Submitted 8 months ago by Patnou@lemmy.world to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
The Statue of Liberty wasn't something commissioned by the USA. It was just how one French guy saw us. The New Colossus is not law, it's a poem.
We've never really been proud of immigration. The only President with a reasonable take on immigrants was Teddy Roosevelt - and his belief was that the only path forward is full assimilation.
Blaming immigrants is classic political trope.
Right along with blaming the poor.
Even when the nation was welcoming immigrants, handing them a weapon, and shoving them to the front line. They were being denigrated and demonized by other Americans.
See the 1947 US Army video: “Don’t be a Sucker”:
archive.org/details/DontBeaS1947
It’s always been a hypocritical ideal. Even the US Army acknowledged our xenophobic tendencies, and the constant struggle against them. That’s the point.
…But I think the radical shift of the “attention economy” is what makes it feel like the ideal is finally collapsing. The population is sucked into doomscrolling Fox News (for example) at such scale that makes this US Army video feel quant. If they did the same thing today, no one would even notice.
Anti-immigrant sentiment in the US has been a thing for hundreds of years. Consider watching Scorcese’s “Gangs of New York” for a (fictionally dramatized) depiction of it in times past.
As for why mass deportations are possible today - - until the late 1800s, immigration to the US was essentially unregulated. The Chinese Exclusion Act and later systems of quotas and literacy tests introduced around the turn of the 20th century instituted the first national immigration policies.
I frankly don’t find it unfair or unreasonable that the US government’s executive branch has chosen to enforce existing immigration laws for political gain. Americans should change their immigration laws if they get upset when they’re actually enforced. If anything, the executive branch was utterly failing to enforce laws that representatives had placed and kept on the books for a long time. If you want more immigrants, make it easy and legal to receive more immigrants without tests, long wait periods, or country of origin quotas.
You don’t care that this administration is using immigration law to drive a wedge in society and needlessly ruin people’s lives?
You think it is fair and reasonable because the law as written was not universally enforced according to X interpretation?
If the government decides to apply some random law that was never enforced in that way before to ruin your life to get extra votes than that is just okay. Sounds pretty corrupt to me.
Perhaps you misspoke, or perhaps your just some lawful evil motherfucker.
The Unites States was founded by religious extremists who were pressured to leave their community because of their extremist Christian beleifs.
Until we force wealth equality people in the US will not be equal.
People hated immigrants DURING the time period you’re thinking of. And it wasn’t always a skin color thing either, the Irish were one of the big targets for a long time.
The concept of the white “race” was created by the acceptance of new nationalities into the fold in America and then dividing “us vs them” in a new way.
It’s much the same way that we now have “Judeo-Christianity” so that we can draw the line between white people religion and everyone else.
And it wasn’t always a skin color thing either, the Irish were one of the big targets for a long time.
Irish and Italians were not considered white, so … it’s still a “where is the migration from” kinda thing
There was a reason businesses would put a sign out front that said “NINA”. No Irish Need Apply.
Italians were also targeted. Being from a Catholic country was sometimes enough to get targeted. Always found it funny (Woody Allen marriage funny, not Woody Allen film funny) that the Protestants who came to what is now Massachusetts seeking “religious freedom” meant it only for themselves and drove out anyone who didn’t subscribe to their views.
You need to put it in context, many if not most of the denominations that came to America seeking religious freedom did so because continental Christians considered them extremists. So yes, they were seeking it only for themselves.
It was always racism at it’s core.
European immigrants accepted immigrants as long as they were other European immigrants. At the same time they were encouraging immigrants, they were systematically eliminating the original inhabitants or forcing them to assimilate to European culture.
It’s always been a variation of white nationalism … they don’t mind the world becoming more open and inclusive … as long as it only includes other white European people and cultures.
European immigrants accepted immigrants as long as they were other European immigrants.
This is just not the case. Read again
The term “black Irish” didn’t come from nowhere
That’s a term? What’s it mean, besides identifying someone as black and Irish? O.o
Within a single generation. My grandfather showed up here at 11 from Romania. Never became a US citizen. His son, my father, is a rabid anti-immigrant racist Fox News fan boy. It's disgusting. Ironically my mother's great-great grandmother lost her birthright citizenship by marrying a Finnish immigrant before the 14th amendment existed and had to reapply for her own citizenship along with her husband because women's status was tied to the male head of household at the time, and now he rants about how birthright citizenship is wrong, despite being the exact person who benefits from it.
His son, my father, is a rabid anti-immigrant racist Fox News fan boy.
Ding!
Ask not for whom the right-wing propaganda tolls, rest-of-the-world, it tolls for thee
Because immigrants don’t participate in politics. They are too busy to do actual work that creates value for the country instead of voting or being social butterflies and running champions.
