What are the greatest challenges new immigrants face in your country?
In my country, the USA, the biggest challenge new immigrants face is some of the jerks who already live here. If you speak with an accent that doesn't sound like the people on TV, or one that's obviously a regional American dialect, many Americans will treat you badly.
On the other hand, some of the other folks who already live here will be very welcoming and helpful, realizing that it's hard to make one's way in a new country and it's nice to hear a friendly voice.
The challenge is to figure out which sort you're dealing with quickly enough to avoid the jerks.
Also, Americans on the whole have stereotypes about certain countries, and it can be hard to overcome those. For example, the general belief in America is that Germans (and to a lesser extent Austrians, Dutch, Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes) are very organized and don't have much of a sense of humor. (Kind of a neutral stereotype, but it can be hard to make friends if everyone assumes you don't like to laugh.)
In big cities like New York, Boston, Baltimore, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, it's easier to fit in, because folks are used to a cosmopolitan mix of people of many different nationalities.
In the Midwest, however, it can be harder, because there isn't that mix, and Midwesterners can be very xenophobic. They can also be some of the friendliest folks you can hope to meet, so, you never know.
On the whole, though, if you find it easy to make friends in your home country, you will probably do fine here in the US. If you find it hard to make friends at home, you'll probably have a harder time here.
Also, there are a lot of nationality-based social groups in the US. Just in my general area there's a German-American group, a Polish-American club, several Irish-American and Scottish-American groups, some Arab-American groups, and so on. If you move to a place where there's an expatriate community form your home country, I bet they'll be willing to help you get settled in.
Oh, you'll also have to get used to miles instead of kilometers, gallons instead of liters (except when buying soda pop), pounds instead of kilograms, and degrees Fahrenheit instead of degrees centigrade. That'll probably drive you nuts for a while, 'cos our system of measurement doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense compared to the metric system.
- Home Girlposted 14 years ago
0 if you do not have language, you'd better have money, it helps
If you do not have language, no money, no legal status, you are suck, and stuck.
But as I said, somebody who's been through all of this can help. You can live without status, work for a time without status for cash. People find ways. I came to Canada as wife of a permanent resident, my husband came first and they let me in after 1.5 years of paperwork. All I did when I came I went to some government office, signed papers, became a landed immigrant. As easy as can be. it was not easy in my own country to get out, in other aspects too as I did not have any money,no skills good for Canada and 3 small children, and I was scared to death and did not want to come at all! I was afraid of possibility of civil war in my country probably more than of living in Canada.Except under a few rare circumstances, if you don't speak at least basic English, you will not be able to get citizenship in the United States and will have trouble finding a job, certainly a legal job. I wouldn't recommend coming here without at least a basic grasp of English unless you come directly to a community of fellow immigrants who speak the same language, and even then you should get yourself enrolled in ESL classes as quickly as possible.
Otherwise, the greatest problem is this:
Full size: http://oi52.tinypic.com/j7xgjn.jpg
"i have been a strong analyst against US war policies and certain global issues.."
I think you'll find a lot of people in the US who agree with your assessment of US war policies and certain global issues. (And plenty who disagree, too!)
"Americans" and "The USA" aren't the same thing.
Are you thinking about studying in the US, or emigrating permanently?
- Home Girlposted 14 years ago0
Russians tend to be super racist, so I'm not sure I'd recommend that an African family move there. The group I went with to study abroad there included an African American and an Indian American. People would literally slow down their cars as they passed to stare at the African American and the Indian American once got stopped eight times in two days by the police (in fairness, this was about a week after the theater hostage crisis in Moscow, whch was perpetrated by people of similar skin tone
). Also, you see swastika graffiti on a regular basis and there are periodic race riots between skinheads and the ex-Soviet Central Asian communities.
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