Re: Fings we was lernt rong in skool

Hatunen wrote:

On Sat, 19 Jan 2008 08:41:58 +0900, Robert Bannister
<robban1@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


Robin Bignall wrote:



disliked the other two just about equally. One other thing was
that many Asian women who had been born abroad and had lived here
for a while (in some cases for 30 years) spoke no English, lived
in totally Asian streets, shopped only in Asian shops, and,
except on immigration, had never seen a white person.

To a certain extent, this happens with all migrant groups. They tend to live in the same areas because that's where the cheap housing is. The men go off to work and learn English; the women stay at home and mind babies, so they never meet anyone apart from other mothers of their own kind.

The area where I live was taken over by Italians, Greeks and Macedonians in the 50s, so those that are still here are all in their 70s at least. All the men speak more or less fluent English, but many of the women know only a few words. The new waves of immigrants from SE Asia and Africa can't afford my area, but obviously, they are following the same course elsewhere.


As always. New York city has had its German Town, Chinatown,
Spanish Harlem, and a centuty or so ago the heavily Italian and
Jewish communities of the lower East Side.

I was born during the Great Depression to a part of my small home
city in Ohio that was predominately Finnish. We had Finnish
grocery stores and the local supermarket, while not
Finnish-owned, was pretty much a mostly Finnish market. And we
had our own Finnish Lutheran church (part of the Suomi Synod) and
a Finn Hall, a sort of rec center for Finns. The old Finn ladies
of my grandmother's generation remained largely ignorant of
English since they rarely needed it.


I suppose I should have added that the men tend to end up in the same jobs too. Round here, most small builders are Italian or Slav, while the Greeks tend to run/own cafés and shops. Many of the Italians and Macedonians became very rich by growing tomatoes and then moved into property or hotels. At one time, the Water Board (or whatever it's called) had all Macedonians (speaking their own language) at the labouring level with a majority of Italians in the next level up - English speakers barely got a look-in.

In this way, ethnic cultures were preserved and many palatial ethnic clubs arose. Today, these clubs are frequented by very old men and the ethnic churches by very old women, except of course for weddings and funerals. The children, or rather the grandchildren often can't (or won't) speak the language of the original immigrants, and so the culture slowly dies out, but at the same time, newcomers from other parts of the world begin the cycle again.

--
Rob Bannister
.

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