51% of the Swedish immigrants who will be forced to leave under a proposed Moderaterna and SD policy will be recent university graduates with the most in-demand skills, according to a study by the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise.
Institutionalizing xenophobia with public policy intended to limit "low-qualified labor migrants" is bad for the economy.
“I can do hard things. I can do hard things. I can do hard things…” —me to myself before doing a trivial task I don’t want to do but have to do and should do after procrastinating by doing equally uninteresting tasks that have no urgency
FBAR is FUBAR because US Americans effectively lose Congressional representation when they move abroad (no member of Congress has enough constituents living abroad to care about them), so all the tax laws assume a citizen living abroad is either a terrorist or a tax evader.
There are more US Americans living abroad than live in 40 of the 50 states.
[I have loaded the FBAR website, but not started because I needed to vent by tweeting.]
Just learned about Mediakollen, a curated list of left-leaning reporting in Sverige.
I only recently learned journalism in Sverige has a center-right leaning which explains SO much about the public discourse in my time here (eg nearly no one saying anything positive about immigration, the idiocy and defense of not recommending masks).
When annoying companies text me in Sverige, I can never just reply to the message to unsubscribe. I have to send the special stop keyword to a completely different number, which involves 2 copy/paste steps. In the US, I would just respond to the sender.
Why is text message marketing in Sverige more fucked up?
Swedes were shown a delicious French cream puff and challenged to create their own cultural cuisine icon.
They took the same ingredients, baked a plain dinner roll, cut the top third off, piled bland whipped cream and a squirt of almond paste for a hint of flavor in between the slices, sprinkled some sugar on top, and yelled, “Nailed it!” to a bemused Nicole Byer and Jacques Torres.
Being an immigrant means re-learning how to adult, but it also involves unlearning all that star-spangled propaganda.
LaDonna Witmer put into words what I have only been able to feel and made those feelings make more sense.
> My deconstruction from the oppressive religion of my birth took at least two decades […] I am now in the midst of deconstructing from America—which makes sense, because America itself is a religion.
“Everything Is Not Enough” by Lọlá Ákínmádé is an exhilarating sequel to “In Every Mirror She’s Black” that continues the accurate and insightful portrayals of the experiences immigrants, Black people, and women endure in Sverige.
This book kept me up past my bedtime multiple nights for “just one more chapter!”
I love my new country. Citizenship allowed me to stop worrying about how impermanent permanent residency actually was. It released underlying anxiety of getting rejected after loving too deeply. It allowed me to focus on contributing maximally.
I don’t believe in immigrant assimilation. But even if I did, I don’t think it’d be possible before being granted citizenship and the certainty associated with it.
“It’s one thing embracing cultural traditions and learning the language… It’s another to feel like I have to be less Nigerian to be fully Swedish.” —Lọlá Ákínmádé
Sverige demands immigrants assimilate, not integrate. Multiculturalism is not desired. Perspective from being a hyphenate could make one believe they have something to teach, a violation of Jantelagen.
macOS and iOS are not accommodating of people living bilingual existences.
I type in Svenglish (Swedish & English). I quickly can access the extra letters of the svenska alphabet from the US English keyboard, but spellcheck, swipe, and autocomplete only work in one language at a time.
The new groceries "smart" list in Reminders categorized “vitvins vinäger” as “Wine, Beer & Spirits” instead of “Oils & Dressings” like when I typed “white wine vinegar”.
A non-trivial number of conversations in Svenska are someone talking to someone who only responds with “ja-ha”, “exakt”, “absolut”, and “precis” until the conversation ends.
US Americans Abroad! We finally have a bill in Congress to stop treating us as tax evaders.
The Tax Simplification for Americans Abroad Act (HR 5432) would:
• Create a simplified tax return form for those who owe no US tax
• Eliminate double taxation for pensions and retirement distributions
• Consolidate FBAR into FATCA, increasing the filing threshold, and eliminate requirement to report to FinCEN
US Americans living abroad don’t really have Congressional representation. Representatives just don’t care about people who don’t reside in their districts. As such, US tax law assumes emigrants are either tax evaders or terrorists.
Here is an example of how FACTA is fucking over a European who had the misfortune of being birthed in the US and now cannot open a bank account in Sverige.
Goodmorning lovely #fediverse friends. After having had my morning coffee and a few client calls I finally have time to say 2 things about last nights discussion on multilingualism:
why I personally don't see an issue with an English speaking server, but understand why it's important for others
more importantly, that this discussion highlights the need for a community governance initiative
I'm typing this out while at work so toots might take a while.
@bkhl@Gina Thankfully, most immigrants are not going to experience cancer scares and mental health challenges.
Just surviving, keeping a job, and being a net positive to society should be enough to be here.
Some Swedes fear their language will die just because more people speak English. We're expected to become culture preservationists for a language with little economic benefit and even when we speak it, we're still dismissed as outsiders. It's a lot to put on people.
I generally crave salty snacks (popcorn!), but when I crave sugar, my favorite candy is SweeTarts. I wondered why it was not available for purchase in Sverige.
TIL SweeTARTS contain synthetic dyes that require safety warning labels in the EU, which make them unappealing to consumers. Specifically relevant for me, there is evidence synthetic dyes exacerbate ADHD symptoms.
A “living in Sverige is like living in the future” moment:
Caltrain, the Silicon Valley commuter train, just now has a portion of its service area able to use electric trains. It is “the first undertaking in North America in a generation in which diesel trains and their infrastructure components are transitioned to an electrified system.”
The race is on: will Siri or I reach university-level Svenska proficiency first?
At the rate Apple is adding support for the languages used by a hundred million people, Swedish should be added around 2040. [cries in Moderaterna, the right wing party leading Sverige’s xenophobic immigration policy changes]
Sverige rejected my legal name change. Because there are fewer than 2000 people with the last name Lee in Sverige, they do not have to allow it. They considered it, but I was not able to demonstrate my use of the name for over 10 years adequately.
I'm crushed. I don't know what more I could have done.
I will have to move back to the US, at least temporarily, to change my legal name now since it is a state matter and I have no state living abroad.