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Posted by: svensun 1 year, 5 months ago

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svensun1 year, 5 months ago

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Sorry, Atheist, but you are WAY OFF!
As the great-grandchild of IMMIGRANTS, I can tell you that EVERY ONE OF my great grandparents LEARNED ENGLISH, and half of them were ILLITERATE- they never knew how to read or write, but they LEARNED HOW TO SPEAK ENGLISH!
I just went to the funeral of a neighbor who immigrated here from Naples in the 1930's with his three brothers, sister, and parents, and EVERY ONE OF THEM LEARNED TO SPEAK ENGLISH! Sure, one of his brothers was in the first grade for six years, but THEY LEARNED ENGLISH.
As someone who traces his roots to Milwaukee, as German a town as you can find, you better believe people learned to speak English, if they wanted to work.
Don't give me this malarkey about past waves of immigrants not learning English.
You have provided ZERO evidence for that.

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    svensun1 year, 5 months ago
    
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    Atheism, how many German immigrants to the US came here and set up exclusively German-speaking communities?
    As I've said, my family is from Milwaukee, a German-speaking American city if there ever was one. You can call Milwaukee an bit of anecdotal evidence, but I think the example it provides is FAR MORE ILLUSTRATIVE of the German-American experience than the unnamede community that your girlfriend's ancestors set up.
    Were there German-speaking communities started across America? SURE! We can probably all find one in our part of the country; Anaheim, CA comes to mind, here in Southern California.
    But to claim that such communities make up the rule, rather than the exception, to the German-American experience is not credible.
    To claim that my family's anecdotes don't disprove the anecdote of your girlfriend's family does not make a convincing argument, either. I'd say FOUR anecdotes beats ONE anecdote, hands down!
    
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    svensun1 year, 5 months ago
    
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    If you want DATA, as opposed to anecdotes, I would supply this study printed by the Manhattan Institute:
    http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cr_53.htm
    which found:
    " * Newly arrived immigrants of the early 21st century have assimilation index values lower than the newly arrived immigrants of the early 20th century. Growth in the immigrant population usually lowers the assimilation index because newly arrived immigrants drag down the average for the group as a whole. This phenomenon can be seen between 1900 and 1920 and again in the 1980s. The stability of the assimilation index since 1990 is therefore remarkable in light of the rapid growth of the immigrant population, which doubled between 1990 and 2006."
    
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      svensun1 year, 5 months ago
      
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      Manhattan Institute Study, cont:
      "* Immigrants of the past quarter-century have assimilated more rapidly than their counterparts of a century ago, even though they are more distinct from the native population upon arrival. The increase in the rate of assimilation among recently arrived immigrants explains why the overall index has remained stable, even though the immigrant population has grown rapidly.
      * Yet the current level of assimilation remains lower than it was at any point during the early 20th century wave of immigration."
      
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