The Right-Wing Demand for Assimilation

The Price of Admission into New Zealand

By Dr Harpreet Singh | drhsinghnz.substack.com | FB: @DrHSinghNZ

Author’s Note: This brief article responds to the recurring right-wing demand that migrants “assimilate” into New Zealand, don’t wave your flag, keep your faith behind closed doors, follow only the dominant culture. These instructions are not neutral. They echo long‑standing racist, anti‑Indigenous, and anti‑minority tropes designed to erase languages, identities, and cultural practices that do not mirror the majority. This narrative is increasingly weaponised across parts of the right‑wing to divide communities and fracture the nation. It is harmful, it is exclusionary, and it is entirely unfounded. We do not have to accept it. We should challenge it. And we must resist it, together.

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In politics today, the word “integration” is often used to hide a much harsher idea: assimilation. While some see a fair society as a “salad bowl” where everyone keeps their own flavour, the right-wing vision of an “assimilated minority” is more like a “melting pot.” In this view, social and political pressure is used to melt away a person’s heritage until they look and act exactly like the majority. This philosophy treats being different as a problem and sees copy-pasting the majority culture as the only way to be a “real” citizen.

Unity Through Forced Sameness

At the heart of this right-wing view is the belief that a country is only strong if everyone is the same. Instead of seeing a nation as a collection of different people, they see it as a club with very strict rules. In this vision, a “successful” minority is one that has completely conformed. The entire job of changing falls on the person moving in or the minority group. You are only accepted once you become “invisible.” This means you must speak the majority language, follow their social rules, and accept their version of history while burying your own.

Trading Your Identity for Acceptance

In this worldview, “good” integration is actually cultural erasure. It is a model where minorities are expected to give up their own language and use the majority’s tongue for everything, even at home. There is also a demand to stop “acting ethnic” in public or in politics. People are told to be “citizens first,” which is often a way to tell them to stop talking about their unique needs or the unfairness they face. Finally, it requires following an old social order and respecting traditions that, in the past, were often built to keep people like them out.

Belonging as a Prize, Not a Right

One of the most hurtful parts of this vision is that belonging is treated as a prize you have to win. Right-wing thinkers often talk about this as a “contract.” If a minority group works hard in the way the majority likes and follows the majority’s religion or values, they are used as “proof” that the country is fair. But this makes their safety very fragile. Anyone who chooses to keep their own traditions is seen as a “threat” or “unwilling to join in.” This lets the majority act like a judge, deciding who has changed “enough” to be tolerated.

A Culture That is Afraid to Grow

This vision comes from a very narrow view of culture. The right-wing sees culture as a museum piece to be guarded, not something that should ever change. Critics argue that this is a “cultural tax.” It forces minorities to pay for their safety and success by giving up their history. It suggests that national identity is so weak that it might break if it encounters a different language or a different way of life. Instead of a conversation between equals, the right-wing wants a society where the minority is expected to just listen and copy.

The Bottom Line

The right-wing vision of the assimilated minority is built on a cold ultimatum: the price of entry is sameness. It promises a unified country, but only by making sure everyone thinks and acts the same way. This unity comes at a high cost, the quiet destruction of the diverse stories and cultures that make us human. It creates a society that works like a mould, forcing every unique person into one single shape and rejecting anyone who doesn’t fit.

When the right-wing demands that you bury your language, your ancestors, your faith and your perspective to be "worthy" of belonging, it trades a vibrant, living tapestry for a grey and fragile mask. We lose the wisdom of other cultures, the beauty of different ways of seeing the world, and the chance for our society to actually evolve. In this vision, the "perfect" citizen is one who has been stripped of everything that made them unique, leaving behind a nation that is unified only by what it has managed to destroy.

This right‑wing vision claims a nation is strongest when everyone is the same. It treats the country like an exclusive club where minorities are accepted only once they erase themselves. In this view, success means becoming invisible by speaking the majority language, following their rules, and trading your own history for theirs.