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Comment by jcrei | Hacker News Reader

Ok, I don't want to go down the road of "this is backwards and shouldn't be happening in Denmark" and I'm already tired of comments saying "it's about time, wish they did that in my country"...

So I'm asking the smart people of HN. What could be good solutions for the problem they are trying to fix?

Children of families that come from other countries don't speak the language when they enrol in 1st grade.

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Not sure why you think the problem lies with immigrants. Particularly in Denmark where, more often than not, you find the children of recent immigrants to be very strongly integrated.

Consider the possibility that the anti-immigrant hysteria has nothing to do with immigrants. Just like the Jews in 1940s Germany what you have are countries scapegoating a well-defined minority.

What's really going on? Likely it's a potent combination of wage stagnation, rising inequality, declining social welfare, and falling birth rates [1]. Anti-immigrant bias is just a plank here. Certainly if the Danish economy was growing like it was in the 60s you would not see so much "reasonable concern" about immigrants. (No, instead, then the government was importing immigrants as fast as possible.)

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/05/a-surpris...

Create a culture of migration. The United States and Canada are examples of countries where integration is wonderfully successful [1][2][3]. New citizens to the United States and Canada are welcomed in huge stadiums adorned with flags, families celebrate by making signs, and most everyone would agree that a new citizen is just as much a member of the country as any native born person. Attitudes among native born persons really make a difference, where even the United States' fairly conservative Republican party touts its immigrant supporters at their conventions.

Leaders in Europe have recognized the need for this attitude in the past, but they've acknowledged that it hasn't quite worked out [4][5]. Making the transition from a country with very long family lineages just requires a lot more convincing of the local population.

1: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/11/assimil... 2: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/canada-near-to... 3: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/09/business/international/fo... 4: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-12371994 5: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/oct/17/angela-merkel-...

You cannot create a culture in other countries.

USA partly managed this internally but it started from migrants not received them. Even then there are major ghettos and cultural differences there.

It is not at all about local populations being welcoming or not but about migrants not wanting or being able to assimilate. Clustering together exacerbates the problem.

> most everyone would agree that a new citizen is just as much a member of the country as any native born person

This is already the case in Europe though; if anything, the racism/discrimination situation seems better than the US, since you don't have to fear for your life if you're black and see a cop.

I'm not sure there is a "nice" solution when some people immigrate for the sole reason of freeloading on the welfare system. I've noticed that in France where some people do not even wish to integrate (the tools are there if you want it), and prefer to stay within their community, relying either on welfare, or will often transition to living off crime (drugs, etc).

>> have to fear for your life if you're black and see a cop.

I am not sure black people in France are not afraid of police. If you exclude ugly episodes like this one:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/french-polic...

Being black nevertheless means that police stops you very often, speaks at you with some rudness ("tutoiement") and police in general is white and close to far-right mindsets:

https://translate.google.fr/translate?sl=fr&tl=en&js=y&prev=...

With all due respect blacks are afraid even in their own native land of africa, and similarly muslim in many muslim countries. That along with economical betterment is one of the key reasons why ppl immigrate in first place.

You can't compare to USA migration (esp. what happened in the past). Because there was no social security for the immigrants. So you were quite free to enter the country and work, but you had to take care of yourself.

Contrast to eg. Denmark where immigrants can enter the country and do absolutely nothing, and get a full upkeep with free housing, schools and health care.

And here the problem is that some of these people like it that way and don't even try to get a work and teach their children how to get work (eg. by learning the local language and other social norms, like that women are considered equal).

A good measure would be to break up Ghettos. Stop putting all low-income people in one part of the city and then cry when it leads to problems. Mix your districts. Worked wonders here.

Second, there is no problem with mandatory pre-school. For everyone. If you just make it for one specific group that is discrimination instead of trying to solve a problem. Pre-school is good for everyone, there should be no reason to not send everyone there.

This is a mentality based on economics purely. That doesn't work well in practice. Economics might even lead as motivation for one to migrate (as it often does), but culture/religion play a pivotal part in creating difficulties in further assimilation. What do you get then? Exactly what you have in Europe: ethnic division and people living in a country with distaste for it, but benefiting economically from it.

> What do you get then? Exactly what you have in Europe: ethnic division and people living in a country with distaste for it, but benefiting economically from it.

That's such a tired cliche. It is put out all the time, but there's no proof, just more anecdotes and whatever.

This is pure nonsense.

A better question is what could possibly lead you to believe that immigrants "have a distaste" for their new home countries? You certainly didn't actually talk to any immigrants.

Perhaps this is the real problem: people who spin these bigoted fantasies around immigrants?

Certainly any objective review of the facts would not explain the sheer panic and accusations of the anti-immigrant crowd [1]. So how and why do people come to believe such nonsense?

[1] https://www.economist.com/europe/2018/06/30/confusion-over-i...

"Pure nonsense" based on my daily experience living in the Amsterdam region for the past 10 years. And by the way, I include myself and many other white richy type immigrants living in the country in the issue of not identifying with the culture. You cannot fix that by physically mixing everyone in (I already live around mostly native Dutch).

Most people are here because the economic environment is good. Immigrants like us are good for the capitalistic system and what it creates as a consequence, but not always good for the country and its culture.

Also, here are some facts for what you call "pure nonsense" https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2018/06/dutch-muslims-are-beco...

I had read this article before finding this thread, didn't go out looking for something that matched my vision.

As stated in the article:

‘Young Muslims, who are the least likely to describe themselves as strict Muslims, are most negative about the Netherlands and almost half do not feel at home.’

But you may go ahead and continue do downvote me to oblivion.

> And by the way, I include myself and many other white richy type immigrants living in the country in the issue of not identifying with the culture. You cannot fix that by physically mixing everyone in (I already live around mostly native Dutch).

Describe that "Dutch culture" please. I take issue when people start talking about culture of a country as if the whole country shares one.

Most countries in Europe have their own distinct national culture since our borders were mostly made to match cultural and language differences. Americans might not appreciate what it means to have a shared national culture with unique traditions and strongly shared values fostered over millennia but to us it matters a lot.

>>What could be good solutions for the problem they are trying to fix?

1. Stop creating refugees, Stop waging wars and stop invading countries.

2. If the above point is no longer true. Understand that you are a democratic country and there by ordinary citizens are responsible for the actions of the government. If you created a problem you have to now deal with it.

3. You can give them education, have programs for assimilation and treat them well. But most importantly both cultures will have to eventually learn to be tolerant to each others cultures and learn to assimilate with each other.

The other things are your regular humanity at play here. You have to treat people as people. And that's not very hard to do.

Mandatory education. Focus on mandatory. It is already in place and could be extended. You can run additional required courses, paid in taxes.

This is almost exactly this rule except with more restrictions.

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