Why?

(Try to find out what feelings and needs are alive in the other person: empathic resonance)

Are you feeling insecure/worried?
Do you need stability/harmony/ predictability?
Hearing you I think you are insecure/ worried because you are afraid immigrants will not integrate enough in our society. And you think it is important to have stability/harmony/ predictability?

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What if?

(‘Mirror questions’: how would it be if you were standing in the shoes of that person)

Do you know immigrants personally? People who have left their own country, leaving behind everything and everybody they loved? Can you imagine what that has meant to them?
Can you understand how it will be for them to hear you saying they will always be a stranger here, that they don’t belong here although they maybe have lived here for years?

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Self-reflection

(Questions you can ask yourself in silence to support yourself in understanding the other person)

How important is stability/harmony/ predictability for me?
When do I need stability/harmony/ predictability?
How do I feel when this need is not fulfilled?

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Empowerment

(More information on the issue and tips how to explore the problem and continue the discussion)

European people already consist of a great cultural mixture, resulting from the immigration of hundreds of years. Just check their last names, which often indicate where they came from! Today more than 70% of all our immigrants come from Europe. Do you think that people, who live more than 30 or 40 years in our country and their children, are still foreigners?
“Culture” means the “way of life”, the characteristics and knowledge of a particular group of people, encompassing language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music, and arts… Culture is a dynamic system that evolves. Not a static picture that has to stay the same over centuries.