under construction 7-11-00 I will make a message board........ EVER STOP TO THINK THAT THERE IS ONLY A 20% DIFFERENCE BETWEEN INTEGRATION AND SEGREGATION? (And why should we have to choose between two extremist positions like that?). ..... INTEGRATION says that all the people of all kinds should be able to get along and are interchangable......... SEGREGATION says that 80% of the people should be able to get along and are interchangeable (All the white skinned ones) while excluding the other 20%.
BUT AMERICA HAD NEITHER FROM THE 1500s UNTIL THE 1900s. America did best when it was divided into ETHNIC NEIGHBORHOODS. It wasn't just fabled BROOKLYN that was divided into ethnic neighborhoods for each imaginable ethnic group. THE WHOLE COUNTRY WAS THAT WAY. The most well-known examples were parts of Minnesota which were Scandinavian and the Pennsylvania Dutch of South Central Pennsylvania. But the whole country was the same way. If you went ANYWHERE in the United States you would notice that 90% or more of the people in that area had the same ETHNIC heritage. ...... This helped keep America humming. Each ethnic group had its own SET OF STANDARDS which had been developed over 1,000 years in the "old country". Each set worked great for its own people BUT they were NOT compatible with each other. In my day you could visit, shop, work in someone elses Ethnic Neighborhood BUT you could NOT LIVE THERE or such a thing would eventually destroy the neighborhood and the result would be WHAT WE HAVE TODAY!!!! A neighborhood is like an area of clones so its easy for things to run smoothly..... When everyone on both sides of the street is of the same ethnic group the standards in all the houses are pretty much the same. When the houses on both sides of the street are the same it means that the street between them has the same standards and becomes an extension of everyone's living room. Then the whole neighborhood becomes an extension of ones home. ..... BUT if you have different standards in different homes you wind up with the streets becoming a no-mans land. As where there are two or more standards one winds up with NO standards.
AIR LOCKS: ethnic neighborhoods served as airlocks for assimilation. Let's say you are a Russian coming to America. Are you going to go into some random area where you will be considered a foreigner and your ways will grate on the locals? That would be unpleasant for both them and you. No, you will look for the neighborhood where there are a lot of other fomer Russians. You would move in there and not bother Americans who were born here or who had come over long before you. In your Russian neighborhood you would be accepted as the people around you either had come over themselves or their ancestors did. But you are not walled in. You will be going out of your neighborhood and picking up the attributes of Americans all the time. The Russian-Americans who came here before you will also be automatically helping you assimilate just by being around you and speaking English. You will also be picking things up from TV and radio and the newspapers. When you get Americanized enough you can then move on into the main part of the country or stay in the neighborhood. Then your kids could get born into America and be 100% Americanized from birth. THIS IS THE WAY IT WAS DONE FROM THE VERY BEGINNING. The Ethnic Neighborhood was the TRANSITION place, the airlock, while someone was turned from a foreigner into an American.
The problem is that ETHNIC NEIGHBORHOODS are now being given a bad name by those who REFUSE to assimilate! Some groups just want to come here to milk this country for what they can and some will give birth to children here and teach them a foreign language before they even pick up English.
But dont forget that the original Ethnic Neighborhood concept served this nation well from the 1500s until sometime in the 20th Century.
When Poland broke away from the USSR thousands of Poles immediately moved to the United States. You probably didnt notice this as they went to Ethnic Neighborhoods. Would you have preferred these foreigners to move next to YOU? Now they will be gradually turned into Americans there before they eventually move out into inner-America. Or they will live out their lives there and their children or grandchildren will eventually leave the Ethnic Neighborhood when fully assimilated. I was a grandson who moved out.
Born-Americans arent comfortable in Ethnic Neighborhoods because they are 100% Americans who see an area which is may be only 50% Americanized. But it should be looked at the other way around. People who are 100% Foreign will come to America, go into an Ethnic Neighborhood, and gradually get transformed into 100% Americans. By definition, as you find people ranging from 100% Foreign to 100% American, the average will be 50% Foreign (and moving towards 0% Foreign). If you stayed in the neighborhood for a while you would see new foreigners coming into the pipeline and going out later as Americans in a steady process like water filtration plant.