What does integration mean?

Merge into their new societies, adapt the new societies customs and value system.

Can you give me some concrete examples? Like doing X instead of doing Y.

It means in the author's opinion, immigrants don't mix well socially.

For example, some immigrants do not bother to learn the customs and language of their host country. Instead, they may choose to live in an immigrant community and only shop in their own cultural community's stores.

Do you think it's a racist thing to say immigrants do not integrate?

Be weary of generalizations. If you say all immigrants are incapable of integration, that could be a prejudicial or biased. Also, it is not a truthful statement.

Asking questions such as 'What is bias', 'what is prejudice' and 'what does the lack of integration do to hurt society? Seeking answers like this is a healthy pursuit.

On the surface, it is not a racist comment. Is the effect of immigrants not integrating hurting another group or is it discriminatory or illegal?

Is the plight of an immigrant group due to their lack of integration, a voluntary act or do they have no choice?

If some immigrants chose to not integrate might be considered a fact and an observation of behavior. However, if you or anyone else, declares that all immigrants can not be integrated, that would indicate a bias or a prejudice. However, also...aren't you STILL confusing bias and prejudice with racism? They are not the same thing. There is no indication to what you're asking that indicates someone is stating they're superior. Indicating a preference is not necessarily racism.

For something to be called racism and be considered as discrimination depends on what details exist to back it up. And it depends on what sort of generalizations the person makes ...and whether or not the person's behavior is one where they're casting aspersions on another group and discriminating against another person or group and getting an advantage ..financially ..say on housing.. or jobs, etc.

For example in Little Havana in Miami, there are Cuban-Americans that speak very little English, preferring their home language and they shop in the Cuban community. They may choose to not integrate ..out of choice to support their community, but they are not creating an atmosphere of racism. They do not prevent the laws of the land from being observed or enforced.

Very good, Ragman; I agree with everything you say. There's another point to be made here as well. To ask whether the statement that immigrants do not integrate well into a host society implies a belief that all immigrants are of a racially different group than those of the host country. That's not necessarily so. Quite a number of immigrants to the USA are visually indistinguishable from white Americans born here. Thus, to say that immigrants do not integrate is not a racially charged statement; it could be xenophobic, however.

There is a history of racist claims about immigrants being unable or unwilling to integrate.

The first law in the US that regulated immigration was called the "Chinese Exclusion act" which, as the name suggests, made it illegal for people from China to become Americans. The argument was that people from China were incapable of integrating.

This was followed by a quota system that was designed to favor immigrants from white protestant countries while limiting immigration from countries like Ireland and Italy (of course the Chinese exclusion act remained).

Each wave of immigration was met by vicious attacks, sometimes even violent attacks, against the newcomers. And each group that came integrated after the second generation.

Saying that immigrants don't not integrate is one of the oldest attacks in the book leveled at every immigrant group since the mid 19th century.

CORRECTION.
I wrote:


What I meant to say is:



etc...

This is the earliest racist quote I could find, this by a Supreme Court justice