The only way immigrants can destroy a national culture is if they actually and decisively outnumber the natives, as in the “settler states” of the British Empire, but as not in its African or Asian colonies.
They were “the other” but they were not a “disparate” culture. They were much more similar to native-born Americans than the Syrians/Libyans/Iraqis today.
The Chinese were from an alien culture, yes. But the numbers were comparatively tiny - 322,000 Chinese came to the United States between 1850 and 1882 - about 0.6% of the US population, in 32 years of immigration. Compare that to about 2M Irish and 2.5M Germans during the same time.
Today yes, but not back then. Most of my ancestors came from little Jewish villages in Russia. They were very different from the Christian majority. They lived in their own neighborhoods. They had their own food. They often had their own businesses and jobs.
I live in walking distance from the largest Afghan community in the US. My town has an amazing diversity of cultures, and it hasn’t broken anything. We are stronger for it. And I get Afghan Naan which is really awesome.
Europe doesn’t absorb immigrants as well as the US does. If all children of immigrants became citizens, I think there would be more assimilation.
Maybe back 150 years ago when people came here they knew they were here for good. Though not always - my great-grandfather took his youngest daughter and went back to Russia.
It might be more of a wealth gap. I work with a Syrian and an Iranian, but they are both engineers, probably come from the upper crust, so there is no cultural gap apparent.
That wave has not stopped. You should come out to the Bay Area some day - I can show you Chinese shopping centers and supermarkets.
Sure - but it’s hard to call something a “wave” when it is that small. The Chinese-ancestry population in the US today is 1.2%. While those with Irish ancestry are 10.5% and German ancestry are 17.1%.
I trust you agree that if the Chinese-ancestry population in the US was on the order of 15%, the country would be quite different.
I think countries are greatly exaggerating their inability to handle more immigrants. I would gladly welcome an increase in the number of immigrants and increase government funding to handle more.
As the US is a nation of immigrants, we are morally obligated to be more welcoming. People want to say that immigrants now should have a say. Yes, we should have a say, but that reply cannot always be “There’s too many immigrants, there’s no room and no jobs!”. Sooner or later that excuse is seen for what it is: a bald-faced lie. Yes we should allow more people and yes I wouldn’t mind if its in my neighborhood. No, I do not care if it changes America, America should change with its people.
Aren’t almost all of the folks we’re talking about refugees and not immigrants? The Syrian civil war is going to end at some point, at which time it will not be unreasonable to ask the Syrian refugees to return to their country. No? Some may have legitimate reasons to seek asylum, but I can’t believe that most will.
Maybe where you live. Not where I live. And culture is local.
That’s a good point, but will the Europeans, along with transporting the refugees back home, help in reconstruction?
Voyager and I both live in Santa Clara County, CA. If you lump Chinese and Vietnamese together as “East Asians”, they make up about 15% of the population. We have somehow managed to survive.
I think if peace breeks out, the UN can pull together a reconstruction plan that will include funds from all over the world, including Europe.
I live near a city where half the population wasn’t born in this country. You know what happens to immigrants? They become just like the people who’re already here.
Maybe Canada is particularly good at this, I don’t know, but the descendants of the Vietnamese boat people - of whom we took in ten times as many people as we have from this crisis - are all hockey-crazed, beer-swilling millennials addicted to their smartphones just like everyone else who lives here. The only ethnic group I can think of that’s making an effective effort to not blend in are the pasty-white Mennonites.
All my grandparents were refugees. From India, from Afghanistan, S Russia and Iran.
Chances are 60 years from now the grandchildren of many of these people who end up settling will be complaining about newcomers. Thats what happens.
Maybe the Vietnamese are particularly good at assimilating. The Vietnamese boat people that were picked up by the Israeli ships in the late 70s that now live in Israel are fluent-Hebrew-speaking, IDF-serving, mangal-outing-going Israelis.
But it also seems to be the same of our vast Filipino, Chinese, Iranian and Indian populations, too.
Native-born white Anglo Americans at the time did not see it that way, of course; many saw a threat just because most Irish and many German immigrants were Catholic, therefore profoundly alien.
Shifting context from the refugee situation in Europe to the current immigration wave to the U.S. – Mexicans and other Latin Americans are not such a “disparate” culture either, are they? If there is such thing as a “Western Civilization” that includes the U.S., then it also includes Latin America, doesn’t it?
True. And?
I recall a cartoon I saw once captioned “A SHORT HISTORY OF IMMIGRATION”:
PANEL 1:
Guy 1: “What a beautiful spot!”
Guy 2: “Hey, I was here first!”
PANEL 2:
They fight.
PANEL 3:
Guy 2: “All right – puff – you can stay!”
PANEL 4:
Guy 3: “What a beautiful spot!”
Guy 1 & Guy 2: “Hey, we were here first!”
As a UN baby, I find your faith in it touching.