Comments on: Standing With Carroll’s Old German Paper On Modern-Day Immigration

By: DWunschel

DWunschel — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 18:12:40 +0000

a little misleading You are right; many of the European immigrants to the US at that time did enter in accordance with laws, or at least through a processing. They had no choice, when you got off the ship at Ellis Island. There was a screening and even a quarantine period for public health reasons. Remember this was the era before antibiotics and even before modern "germ theory" was accepted about the cause of infectious disease. So that was the standard practice. Comparing illegal immigrants of today with the immigrants of that era misses the point. The article is correct; there was a backlash against each wave of immigrants, largely xenophobic in nature. My own family did speak German almost exclusively and remained in close knit farming communities. That wasn't so different from similar waves of Irish, Italian and Chinese immigrants as well. The term "China Town" is part of our lexicon today for that reason. For our family, it was my Grandparent's generation that decided their children would be taught only English after their experience during WWI. However any backlash against new waves of immigrants of the nineteenth century was not about whether they entered the country legally or not - immigrants had little choice but to get processed when they arrived. That was well understood. Clearly, animosity wasn't over HOW they arrived, simply that they DID arrive and were different.

To say that today's national cry to eliminate illegal immigration is simply another racist and xenophobic reaction only turns a deaf ear to the real focus on the ILLEGAL aspect. Yes there are loud voices that want to eliminate all immigration. Unfortunately there are also too many examples of people who pursue a rhetoric of stopping all immigration, period. Fortunately they are not representative of even most conservatives, let alone most Americans. The vast majority do see that the economy benefits from foreign labor, but the backlash today is overwhelmingly on the legal status of those arriving here. Those who are racist or xenophobic are not the central element of those who are focused on correcting the problems created by Illegal immigration. To simply mesh a racist dislike for anyone foreign with a genuine concern for the social ills that illegal immigration creates (for both the immigrant and the host country) is sadly misleading. A focus only on pursuing a legal status for those here illegally turns a blind eye on history. The problem will recreate itself with new people arrive illegally if the draw of employment of illegal immigrants is not also addressed in parallel. Most of us are old enough not to have to rely on a history book to know that, it's only been 20 years after the last try at amnesty.

By: adabell

adabell — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 17:32:08 +0000

German versus modern day immigration I was unaware that German immigrants similarly chose to preserve their German culture rather then assimilating to the American culture. If this is true, you have educated me, since I find very little similarity to immigration in our history to that of the Latino immigration today.

In fact, I thought the immigrants came in accordance to our laws of the time, were detained on entry for health reasons, and had no social services or welfare offered to them. I thought they adapted to English and would never have guessed that they waved German flags, and displayed German flags at their places of business. The second president of the United States, John Adams was quoted as saying, "Give up your language and culture and join us." I thought that is what immigrants did in the past.

Amnesty has been tried twice, each time was supposed to be a one time event. The result was more illegal immigration. People all over the world are on waiting lists to immigrate into this country. John F Kennedy introduced an immigration plan that was intended to be fair to all cultures and countries and people waiting to immigrate. No more then 10% of the total immigration from any one country. Eight percent of our immigrants was to come from Mexico because they accounted for 8% of the worlds population. To immigrate to this country unlawfully is unfair to all those around the world who are on waiting lists to immigrate legally. It is that simple. Amnesty encourages disregard for our immigration laws.

By: adabell

adabell — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

German versus modern day immigration I was unaware that German immigrants similarly chose to preserve their German culture rather then assimilating to the American culture. If this is true, you have educated me, since I find very little similarity to immigration in our history to that of the Latino immigration today.
In fact, I thought the immigrants came in accordance to our laws of the time, were detained on entry for health reasons, and had no social services or welfare offered to them. I thought they adapted to English and would never have guessed that they waved German flags, and displayed German flags at their places of business. The second president of the United States, John Adams was quoted as saying, “Give up your language and culture and join us.” I thought that is what immigrants did in the past.
Amnesty has been tried twice, each time was supposed to be a one time event. The result was more illegal immigration. People all over the world are on waiting lists to immigrate into this country. John F Kennedy introduced an immigration plan that was intended to be fair to all cultures and countries and people waiting to immigrate. No more then 10% of the total immigration from any one country. Eight percent of our immigrants was to come from Mexico because they accounted for 8% of the worlds population. To immigrate to this country unlawfully is unfair to all those around the world who are on waiting lists to immigrate legally. It is that simple. Amnesty encourages disregard for our immigration laws.

By: DWunschel

DWunschel — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

a little misleading You are right; many of the European immigrants to the US at that time did enter in accordance with laws, or at least through a processing. They had no choice, when you got off the ship at Ellis Island. There was a screening and even a quarantine period for public health reasons. Remember this was the era before antibiotics and even before modern “germ theory” was accepted about the cause of infectious disease. So that was the standard practice. Comparing illegal immigrants of today with the immigrants of that era misses the point. The article is correct; there was a backlash against each wave of immigrants, largely xenophobic in nature. My own family did speak German almost exclusively and remained in close knit farming communities. That wasn’t so different from similar waves of Irish, Italian and Chinese immigrants as well. The term “China Town” is part of our lexicon today for that reason. For our family, it was my Grandparent’s generation that decided their children would be taught only English after their experience during WWI. However any backlash against new waves of immigrants of the nineteenth century was not about whether they entered the country legally or not – immigrants had little choice but to get processed when they arrived. That was well understood. Clearly, animosity wasn’t over HOW they arrived, simply that they DID arrive and were different.

To say that today’s national cry to eliminate illegal immigration is simply another racist and xenophobic reaction only turns a deaf ear to the real focus on the ILLEGAL aspect. Yes there are loud voices that want to eliminate all immigration. Unfortunately there are also too many examples of people who pursue a rhetoric of stopping all immigration, period. Fortunately they are not representative of even most conservatives, let alone most Americans. The vast majority do see that the economy benefits from foreign labor, but the backlash today is overwhelmingly on the legal status of those arriving here. Those who are racist or xenophobic are not the central element of those who are focused on correcting the problems created by Illegal immigration. To simply mesh a racist dislike for anyone foreign with a genuine concern for the social ills that illegal immigration creates (for both the immigrant and the host country) is sadly misleading. A focus only on pursuing a legal status for those here illegally turns a blind eye on history. The problem will recreate itself with new people arrive illegally if the draw of employment of illegal immigrants is not also addressed in parallel. Most of us are old enough not to have to rely on a history book to know that, it’s only been 20 years after the last try at amnesty.