Oh, poor Muffin! If you can’t answer a simply question, blame the questioner! BTW, no wonder your name is muffin!
good for you! now look up the definition of “semantics”!!!
Pot, please pick up the white courtesy phone-the Kettle is on line two.
Boy, you gotta love people who can’t think outside of the literalist box.
Compare and contrast the United States to the vast majority of other countries. Your comparison will find that most other countries consist primarily of a population that considers themselves as having a heritage that can be traced back in the region for at least several generations. It will find that as recently as 100 years ago these countires were very homogenous in their composition of family heritages. Think of the French and French culture.
In contrast the US is the result of many cultures melding into a stew pot of flavors. American culture is a result of a variety of immigrant cultures interacting in complex ways. The individuals may now be second or third or fourth generation, but the composite culture is a still a product of a continued influx of new flavors. And someone who is of a particular heritage is comfortable saying that (s)he is still that AND American. (Irish, Italian, Polish, Cuban, African, Whatever).
You don’t see too many people claiming to be Irish-French, or Italian-Brits, after a generation or two. The immigrant cultures live in America to this day. They ARE America to this day. American culture is a nation of immigrants.
While we’re at it, what’s this I hear about the US being a great “melting pot”? I’ve lived in America my whole life, and as far as I know I’ve been perfectly solid the whole time.
I’m still curious as to why you seem to be deliberately acting obtuse in the matter. It would seem to indicate that you have some unspoken agenda, as others have implied.
Going back to the OP
The fact is that the overwhelming majority of people in nations in Eurasia and Africa do not have ancestors who came to their countries. They had ancestors many generations ago who came to the regions where the current countries eventually developed. Since “immigrant” strongly implies “into a country,” the word is misused when it is applied to people who arrived long before any country existed.
Now, you have already acknowledge in your OP that the phrase could mean a nation composed of people whose ancestors immigrated from somewhere else. That definition does not apply to people whose ancestors did not immigrate to a country. The French are not descended from immigrants because the Gaulic peoples were in that region before there was a France.
So, you acknowledged that the phrase could have two meanings in your OP. You then declared that the second meaning was not valid because all nations had been peopled by immigrants at some point. However, your objection was in error because you misused the word immigrant, so your second definition actually continues as valid. People who migrated to a region are not consdered immigrants because they did not enter a nation.
Since I am sure that your unspoken agenda will cause you to deny reality and the language and insist that only first generation peoples may be called immigrants, I will go ahead and lay out the meaning of the phrase more fully.
The phrase “nation of immigrants” is a description of the culture that arises when large numbers of people from vastly different cultures come together to shape a country by forging a new culture distinct from any of the individual cultures that are included within it. The U.S. was first settled by English, (bringing along Scots and Irish), French, Dutch, and few Swedes, and Spanish. These separate cultures overwhelmed the disease-depleted cultures of the North Americans who were here prior to the European invasion. The English culture had the largest impact on the new country, but after it was established, people from throughout Europe and Africa came (or were brought) to the land. As Europeans continued to arrive, the country began receiving immigrants from China and Japan, as well. Later western Asian groups began to settle here, then eastern Asian groups. The country no longer can be identified as an English culture (or even a culture of Great Britain), because so many other cultures have placed their stamp on the consciousness and culture of the U.S. Certainly, the English, Scots, Irish, (with a bit of Welsh) aspects of the U.S. culture loom large because of the founder effect, but the overall culture is no longer that of Great Britain and a Brit visiting the U.S. or a Yank visiting Britain will encounter disquieting differences in the local cultures because the two are not identical.
This is the result of immigration, and it leads to the use of the phrase “a nation of immigrants.”
Yeah, where’s MY pot???
(wait a minute…)
Tom, at what point did the United States have more immigrants than citizens? At that point,if there was one, the United States was a “nation of immigrants”
If there was no point in US history that there were more immigrants than citizens, then the US was never a “nation of immigrants”.
The original poster is correct to highlight the phrase: “A Nation of Immigrants”.
This phrase is used to support one side in the immigration debate: it supports very open immigration by appealing to the idea that all Americans came through immigration, thus these present day immigrants who look so different than us, who look so alien, dangerous are really just the same as us, it will just be a matter of time before these new Immigrants assimilate and become good Americans like our grandparents, or great grandparents.
