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I would like to spotlight this comment by @urquan in last week's thread because it touches upon something that I feel warrants it's own discussion seperate from all of the drama surrounding the death of Renee Good. Specifically this line here...
Over the years I have often heard cosmopolitan liberals express a sentiment to the effect "the United States has no culture". I used to find this deeply frustrating, and even as a teenager it seemed obvious to me that there were clear cultural distinctions between the East Coast and West Coast, North and South, never mind between the US and UK or the US and France. We have an entire host of uniquely American, myths, stories, heroes, sports, holidays, figures of speech, etc... How could anyone be so blind as to think that the United States has no culture? It was as I got older that I came to understand that what they really meant was something more like "the United States has no culture worthy of consideration". The more I think about it, the more I think it is this distinction that the modern culture war is really being fought over.
In the blue corner we have liberals and post-modernists who seem to view the idea of nationalism and a national identity as something distinct from one's political, racial, and sexual identity as either "fake and gay" or something to be deconstructed and dismantled. To the extent that the existence of a distinct American national identity is acknowledged, it is as something to feel embarrassed about and apologize for.
...and in the red corner we have this guy. Yes I am aware the commercial itself is for an electric car, but let's be real, its a Cadillac, and I think we all know who that character would have voted for in 2024.
This ties into the rest of @urquan's post and what I see as the core appeal of Trump. I think that a large part of the reason that Trump evinces such strong reactions, both positive and negative, is that he gives off this vibe of being quintessentially capital-A AMERICAN in a way that I don't think any US President really has since the Cold War.
I have been accused of "trolling" and "rage-baiting" by users here for quoting Teddy Roosevelt's "Hyphenated-American" speech, but its something I stand by, and that I feel bears repeating.
It is that sense of one's real heart-allegiance that I feel is sorely missing from much of the modern immigration debate.
I largely agree with your points, and think integration is important. But also, living in the Twin Cities and watching how ICE is harassing a lot of our Hmong neighbors (my wife’s native-born coworker’s native-born children were detained) underscores just how stupid and racist the kind of Trump supporters that would seek to move through the get-50-days-of-training-and-join-ICE-on-street-rips-in-Minnesota are.
The Hmong fought with us in Vietnam and there was some danger posed to them after our withdrawal. Many got refugee status, but did so decades ago. A bunch settled here in Minnesota. A few are still anamist, but most have converted to Christianity. They like hunting and fishing. The growth of the local Hmong middle class has resulted in more Minnesotans, unhyphenated, owning bass boats. We’re on the third and fourth generations born here in the States. The previous generation owned pho and bahn mi restaurants. The current attend the U of M and have middle class corporate jobs.
There is no significant ongoing illegal immigration issue related to our Hmong community. But the ICE agents being bussed in to our metro from red tribe America genuinely have zero conception of any of this. If they’re at all representative of MAGA, I promise you they also believe in hyphenated Americans.
What were your "wife’s native-born coworker’s native-born children" doing when they were detained? Because in most of the cases I have seen where a US citizen is detained it's because they try to interfere with the arrest of someone else. Statistically only like .5% of people ICE detained this year were US Citizens, so it's not impossible that a mistake was made. But the framing that ICE is just arresting brown people and sorting them out later doesn't seem to hold up to data.
Went to Home Depot for some drywall. Have you even seen any Hmong involved in the protests, here? These aren’t postmodern woke progressives. Both of my wife’s kids coworkers were released the next morning. But still, it’s all exceedingly un-intelligent.
No, Hmong tend to be salt-of-the-earth people. But kids, especially college-aged kids, can get swept up in things even when they know better.
From what I can tell, their experience is not representative of ICE's activities. I am sorry they had a rough experience. I would like experiences like that minimized, but there are a certain number of false positives that will happen when enforcing any law and I would rather have those false positives than no law enforcement. I would say the same if it was myself caught in a sweep.
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