I didn't. Blame my employer for sending me there to lead a CAB for our Northern Europe customers. I've always hated traveling to Northern Europe. At least in Italy or Greece I can pass as $Southern_European American so I don't get stink eye.

> you can't be Swedish unless you're born Swedish

So how does a non-ethnic Swede who has been living in Sweden their entire life and with Swedish citizenship become fully Swedish?

This is the crux of the issue. If you aren't given a chance to assimilate, there's no reason to.

At the end of the day, Trump can say racist stuff about Mexican Americans, yet Mexican Americans hold top cabinet members, leaders of industry, and everyday middle class people in the US. And this is just one example.

I don't see a similar kind of assimilation in most of Northern Europe, excluding the British Isles and Norway (kinda).

Fair enough, then it's work and at least you aren't stuck there forever having to try to make friends.

> So how does a non-ethnic Swede who has been living in Sweden their entire life and with Swedish citizenship become fully Swedish?

He or she will never be Swedish at all. Just as the thousands of Western missionaries who went to China never became Chinese in the slightest, even if they learnt the language and picked up the customs. The person will always be a foreigner. If they have a child with a Swede, that child will be half-Swedish and so on.

Assimilation is a whole different thing. But if the Swedes don't want to welcome foreigners to equal positions of influence, that is their decision. Most of the countries in the world have official policies and laws to limit the influence and the rights of immigrants – including the US.

> This is the crux of the issue. If you aren't given a chance to assimilate, there's no reason to.

Rather, if you aren't given a chance to assimilate, you shouldn't come. If I'm treated rudely as a guest in somebody's house, I'll excuse myself.