Those of you who study history know that though America has had periods of very large immigration, they have been followed by periods of immigration control, immigration restrictions. After the brutal Bolshevik Revolution broke out in Russia, America tried to limit the immigration of Communists, Anarchists seeking to come into the USA. Certain American old stock groups identified these Anarchists/Communists as coming from the slums of Eastern Europe, Southern Europe.
In the last twenty years, America has had the largest number of immigrants enter our country in any twenty year period in our nation’s history. Most of these immigrants have come from other places besides Europe - this scares a lot of people.
Up until the 1980s, commentators described Los Angeles as “Iowa by the Big Lake”. The concept being that LA was populated by Midwesterners who moved to live by the Pacific Ocean.
Now different people populate Los Angeles. Mostly Mexican, Central American and Asian. Blacks and Anglo Whites are distinct minorities. Immigration has changed LA, Southern California and America.
In the 1960s, the Beach Boys sang a popular song “I wish they all could be California Girls” - singing favorably about the California Girls and their tans, “the California Look”. Now the California girl looks different, she looks more Third World, more Central American.
Is this good, bad, does it matter?
I would argue that immigration matters big time. It determines who we are? Are we a united nation, a prosperous nation, a divided nation, a nation at peace or a nation at war?
Up until the Sept 11th terrorist attack, immigration was almost a taboo subject. No one talked about it. Now people are talking about it. Most Americans want to keep out some people like the Muslim terrorists who were granted student visas to attend flight school in Florida. If we agree to keep out Islamic terrorists can we agree to keep out anyone else (people infected with AIDS, TB, criminals, personal injury lawyers?) These are important issues to talk about because those in the know, know that a high percentage of people on this planet want to immigrate into America.
I am ready to discuss the immigration issue. I would like to hear what intelligent people have to say. After 9-11 I am not going to let people like the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal get away with demanding Open Borders Immigration and intimidating everyone else whom disagrees into silence.
Let’s talk of this.
Since no one has come forward with any information that the US at any time its history had more immigrants than native born Americans, I must conclude that the US is NOT a nation of immigrants. We are like all other nations on Earth, a nation of native born people. Thank you and goodnight!
We use the second definition that you provided in your OP. This definition we can see does have validity because your attempt to discredit it was based on a misunderstanding of the word immigrant. Therefore, well over 90% of the U.S. has ancestors who were direct immigrants. ('Cause even if you can trace your ancestry all the way back to the Mayflower or the Godspeed, the Discovery, or the Susan, somewhere in the last 380 years, a few of your ancestors are going to have married someone who came over on a much later ship–an immigrant.)
Now it appears that your fixation on playing rather silly literalist word games has nothing to do with the actual meaning of the phrase. So you have missed an opportunity to simply discuss the relative merits of immigration and immigration control by stumbling around in a semantic quagmire that you are obviously not equipped to navigate.
There are many good arguments that can be made to support reduced or better-controlled immigration. Immigration and immigration control are serious topics which merit the attention of intelligent people on both sides of the issue. No good argument, however, begins with playing dictionary games. By starting out from a nearly indefensible position regarding language, you have now soured the discussion regarding your actual goal of discussing immigration.
You may now go forth and proclaim that the phrase “nation of immigrants” has no meaning to your heart’s content, but since you have demonstrated that you neither understand the phrase nor understand how language actually works, it will be more difficult for many of us to pay much attention to your cries for attention.
Okay. I think that most of us have dismissed Cat Patrol as intolerably dense by now, someone who thought that they had a cutesey point and refuses to actually listen to anything said in response, but Jrobinsonh brings up some real points. Currently immigration to America is not mainly from Europe, but is a “brown immigration” … cultures are being added to the mix in dramatically different balances than before. The nature of being “a nation of immigrants” means that the resultant identity of the country’s culture will change as a result; the phrase implies that our cultural identity is fluid and dynamic. Interestingly The Economist ran a bit a month or so that analyzed this as a savior for the American economy over Europe’s. New young demographics to offset the loss of babyboomers out of the workforce and provide a tax base. So what thinks y’all about more open vs more closed immigration and keeping those anarchists out.
TomnDebb, I asked a general question: Why do some people say that the the US is a nation of immigrants?
You couldn’t answer the question, and instead gave some kind of gobbletygook answer.
