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This chapter examines the residential contexts of immigrant families, which also affect the starting point for the second generation. Fears that immigrants and their children will end up living in “parallel societies” like the black ghettoes of American cities are vastly overblown. Nevertheless, neighborhoods of immigrant concentration, at least for low-status groups, may create marked disadvantages. The chapter assesses the actual extent, and consequences, of residential segregation, and looks at the role of public policies in shaping these patterns. Neighborhoods are often the places where immigrant minorities and native majorities have initial contacts and thus where the impacts of immigration on the mainstream society are particularly salient. The chapter then considers the emergence of “super-diverse” neighborhoods.

This chapter demonstrates how, despite their experience of prejudice, Muslims became involved in a gradual process of integration into mainstream society; in this period they largely thought of themselves as ‘black’ or as Asians, rather than as Muslims. First-generation British Muslims had been fairly relaxed about social behaviour and religious observation. Meanwhile, the second generation of Muslims were not in Britain as temporary economic migrants, and consequently were less passive than their predecessors, more confident and aware of their opportunities and rights in Britain. For them, integration into mainstream society went hand in hand with an increasing assertiveness in the face of prejudice and an awareness of their identity as Anglo-Asians. By the 1980s and 1990s, the younger generation were becoming alienated from their parents due to familiarity with a secular society; many regarded the world of the mosque as boring. Muslims also began to reflect mainstream practice in other ways: more women in their twenties remained unmarried and, with their better language skills and qualifications, they were more likely to be in paid employment.

This chapter observes that The River dealers used the oppression discourse mostly in dealing with the welfare system. It is a discourse that privileges structural problems, such as difficulties getting a job, an education, and finding accommodation. The chapter notes that marginalisation and discrimination are typically highlighted. It explains that emphasising sameness can be seen as a strategy for winning sympathy and support by playing down what separates the young men from members of mainstream society. The chapter notes that it is a strategy which marginalised groups often use in meetings with the public agencies. It further observes that many of The River dealers felt excluded from mainstream society. Discrimination and racism were constant companions, even when they were selling cannabis. The chapter explains that because they were ‘foreigners’, they felt branded as ‘criminals’ from the outset. In this way, allegiance to a gangster discourse became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

This chapter discusses French noblemen Duc de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt's criticism of the Public Universal Friend. He claimed that Jemima Wilkinson's “hypocrisy may be traced in all her discourses, actions, and conduct, and even in the very manner in which she manages her countenance.” He also said that she was a woman who upended gender norms through her assumption of spiritual and domestic authority. This critic shows that much of the objections to the Universal Friend and her adherents often focused on how they translated their convictions into practice. Through a variety of acts, such as establishing households and building families, the Universal Friends created a domestic order that deviated from mainstream society in subtle but significant ways.

Part of the fascination of nineteenth-century friendship literature is its depiction of romantic friendship as being negotiated, not primarily in fictional worlds of “men without women,” but in everyday urban or rural life, within mainstream society, and often in tandem with cross-sex emotional attachments. The range of women's attitudes toward manly love detailed in these narratives may provide a clue to patterns of behavior and response in the broader culture. Clearly, the female characters in these stories respond differently to being sidelined by their lover, or at least having to share his attentions with his romantic friend. Some of these women placidly accept sharing their man with another man.