particularly one's children) via social pressure to conform to your own preferences. No clue how to measure this.

My general feeling is that immigrants should be tolerant, hard working and individualist. The second generation should be integrated into mainstream America, rather than clustered into a ghetto.

I am with you 100% here. The good news, if you want to ask an immigrant, is that the U.S. is partly immunized against ghettos. Ghettos are caused by (and often require) two vicious circle type factors: a) An insular culture amongst the immigrants and b) An exclusive (exclusionary?) culture amongst citizens.

The great thing about the U.S. is that from the first day you land here, most people will treat you as an American. In my experience, this is one of the most powerful things America has working for itself. If someone feels like a part of America, the chances that they will harbor ill will for it are negligible and chances that they will want to insulate themselves from it are also low.

I think it is hard to design a racism test, so with the caveat that I don't have a better solution, I have the following problem with your racism test:

There is a high correlation between race and some religions. For example, IMO, the proportion of Muslims who are white is very low, while the proportion of Muslims who are brown is very high. So, in measuring the bias of say people from Pakistan against marrying whites, you might actually be measuring the bias of Muslims against marrying non-Muslims.

Actually, I don't think that is bad. My (potential) children will (and should) be free to marry whoever they choose Muslims, Christians, Zoroastrians, whoever. (Hopefully they wont marry a Scientologist!) Legally, though, discriminating against a religious group for not marrying outside seems like it may fall afoul of some religious freedom rights. Having said that, IANAL.

Regarding (2), it seems that you are using strong family / social obligations as a proxy for testing how much more 'liberal' or open minded compared to the 1st generation, the 2nd generation will be. I think this is such a warped and complex thing though, that it is really impossible to test.

Coming from a background with strong family and social obligations, and luckily from a family with negligible social pressure, I can also tell you it has many positives.

I also think it would be interesting to see how middle and southern United States measure on (2) vs most of the world. I suspect you won't see as much of a difference here as you expect.

Good discussion!

I'm not sure we are immunized against ghettos. Ghettoization has led to violence/ethnic cleansing out on the west coast (Mexicans ethnically cleansing Blacks). In my neck of the woods, there is an Arab ghetto in South Paterson and an Indian ghetto in Edison.

Regarding 2, it's not so much about liberalness/open mindedness as it is about the fact that in the US, you choose your own destiny. Regarding the south, as far as I know they don't tend to try to prevent their daughters from getting educated/working in order to keep them under thumb (for example). I suspect (1) is more an issue for them than (2).

But then again (assuming you aren't from the US), do you really want racist American southerners coming to your country?

Are these ghettos as in "People of the same culture, living together like they did in their native land" or also as in "People of other cultures fear for their safety and are made to feel unwelcome here"? I am concerned about people sticking only to their kind (insularity), but not so concerned about people preferring to stick with the familiar, which is human nature. It's a spectrum, but they are on different ends of it.

I am personally familiar with folks from Edison, and at least in my experience, they are not insular although it could be selection bias. Standard reasons for a newly minted NYU or Columbia grad (or a fresh H1B) from India to live in Edison is easy access to Indian food, cheap rent and staying near friends. It is not staying away from "corrupt Americans". Indeed, most of them would prefer to live in Manhattan if they could afford it, and when they can many do.

I live in Atlanta, where people are very family oriented but I can count on one hand the number of times I have faced racism in the 7 years I have lived here. I suspect the number would be similar or more in any other country. I'd be ok with these people coming to my country.

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