Expat/immigrant communities...

...what's the sense of having them?

My father said that it's a good (and natural) way to kickstart foreigner's survival and integration in a new country...

I often notice that what happens is the exact opposite:

Most immigrants who start their new life among people of their old background tend to interact exclusively with people of their own nationalities in the future as well.
They learn how to survive, but only as a group.
They interact with other nationalities (and the host countrymen) mainly for the sake of employment and "getting around". But everything else... makes their lives and mentality look similar to ghettos.

I think that it's nice to go around in a city and find concentrations of people like "China Town", "Little India", or exotic ethnic communities such as "Christian Community for Sri Lankans"... but somehow I think that we are used to them and we appreciate them only in the touristic sense of culture.
That's a nice facet of cultural exchange.

However, when I look at these communities from inside, I somehow think that they are formed because they can't (or don't want, or don't think they are able to?) integrate with the rest of the people host country!
Why else would they need to form a Christian Community for Sri Lankans when there are so many local christian communities to attend?!

This "ghettofication" happens not only in religious contexts... look at sports, music, hobbies, shop networks, everyday activity. I'm not even sure whether this behaviour is natural or something the older generations of immigrants try to organize in order to impose their identity...

And I think that, despite everyone being interested in other cultures, this urban ghettofication contributes to the common problems of racism and xenophobia that might have not arisen prior to the creation of such communities.

What do you think?

And that word- "ghettoification"- did you make it up? Its an awful word! Ghettoisation is more correct, but still a dumb word.

Its a two-way process, integratin. UNti British people and the British media stop making others feel unwlecome, there will be no proper integration, along with all yo say.

People will always want to live within communities they feel more attached to - and culture and social status play their part.

What makes people need cultural integrity so much, and for which practical reasons would self-determined individuals need it in first place?

Yeah, Flandarin. You're right, there are also expat groups which just meet once in a while, but don't really bother about their background.

Unfortunately, I also think that the background awareness (or "cultural integrity", as you call it) is overplayed beyond actual necessity in those big communities such as and similar to those I mentioned above.
It reinforces itself in their own heads and automatically excludes choices of behavior and affiliation by individual evaluation.



You made a statement... what makes them feel more attached to one specific culture or social status?

I can understand affiliations by social status within one country, since there is usually not much choice for a person without money to hang around in rich nightclubs.

What makes people need cultural integrity so much, and for which practical reasons would self-determined individuals need it in first place?

Are you actually suggesting that cultural identity is a meaningless concept and/or that preserving it is undesirable?

Why do you presume immigrants have much choice? There are too many logical reasons to list as to why immigrants tend to settle into certain areas.
Proximity to places of worship,
family connections,
convenience
(such as the irish settling in kilburn = on the holyhead to london line).

Why do they move in families rather than individually?

Well, if you had a wife (husband?) and children and were, say, offered a job in a foreign country, you would obviously be moving with them...

It only becomes a problem when it goes to the extreme, and it has to be said that most of these ghetto-like communities are formed over generations and actually consist of people who were already born in the UK in the first place.

No matter how long I live in Scotland, I'll always be French, even if I don't hang out with French people. To me, it's more an inner thing. I have my language, my education, my customs and habits which will never leave me because I grew up with them. I love my country, I didn't decide I wanted to leave it because I didn't like it, but because I like the UK.

(which is what FrenchGal managed to avoid being drawn into, as far as I understood)

In other words, you love yourself and your personal history, which by chance took place in France... right?
Is this what is so often called "cultural integrity"?

I'm not suggesting anything.

I'm asking, since I can't find an answer to it by myself



And how come are the places of worship all close together?
Why do they move in families rather than individually?
Convenience... ok. Relative though.
In any case: this is what usually happens when they first come to the host country...
but if this carries on, are they really coming to the host country, or to an "enclave" of their own country within the borders of another?

...

That's exactly what I was trying to say

Basically, what you're saying is that if you had spent your first 21 years in Hungary, you wouldn't have the same feelings you have now, right?

To srat, i thinnk the word "expat" is being misused a bit. It isn't the correct term to describe a lot of these people. While 'technically' correct to use it, there are more suitable words to describe these communities you speak of- immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers...

They are in a new country, for whatever reason. They have the right to speak their own anguage when they want to. I accpt of course the need to know the manguage of the host country, but most do of course. They are subject to the same laws and custom of the host country to remember. I just dono't see anyting wrong with keeping their own cultures, while respecting the host ones too.

Oh yeah, there is a distinction between just expatriating out of cultural interest or migrating because of economic or political duress.
If you look closely, though, the attitudes are analogous. In the case of expats it is simply at a smaller scale.