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Comment by rospaya | Hacker News Reader

> For those comparing Switzerland to USA, you’re comparing a highly homogeneous culture and highly optimized country to a land full of immigrants gathering in excess of 300 million.

Percentage wise, the Swiss have more immigrants, more foreigners and more people with immigrant backgrounds. Not to mention the whole "four official languages" thing.

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If you exclude Western Europeans from your "immigrants" statement, which is what the parent comment was clearly implying, it's not even close to true.

And while we're at it we can count non-Caucasian Americans as immigrants /s

It doesn't seem clear at all that having many different kinds of Western Europeans makes for a "highly homogeneous" culture compared to neighboring countries that generally have only one kind of Western European.

The culture between Italy and France is much closer than Italy and Algeria. For as much difference there is between the countries in Western Europe, there are far more similarities amongst them compared to other continents and larger regions. Counting Italians as "immigrants" is at the very least slightly misleading.

It is not misleading at all, you have to learn a new language, learn to deal with a different government and laws, we are talking several years of effort until you get accustomed.

The differences between accepted social behaviour in Britain, Spain and Poland are significant too.

Sure, if you came from Saudi, you'll feel more out of place. But it's not trivial.

I think only Americans can really swallow the canard that “Western European culture” is some uniform thing. If you’ve spent any time around people from the various parts of Europe, you’ll know that they have all kinds of opinion about their neighboring countries, some gentle, some cruel. But all see themselves as quite distinct. Certainly the Swiss do!

It is more misleading to count somebody as different who is second or third generation American and who has fully adapted American culture values and norms but count that person as more different to the host country due to different skin color or remote country of origin than a Spanish person whom just settled in Switzerland.

The slightly racist assumption in America is that if I as a white Norwegian settle in America I contribute less to diversity than a black American who has lived his whole life in America.

In America diversity is all about what you see on the outside.

To be fair, this kind of diversity is important because in the US it still matters (very much!) what you look like on the outside, regardless of how long your ancestors have lived here. It'd be great to be in a post-racial society but we're very far from that.

If you think Western Europe has some glowing history of harmonious relations, I’ve got news for you. Heck, ask German-speaking Swiss people how they feel about French-speaking Swiss (and vice versa) and you’ll get a quick picture of how things aren’t so rosy.

Would love to read more on the topic of German/French-speaking Swiss, would you mind sharing some reads you would recommend?

Most of my knowledge of the subject comes from Swiss friends, so unfortunately can’t recommend any books or articles.

Start here and then google rostigraben: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%B6stigraben

Even better: ask German-speaking Swiss people how they feel about Germans.

That is precisely what is wrong with the assumption. Diversity is not just skin color as Americans think. I have people of color as neighbors who I share more cultural traits with that neighbors who are white (I am white) My wife is of Asian decent but I have more in common with her than with many other white Western Europeans.

Diversity is also language, culture, language, identity etc.

... provided they have money.

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