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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.
So, your coworker. She was born in the US, right? But not her parents. So counting her, and her parents, she's 1/3 people born here? And then adding her grandparents she's 1/7? And great-grandparents she's 1/15? Presumably she is not included in the "ourselves and our posterity" that opens our constitution, since all of her ancestors were on the other side of the world, speaking foreign languages in a godless jungle at the time. In what world is that person, in any way, an American? That's a man born in a barn, not a horse.
What about her children? Did she intermarry with an American, or did she marry another foreigner in order to have foreign children? As if I even have to ask. Those kids, assuming they're 3/3 through parents, they're still 3/7 in grandparents and 3/15 with great-grandparents?
I don't care how polite and law-abiding they are. I've got my own model Asian minorities (they're always Asian, almost like biology dictates impulse control) in my neighborhoods. They're still foreign, they still change the character of the nation, and they should still only be allowed in small number and not allowed to form ethnic enclaves. They certainly should not be used as a shield for the abominable minorities (africans, muslims, and african muslims, I can't believe we let them in, my grandchildren will be cleaning up this mess), or as some example to be followed rather than an aberration that worked out.
Fifteen years ago the argument was legal vs illegal immigration. Now it's American vs Foreigner, and the paper citizenship of the foreigners don't carry any weight. I do not care where these people were born. They are not American, they are not native, and they do not belong here. If they are gracious guests, they may be allowed to stay, but they are guests and may be removed.
This world. 14th Amendment, baby. You don’t get to pick one line from the Constitution and ignore the rest. Citizenship is more than a paper guest pass.
You can’t help but equivocate between counting ancestors and “character of the nation” bullshit. I think you’re just parroting any excuse you can find. There is no coherent threshold that keeps the people you like in America while driving out the nasty foreigners.
Maybe you’re far enough up your own ass to have your own Ariernachweis going back to 1788. Which of the 28,000 voters was your meal ticket? Who secured the blessing of liberty for you?
American culture is awesome. I don’t think you deserve it.
Aren't you a mod?
Leave the backseat moderation to heritage mottizens.
Amusingly, @LykovFamilyBand joined the Motte the same month you did. (S)he just has 4 comments to your 4700.
I'm not sure it really fit, but I couldn't resist the joke.
Of course. I was just amused by the massive discrepancy in posting - I originally assumed it was a new account.
I've been around since the old days; if I didn't care about opsec I would prove this. Yes, I am largely a lurker. My handle is taken from a story that I first learned about via my second-favorite Motte power-poster.
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