Integration: are we there yet?

Yes, I'm still writing about the whole immigrant-expat issue that started with
me questioning am I or am I not?

In response to one of my posts Alice asked me this:

... I like to think that anyone who lives in Australia and wants to be Australian (or German-Australian, Thai-Australian etc) is accepted as such.

I am interested in your experiences with the locals accepting you as an 'Australian'.

I thought it necessary to write a whole new post on this, maybe cause I'm suffering from verbal diarrhea, but I'd like to say that it's also because I'd love to discuss this further with anybody who's interested.

I've got to say that I've never had a problem being accepted as an 'Australian', it was more that I never really wanted to be 'Australian'. I've always insisted on being 'German'.

When I first arrived in Australia I was regularly asked "So, how do you like Australia?" to which I usually answered "It's OK, I'm getting used to it." Partly because I wanted to stir them up a bit but I also hadn't come here (as most Australians seem to expect and want to hear) because it's the land of my dreams, paradise on earth. At the time it was the best thing for my husband and I to do, but I did miss home incredibly and did not want to just become 'Australian' and forget about home.
Later people asked me "So when are you gonna become Australian?" meaning that I should take out citizenship. Well being me I couldn't help but say "Never!".
I think in hinsight I have become quite Australian over the years but I still feel very German too (and I hope this will never change).

So I think that Australians are keen for their migrants to become 'Australian' and to integrate and assimilate into the Australian culture but they find the opposite quite threatening (I'm happy to be wrong on this if someone would like to show me why): I feel that as long as you're keen to embrace Australia and it's culture fully and try to become Australian you're very much accepted though in my experience this might be harder if you're not of Caucasian appearance. Yet, if you try to keep your culture and language you can be perceived as a threat, particularly if you're not Caucasian.

Don't get me wrong I think Integration is essential to living in another country but Assimilation to me is a total loss of ones own culture and not a favourable outcome of immigration in my point of view.

On the other side friends of my husband's who were either born in Australia or came her at a very young age and would most definitely think of themselfes as Australian have experienced racism or discrimination against them. They have been made to feel like immigrants and pretty much said, if not in words, "We don't want you here, you're not Australian!"

People might say that these are very specific stories that might only reflect isolated cases, but this is how I've experienced things and the only conclusion that I can come to (and I'd be very happy to hear otherwise) is: I, a person of Caucasian appearance, was invited, nearly pressured to be Australian yet friends who really are Australian were made to feel unwelcome only because they are of African or Asian appearance.