Mostly personal opinion incoming, with a few facts mixed in: I think the message on the Statue of Liberty was what the best of us at the time wanted the majority of us to be. I’m not sure we ever were.
First we get the Puritans, wiping out Native Americans, and trying to push their religion on everyone.
Then you get the slave trade, which is not immigration, but a large influx of a new population regardless, that was suddenly a problem for some when those people were free and citizens.
Then you get the Ellis Island years. Immigrants would get here, get sucked into “the American dream” of capitalism (which can help only very specific people), then want to close the door behind them. That way none of the new, filthy immigrants from (insert ethnic/religious group of your choice) could get the same advantages. But everyone kept coming.
Now, in power due to the way everything got handled (badly) after our civil war, you have a combination of the religious right, who want christianity to continue to be number one, and the racists, who want to make sure their daughter doesn’t sleep with anyone who’s the wrong color. They were always here, festering in the background, but now they’ve gained power, and they’re louder than before.
The rest of us are still here, suffering, watching the country we were told was great reveal its ugliest population to everyone. I’m left wondering if we were ever a country who actually wanted immigrants. Or if it was merely aspirational.
Everything can be summarized in one Chinese idiom (成语):
过河拆桥
Aka: Crossing the river, then dismantle the bridge.
You’re already crossed it, why care about the bridge, you wont be using it anymore.
The Chinese have sort of lost their credibility on Politics and History, this last century.
I’m actually less inclined to listen to anything associated with them.
The only proverb I wanna hear out of China is “of the 36 stratagems, fleeing is best.”
Maybe you wanna hear this:
“上有政策，下有对策”
“When above has policy, below has countermeasures/resistance”;
“above” meaning the government from the north, aka Beijing, and “below” means the people in the south, far away from the reaches of Beijing and therefore its policies are harder to be enacted upon. (But the “above” and “below” could also be reference to social status, because the emperor is “above” and us “peasants” are “below”)
One of the best examples of this is the one child policy, anecdodally, my existence is from the direct violation of this policy. I don’t know the whole story my mother and I aren’t really on speaking terms these days, but she told me that she was supposed to get mandatory birth control (aka: sterilization) after giving birth to my older brother, but she lied to the authorities about it then she had another pregnancy (which was me), her hukou was in the village where she was born in, so she went into the city, and PRC isn’t actually that centralized btw, they delegated a lot of law enforcement to the local government and I think because either jurisdictional issues or because the city has too many people and its easier to blend in, and therefore harder to find people, the government never found her and so I was born. (My mom said they weren’t allowed to “terminate” me after my birth already happened) In the end, my parents only had to pay a fine, so I get to live. So that’s one example of people just disobeying the government. (Honestly, I’m not entirely sure if I enjoy being alive, my parents are kind shitty and abusive, I much rather be reincarnated in Norway or something, but… oh well… life doesn’t let you choose 🤷♂️)
Or you know, the “great firewall” policy and VPNs as countermeasures against censorship. (I’m living in the US right now, so their firewall doesn’t affect me lolz)
I love Chinese four letter aphorisms and I’m glad you shared this one but i dont think this really answers the when or the why 😛
Perhaps along with de-industrialization; as more labour is outsourced, less labour_ers_ are needed.
What and the conservative states trying to prosecute people in the Democrat states is 合久必分分？
What?
Nah, that phrase more accurately applies to US Civil War.
They pull up the ladder behind them
The US as a country does it to the rest of the world too, not just the immigrants.
So like burning your bridges in English? Although I guess that’s more for people. Maybe more like pulling up the ladder behind you.
The English version is "I got mine, fuck you."
Also applies to immigrant minorities who them vote conservative to keep other immigrants out.
I think how generally “burning bridges” is used refers to not leaving yourself a way out. However in this case we’re talking about not leaving others a way in.
Owner class wants cheap slaves... But they don't want to be blamed for it.
So they got Indigenous population to blame the slaves while they exploit both.
Indigenous Americans are just useful idiots fighting culture wars. They should know better but propaganda be good!
Here’s a wiki article about the topic, because it would be a bit much to list it all out in a lemmy comment: en.wikipedia.org/…/Nativism_in_United_States_poli…
As soon as they settled down and thought, now they have got something to loose.
When immigrants from the “wrong” country started applying.
What is the wrong country? What ever the media says it currently is.
Somewhere after the Great War. No idea why though.
There’s a great fictional movie called Gangs of New York that covers the real life anti immigration riots that happened in New York City during the civil war.
Daniel Day Lewis is so good in it
There have been resentments against different groups of immigrants even before, e.g. Italians, Irish, or Chinese.
HubertManne@piefed.social 8 months ago
Once we took everything from the natives fully to the west coast we stopped being keen on it.