Can you actually get detached from your country after immigrating?

Most immigrants, or may I say all, carry stars in their eyes before immigrating. Quite often the expectations are much more than the actual results or the ground realities. Social dislocation can be rough and traumatic price to pay for the golden dreams. The most attractive option for migrants is to be given the choice instead of being forced to assimilate or remain an ethnic.

While in one’s homeland one may not be very particular about obeying a custom but in the alien land a sudden feeling of being from a particular society comes into fore in a powerful way. Say, in Punjab you wont see many Punjabi societies, while in north America you will see one each major locality.

This gives rise to two types of immigrants; an immigrant and an expatriate. Immigration is the psychological opposite of expatriation. By being officially hostile to assimilation, a country compels newcomers to be expatriates rather than immigrants. Multiculturalism can be a subtle policy instrument in the hands of the elite for maintaining their distance from the new pretenders. Separateness is maintained, there is no cross-contamination, and caste purity is not polluted. One the other hand, major grudge among the natives of host countrymen always remains that if somebody has comes in their country, let me actually be faithful to the new country from where he is making money or living.

Now imagine a cricket match between England and Pakistan. In whose favor a Pakistani immigrant in UK would cheer for; UK or Pakistan. In either case he is going to be questioned. This leads to a situation where encouraged to hang on to their identity of origin rather than melt into their identity of destination, they become the "nowhere men": people who can celebrate a claim on both lands without having a true home in either.

Many different racial, cultural, linguistic and religious groups live in the US and manage to retain their distinctive identity. Individuals are free to choose between identities of inheritance and adoption. Over generations, the distinctive traits of their culture of origin are eroded as they assimilate into the dominant culture.

American society suffers from many ills. But when American minorities demand rights, they demand rights as Americans. When Indians launch agitations, they make claims on the state based on sectarian identity such as castes and minorities. If India persists on the path of caste and religion-based quotas and politics, it needs look no further than Lebanon and Sri Lanka to see what the future holds. These are policies of national disintegration, not social cohesion.

Minority community any where always expects to be treated with kid gloves. This breeds frustration in majority community. Remember, L K Advani’s argument that Hindus are often treated like second class citizens in their own country. Most recently, the case of Taslima Nasreen shows the worrying appeasement of minority fundamentalism in the name of protecting secularism.

Now, when I have immigrated to Canada, I always make it a point to get absorbed in their culture to the extent possible. Remember, learning some good points of a culture even if it means to the extent of learning their food habits or social customs does not mean that your religion, country or community is in danger.