I must conclude, that since the vast majority of Americans are not immigrants, but are native Americans, that America is NOT A NATION OF IMMIGRANTS, I had better not catch any Straight Doper mouthing the liberal platitude that “America is a nation of immigrants” ,cause I’ll know it’s a lie.
But see, the thing is, our nation began and was built by immigration. Immigration is one of the things that made our nation great.
So, we have a very strong foundation of immigration. The first people to come here to start the colonies were immigrants.
Therefore, we may be born and bred Americans, but to say we aren’t a nation of immigrants ignores our history. It ignores our heritage.
And I better not catch you saying that the above isn’t true, “'cause I’ll know it’s a lie.” Especially since I happen to have a BA in history, sweetie pie.
Cat Patrol, native Americans are a specific group of people in America that is definately less than 50% of the population. Thus we are a nation of immigrants.
Now that I know you have trouble with English, I will try to keep any future comments to you in words of two syllables or fewer. (Sorry about “syllable”: that means “a part of a word.” There are no shorter words with that meaning.)
Cat Patrol, what is your point?
By virtue of my heritage I am 2nd and 3rd generation Swedish; 2nd, 3rd, and 4th generation Norwegian; and 3rd, 4th, and 5th generation German and Polish. My father was borne in Minnesota to a Swedish national and the product of a Prussian couple who (as far as I know) had never swore citizenship. Similarly, my maternal grand- and great-grandparents never (again, AFAIK) received US citizen papers.
Am I an immigrant? No. But my gramma was. Grampa’s parents were, and so were my mother’s grand- and great-grandparents. And while I can’t guarantee it, I would hazard a guess that 98% of the people you meet in day to day life can trace their “American” ancestors back no further than 1850ish, and that’s only if they know them at all.
This is why the US known as a “nation of immigrants”. No place else on earth (Israel is probably an exception) can such a large population geographically trace back a mere 150 years. Most of this earth’s people can go back centuries, and a few are still fighting battles which began before Ferdinand and Isabella came to the throne.
[minirant ON]And what is it about certain American subsets, anyhow? I’m a lightweight in the scheme of things, but I’ve spent a few nights in places that not only pre-date common knowledge of North America, they pre-date Christianity. Does this current invasion of white pride types really believe America sprang fully formed from Thor’s brow and landed in New England?[minirant OFF]
In the United States we’ve got Irish-Americans, African Americans, German-Americans, Polish-Americans, Slavic-Americans, Korean-Americans, Chinese-Americans, Anglo-Americans, Japanese-Americans, Mexican-Americans, and many other -Americans.
I never heard a native of Germany identify themselves as French-German or Anglo-German. I wonder if Irish people look at Irish-Americans and say “You’re American not Irish.”
We’re a nation of immigrants because the vast majority of the population can trace their ancestry directly to one or more foreign nations or geographic locations. Anyone who has a problem with that phrase because most of us aren’t really immigrants is picking nits and splitting hairs like Monstro said. Does anyone stay awake at night worried about whether or not we’re literally a nation of immigrants?
Marc
Well, America has had a pretty smooth immigration level for all of its history. I suppose you could say there were certain times when it weighed more heavily on the American mind than others.
According to the Census Bureau “Historical Census Statistics on the Foreign Born Population of the United States; 1850-1990”
http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0029/twps0029.html
In 1990, approximately 8% of the population was foreign born (immigrants or resident aliens). Going back to the turn of the last century , between 1890 and 1930 the percentage varied between 11 and 15% - one in ten to one in six of the people in the US were born outside of the US. (Locally of course, the proportion could be much higher - up to 40 or even 50% of the population)
However, if one adds in those with foreign born parents, the number jumps to about 35% for that same period. So, over one third of the population had very close ties to the “old country”.
Now, the OP will cleverly note that even using my far looser definition the numbers fall well short of his 51% definition of “immigrant nation”. Though compared to most countries* I would be willing to bet that is a very high number. What is the comparable percentages for Sweden? Japan? India?
There have pretty much always been enough immigrants that they mattered, both socially, culturally, and electorally, that defines us as an “immigrant nation”, rather than simply the native born population being swamped by furriners (though Native Americans might disagree)
- I realize that there are other “settler states” which probably also have had relatively high immigration at times, Australia, Canada, Argentina all spring to mind.