Anglosaxon rigidity in an American oriented society

While filling an academic paper I have had the major need to throw non-academic founded thoughts somewhere before they could filter somehow in my objective politically correct version.
I am currently writing about foreign students arriving in NZ and their potential problems in having to follow schooling in a different language.
And it really hits me.

Understand another language as: English.
Maori, co-oficial language, is taught as a foreign language. Its fluency is not compulsory. They managed to keep it which is already grand. I hope it helps students understand their Pasifica peers more and pakeha in general learn to read the soul of their country from the original inhabitants.

We are talking about students with English as a non-mother tongue and the difficulties they can encounter when being taught in a foreign language (English). And since we are politically correct we won't say that the majority of students that might have potential adaptation problems are Asian or Pasifica students.
Why?
Culture. They come from a collective oriented society to face an individual oriented society. That is the main cultural trait I can think of. On the other side, the politically correct form of academical research papers won't let me say that while students of Western societies might face this or that issue to readjust, their Oriental-Pacific peers are already regarded as second class foreigners. Sorry, but this is the unofficial version, the one I learnt from hearing people talk.

I always blamed my parents not to take me to a school overseas. I finished my education in Germany, in German. The uni there was aware of us foreigners and we were divided in translation groups between "translators into German with German as a mother tongue" and "translators into German with German as a foreign language". We really appreciated the differentiation and in fact we chose that institution because they make that difference. It never created a German vs others division. The major division consisted in: cosmopolitans vs non-cosmpolitans, it was easy to tell. To begin with because being a mother tongue speaker of German didn't necessarily make you a German (took me a while to understand as a Catalan).
But I am talking about foreign language students, with surely another way of viewing language and culture.

Stick to the main subject

Back in Auckland I am trying to stay diplomatic and stick to the paper resources that relate to NCEA, curricula and PISA reports and leave all these perceptions aside.

NZ claims to be a very international country. I wonder if that means that, in its young age, and despite the isolation from the world, it failed to find its own character. Despite having Pasifica inhabitants to learn from, they regard them as 'the other group that lives here and does their stuff, and some is cool' and adapts the neoliberal pattern of the American way of life: Cars, drive troughs, take aways, pay for health and live to work. Combine this with whites generally as exciting and passionate as Brits are: cru-di-tos. So more or less. The closest thing to the American dream doesn't happen in Kiwiland, by the way. It is called Australia.

Maybe, in some years their original settlers will grow and modify the society, but if, the change is still many years away.

In fact, this is just an impression. I need to learn a lot more of this 'multicultural' society and be able to contrast what I read, with what I see and what I feel. I am quite new to this.

Partly relieved, now that I got rid of these hovering ideas, I can continue academically and politically correctly reflecting about the challenges I will face in meeting the needs of learners of English as an Additional Language.

Suggestions are welcome.