From a foreigner’s point of view, the sensible advice to follow when first in a new country is to stick to your kindred. And this choice does help to settle in a new country rather quickly. But the truth is, the solution is rarely fundamental. International students and workers have trouble learning the language even after years of “acclimation”, tourists fail to adjust to customs and unintentionally become targets of controversy, all the while foreign businesses end up serving their own micro-city — Chinatown, Koreatown, Brighton Beach, Little Tokyo, and so many more that didn’t get such fancy names. 

“Who knows what they are talking about?!” “They are disrespecting our culture!” “They are changing our country!” Are these shouts just excuses for one’s prejudices or are they valid criticisms toward the system that is supposed to help immigrants settle in their new home, permanently or not? And if this issue is also present in regards to other minorities, how can we analyze the case of acclimation of foreigners to determine a strategy for other cases? 

In many countries, governments require immigrants to pass language and history tests after five or more years to become citizens. Seems fairly straightforward, but why do so many fail? And even if one receives citizenship on paper after speeding through theoretical textbooks, why are they still treated as outsiders?

In a foreign setting, “living” becomes “surviving”. You struggle to get by, and decide whether you want to persevere or run away — either sign up for the provided language and history class, or stick to the familiar group of your fellow countrymen. However, either way, you end up with fellow foreigners, and that is the issue. Some foreigners begin to form their own community out of desperation and become self-sufficient enough to be viewed as a separate group that stems away from the hosting society. This often creates the mentality that they need to be catered to from a distance rather than helped on their way to acclimation. 

Think of it as if you’re making carbonara sauce. If you add the eggs too quickly to a pan that’s too hot, the eggs will scramble — you get embarrassed after gesturing that you need to use the bathroom once and you hesitate to try to speak again. If you don’t add the eggs at all… well, enjoy your spaghetti with an omelet and have the spaghetti accuse the sunny-side up eggs of cultural misappropriation of Italy. But if you cool the pan — prepare the society — and drizzle the eggs in while stirring, you might end up with a delicious combination of the creamy eggs and the springy carbonara that is infinitely better than a mac‘n’omelet.  

In this era of globalization, the option of moving to a different country can provide people with strong goals and opportunities, but many get lost on the way to it. Not only individuals or governments, but the society as a whole, can step in this wrong direction. This issue also extends to all sorts of topics regarding social segregation. We separate the minority, we give them exclusive events, vacancies, and time periods to “celebrate” their individuality. We leave the eggs uncracked because we don’t want to bother. We stay proud of ourselves for labeling a month with an ethnicitycalling that a solution and moving on without working on changes to progress the society as a whole — just because we already gave it a name as if it’s a pivotal moment in history. 

But it seems despite the persistent struggles to inspire some sort of change in history, we never learn from past mistakes, and social segregation is not an exception. Why do women have to continue to fight for equal treatment in any workplace? Why do the previously enslaved people need to continue to fight against discrimination from the very people who claim to have abolished it? Why are minorities forced to compete with their fellow disprivileged people instead of competing fairly within the general body? Isn’t that the very discrimination we seek to conquer? Isn’t that a way of hosting a gladiator battle between slaves to determine the one who gets to be free? Or is this because on paper, you will see a more balanced ratio of Natives and Outsiders, but in reality, the Outsiders had to trample each other for the few spots left after “balancing out” the seats with the Natives? 

Minority representation is a pinnacle of societal evolution and it helps to lift the discriminated communities from the depths of the pit we systematically buried them in for centuries. But the tendency to continue treating the discriminated as separate entities, only further alienating them, has to go. Crack the eggs and enjoy your carbonara.