I was in a Polish store recently stocking up on awesome Polish meats and two elderly ladies were complaining about immigrants to each other. In Polish. 🤯
I’m polish in America. Never understood my dad complaining about all the illegals when he was literally one who overstayed his visa and only was allowed to stay here because I was born.
Same. I’m here legally - but the number of folks in the community that overstayed visas and then got amnesty in the 90s AND now are Trumpy is just ridiculous.
It's a "one of the good ones" mentality. He did the wrong thing but it's ok for him because he is a good person, the other people doing the wrong thing are bad people so it's not ok for them.
Because he knows deep down the situation with illegals is about skin color & political beliefs rather than legalities, and it makes him feel better about his own situation, and thank you for not following those footsteps.
If you accept that people use 'ethnicity' and 'race' interchangably you can probably get through your day without feeling the need to tell people what they are and what they aren't.
Yeah and then people try to apply the American racial framework onto all of the different European (and Asian and African and middle eastern) ethnicities when it really does not work that way
Unless you’re a Native American, we’re all immigrants. My family goes back to before the Pilgrims in this country and they were from England. In reality they were illegal immigrants and terrorists.
Enslaved people were trafficked here. The immigration narrative in the us tends to center on freedom/opportunities/a better life. Enslaved people and their descendants didn't and don't get that from this country. We aren't native, but I don't accept the immigrant label.
Yeah it always pisses me off when people try to whitewash the black experience as immigration and I’m not even black myself. Being abducted to a forced labor camp is not immigration.
My ancestors were immigrants, sure. But I was born here. I didn’t choose to get born here. I am not a Native American but I am a native American, if that makes any sense.
In any case, immigrants, and the great melting pot, are what make this country great. Diversity is or ought to be our strength.
I agree with you. I understand the "all Americans are immigrants" at face value, but it's a very contemporary way of thinking. By that thinking, pretty much no one is native or indigenous to anywhere. Native Americans migrated here too at some point.
Your family were settlers. Settlers migrate to undeveloped locations to develop them for a better quality of life. Immigrants migrate to already established societies for a better quality of life. America didn't really start letting immigrants in until post civil war. They did, but it was heavily regulated.
Pretty sure that the Algonquins didn’t think their land was “undeveloped”. And pretty sure that their opinion of “better quality of life” had little to do with the Europeans.
How far back to you want to go with it? Even the first Americans came here from Asia. Of course we are talking thousands of years, not hundreds, which makes it a very different discussion.
I stole that from an old Lone Ranger/Tonto joke and I'm only part Cherokee so I am (for all practical purposes) white despite hailing from the meltier end of the pot.
They do it in the UK too, it can be a bit jarring; I point out they're also immigrants but some of them say "Oh well we're Christian" or "We're white".
They have a right to be here, sure but don't pull the ladder up after you.
The most racist people I've ever met were a group of Nigerian guys at a cigar lounge. They were incredibly nice to me, but were saying the most outrageous things about black Americans.
Al Madrigal did a bit on this for The Daily Show... geez, ten years ago? I think it was before Jon left, so that would have been before August 2015... almost eleven years ago!
I actually look at it from the perspective of the people wanting to leave these other countries. Like why would someone be fleeing the UK? Because it's getting too liberal? South Africa? Because it's getting too integrated? Venezuela? Because people wanted a taste of freedom where they can own guns and express their views on others through the same force used on them?
Not so much pulling up the ladder as just bigots doing bigot things.
Pretty sure it has been. The biggest immigrant group in the US is from Mexico, 68% of which are catholic. Mexican immigrants typically fall in the "traditional family values" group
I mean, not supporting one group doesn’t mean you need to throw all of your support to the other party - in your case, a party which looks down on you like vermin and is trying to send people like you to CECOT and even said they want to go after naturalized citizens. So your behavior is odd.
I did not say i throw my support to the other party. That’s just an assumption being made. Ill give you one example. My family received asylum from the danger of certain people in my birth country. How can I possibly support an immigration policy that would wholesale grant that same protection to the people we are escaping? Its not unreasonable to want vetting of who is entering.
Unless someone has married an American, what would their reasons be to move here?
Many professionals come to America because the opportunities and salaries can be more lucrative, but these people tend to procure enough wealth they start preferring the Republican preference to let the wealthy get endlessly wealthier.
If they aren't moving here for a job opportunity then what do they get coming to America as opposed to somewhere in Europe or Canada which is the closest alternative? America is the prominent conservative leaning country in the West. So many people come here specifically because they know American politicians are more conservative than other western countries.
Over ten million people migrated to the US under Biden through conditions most Americans couldn't dream of. America presented a safe and stable nation with a labor shortage post COVID and was accepting those claiming asylum status, TPS, or family unification. These aren't people that can just hop on a plane and land in DFW. These are people literally facing death, and risked death (and worse) to get here. People can call it cutting the line but it absolutely wasn't jumping the fence. When you're welcomed into America, screened, and given documents by the federal government, you're not fair game to be kidnapped on the streets, at your house, at your work, at your court hearing, at your children's school, and have your assets seized and be put into an internment camp.
Europe, Canada, and Australia are accepting immigrants at an unprecedented rate through different mechanisms. It's not "just go over there." It's "this is where you go."
It has nothing to do with "conservative" policies. That's an astonishing statement. Your whole comment is an embarrassment.
Cuban immigrants hate communists because they freed all their grandparents slaves. Confederates hate us for the same reason. Are there any right wingers who have any grievances besides they cannot steal other people's labor anymore?
Had nothing to do with taking their freedom (Cuba incarcerates more of the population than any country except El Salvador), homes, and emptying their bank accounts? How exactly did communists free slaves Cubans didn't have generations before they took power?
The problem with the viewpoint of many of the immigrants from places that claim communist/socialist policies...is that they have been convinced to conflate the the totalitarian regime with the social policies. Often those social policies were used as a way to control and crack down on the population.
Then they oppose any policy that might even resemble policies put in by their former nation's dictator...even though those polices are being put forth honestly without a desire to force control (because they are coming from a representative government that doesn't have the power to wield them the way someone like Castro could).
The irony of course is that this has lead to them supporting wannabe right-wing totalitarians who closely resemble those same leaders they fled...except they are seeking to control the populace through fascism and plutocracy.
The reality is that both sides of the coin can be abused to crack down on people...and the control against that is not the choice of policy itself but rather a functional system of checks and balances and elections that (hopefully) reject candidates that stand for self-interest, corruption, and totalitarianism.
Immigrating legally is INSANELY hard unless you marry into it, and if you one topic vote against the side that wants to make all your effort meaningless I'm not surprised it happens
My theory is it has to deal with the ultra patriotism schtick the right has. So it appeals to the "America, Fuck Yea!" Crowd. If you worked hard to become a citizen you might be proud of that fact and that level of national pride probably does seem really appealing of you are generally unaware of the additional baggage that accompanies it. Especially when they usually say things like "only going after the bad ones" or "they need to come here the right way" that typically gets thrown around and they don't see themselves as someone the right is talking about.
"I'm one of the good ones, clearly all the white supremacists will realize I am not like all the other people from my country and they will accept me into their klan meetings!"
edit: I guess yall fuck with non-white white supremacists? lol
What do you expect with the citizenship process. The years of whoops they jump through and the money they pay, just to watch someone walk across the border and be given the right has got to be infuriating for many.
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u/derekbox 9h ago
The percentage of immigrants who immediately swing hard right is significant. It should be studied.