What Hinders Assimilation

Published by

Clarissa

September 14, 2026

I know a guy who emigrated to Canada at the age of 22. This was in 1998. He has lived in Canada this entire time. He is economically very successful in Canada, but he is friendly with zero people outside of his immigrant community. His English is functional but very basic. His French is nonexistent. He consumes no entertainment in English or French. He is very interested in politics but has the most tenuous knowledge about Canadian politics.

This is an extremely sociable person with a wide circle of friends. But they are all from his immigrant community. He spent 30 years in Canada recreating his life at home and has been very successful at it.

This guy is the perfect example of what hinders assimilation. As soon as you have enough immigrants from a specific country to form a community, they no longer need to assimilate.

The person I’m talking about is Ukrainian. I’m also Ukrainian. I couldn’t have avoided assimilating, even if I wanted to (and I obviously don’t) because there is no Ukrainian community where I live.

It’s not that anybody is bad or inferior, but it’s normal for people to seek out their own. When people don’t get a choice, they assimilate. When they do, they often start resisting assimilation.

This is simply a numbers game. After a certain number, there is no assimilation.

Rate this:

4 responses to “What Hinders Assimilation”

oldcowboy3

September 14, 2026

Actually assimilation is not complete until they intermarry, there was considerable resistance amongst many ethnic groups in western Canada until WW2. As my uncle observed, the SS considered us all Untermensch ;-D

LikeLike

Reply
1. Clarissa
  
  September 15, 2026
  
  Even the second generation doesn’t marry outside of the group if the pool of in-group prospects is wide enough. Or if they can bring mates over from the home country.
  
  LikeLike
  
  Reply
  1. oldcowboy3
    
    September 15, 2026
    
    Kid, how much of the actual history of Canadian immigration do you actually know? Human tribalism can be very ugly, everybody knows the British interned Boers, and that Canada interned Japanese Canadians during WW2. But few know that thousands of Austro-Hungarian immigrants, including Ukrainians, were similarly interned during WW1. That more than a few German immigrants wisely anglicized their surnames during wartime. And that my grandma told me that I should not have a Campbell for a girlfriend, even if she did not have cooties ;-D
    
    LikeLike
    
    Reply
ShadowsCollide

September 14, 2026

As a said earlier, moving to New Jersey was the best thing to happen to my family. My parents’ families had to learn to get along with all sorts of people and be around non-Cubans, it worked. In this generation, most of the younger people have non-Hispanic partners and speak English with New Jersey accents, among my closest cousins, one married a Jewish woman and another married an Irish man. So they have half-Cuban, part-Jewish and part-Irish kids whom their grandmother adores, the kids see themselves as regular American children

LikeLike

Reply

Clarissa's Blog