I think “at the very least” was a poor choice of words on my part, and it was probably not 100% fair to compare it to things that have happened to native Americans. There were legal documents from the Chinese government that the author of the video cited that would lead me to believe that there is an attempt at the assimilation of Uyghur people into a larger Chinese culture and language
One of the issues was that many ethnic minorities couldn’t speak mandarin (which to be clear, is a second language for the majority of Chinese people) and and a result were disadvantaged in terms of employment.
The PRC has always worked to create a pan-Chinese identity, including all their minority ethnic groups along side the Han majority, but this doesn’t mean there’s an effort to eliminate local cultures. People are fully capable of leaning Mandarin and enjoying Han-centric media while continuing to speak their local languages (which are legally protected) and maintain their old ways of life.
I think “at the very least” was a poor choice of words on my part, and it was probably not 100% fair to compare it to things that have happened to native Americans. There were legal documents from the Chinese government that the author of the video cited that would lead me to believe that there is an attempt at the assimilation of Uyghur people into a larger Chinese culture and language
One of the issues was that many ethnic minorities couldn’t speak mandarin (which to be clear, is a second language for the majority of Chinese people) and and a result were disadvantaged in terms of employment.
The PRC has always worked to create a pan-Chinese identity, including all their minority ethnic groups along side the Han majority, but this doesn’t mean there’s an effort to eliminate local cultures. People are fully capable of leaning Mandarin and enjoying Han-centric media while continuing to speak their local languages (which are legally protected) and maintain their old ways of life.
I didn’t realize China had so many official state languages.