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It's hard not to point at the God Shaped Hole in Yglesias' specific argument here.
When people point to the immigration "success" of Italians, Irish, Poles, Germans, Scandinavians, and Mexican and Central Americans of yesteryear, it's hard not to see the Pope in the background doing the Jeremiah Johnson nod of approval. Even for non-catholic groups, they were still Christian. That basic scaffolding is doing a lot of work; perhaps fueled by lasagna, I can't say.
@CrispyFriedBarnacles brings up the history of Jews in America below, and I think that's a really good argument against what Yglesias is trying to say here. Some Jews in America have fully assimilated. But there are dozens of communities that have not only no assimilated, they actively resist American ways of life to an extent that, I believe, is probably unconstitutional. How is Kiryas Joel, NY don't constantly fighting equal protection and/or discrimination cases?
I think it's harder to assimilate now because people are showing up with basic values structures that are either vastly different than even the most modernized (not progressive) pop culture American values or, more commonly, without a functional values system at all. If a new immigrant has the basic concept of "be a responsible member of the community" in place, the local society can gently pressure him or her to refine those to whatever particular style they want. But if people are showing up with nothing beyond "maximize personal utility" we're then in a situation of literally importing millions of game-theory defectors and free-riders.
I've seen some talking points from both left and right along the lines of "immigrants work so much harder! They take all the crappy jobs and they live jammed on top of each other!" Yeah, well, I don't want to be part of a society that has a median tending towards crappy jobs and over-code cohabitation. I like the idea of upskilling and of throwing automation efforts at the really dangerous jobs. I like the idea of a couple being able to afford their own - modest - home before they're 30 years old. People like to sneer at the white underclass because they're getting outcompeted by recent immigrants. To the extent that this is true (limited) it is only because a race to the bottom is happening and the undercutting of wages has led to a class level decline in standard of living.
I think you substantially underestimate the intensity of Anti-Catholicism in 19th century Protestant nations. Nowadays the Protestant-Catholic conflict is pretty much dead outside of a couple of marginal weirdos, but that wasn't true 150 years ago. It obviously wasn't as spicy as it was in, say, the 17th century, but Anglo Protestants were liable to view Catholicism as backwards and politically threatening.
Also, uh, there's presently an incredible amount of animosity directed towards overwhelmingly Catholic Latino immigrants.
I think the claim that contemporary immigrants are not assimilating is not really in evidence and (to the extent it's not just a gloss on general nativism) rests on an incorrect view of historical assimilation as being far less contentious amongst natives than it actually was. Intermarriage rates are high, language uptake is faster than ever, etc... I strongly suspect that most of the angst over immigrants not assimilating is not actually based on immigrants failing to assimilate but a) fearmongering from the subset of anti-immigrant types who really do just hate immigrants b) more importantly, proxy concerns over domestic culture wars. Like, Indian and Chinese immigrants assimilate superbly, but they mostly assimilate to the Blue Tribe.
The claim that many immigrants don't have a values system at all strikes me as absolutely wild - where are these deracinated sociopaths coming from?
People like to sneer at the white underclass for a lot of reasons, most of which have nothing to do with immigration, but with respect to immigration they get sneered at because they've opted to use immigrants as a scapegoat for their own problems.
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Is that his Mexican alter-ego?
Ha. Fixed, and thank you.
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This is not unique to them; there are FLDS owned towns that just blatantly violate the law all the time.
Sure but one is in the worst land in the lower 48, very hot, less than a foot of rain per year and a population density that doesn't even round to 1 person per square mile while the other is within the biggest metro area in the nation.
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I agree with most of your comment, but this:
is kind of a funny framing, given that America was a mostly Protestant nation that begrudgingly accepted Roman Catholics. It would have been more accurate to say, “Even for non-Protestant groups, they were still Christian,” though not all Protestants would have accepted that designation.
I'm a wannabe TradCath, so the bias is there.
But more to the point, I suppose I meant this in a "they were still culturally Christian" sense. Yes, protestant American wasn't thrilled with the initial influx of Catholics and, in some cases, were quite openly hostile to them.
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