> Southern and eastern European immigrants were looked down upon, mistreated and feared as the "others" by white anglo-saxon protestants a century ago, but by 1970 they are part of that 84% white population statistic that you quoted. They are one of us. Turns out there was nothing to be afraid of.

As an outside observer, it seems to me like the fears were borne out. Irish and Italian immigration got FDR elected, which ultimately resulted in seismic changes to the original constitutional design (rubber stamping of quasi constitutional administrative state, etc).

The culture of America also changed. It’s hard to visit NYC and not notice the strong Italian influence in the city. Depending on your taste you might think that’s a good thing or a bad thing. But I bet those 1910s New York WASPs would prefer New Amsterdam to New Sicily.

You have a point, interesting to think about. I assume that WASPs a century ago were saying things like "these immigrants will destroy our way of life, we have to stop them", as opposed to "they'll have a Little Italy neighborhood in NYC, and we can't allow that". Were their fears exaggerated? On purpose?

I don't hear many WASPs today complaining that their fears from a century ago came true, nor many who are bothered by Italians at the moment. To the contrary, Italians are now counted as caucasians in the statistics, and there are different out-groups that people blame now for the country's problems and are afraid of.

I'd say that WASPs have had to share more power, as opposed to being ousted from power. Changes in transportation, communication, and geopolitics may have led to the administrative state regardless. I don't think that WASPs are being treated worse than other groups. Maybe it's human nature for groups to not want to share, and that's a big part of the problem.

> assume that WASPs a century ago were saying things like "these immigrants will destroy our way of life, we have to stop them", as opposed to "they'll have a Little Italy neighborhood in NYC, and we can't allow that".

Southern Italian immigrants brought their culture to the entire city, and eventually to city administration. It wasn’t just the food. In terms of how people carry themselves, in terms of orderliness, etc., NYC is much more like a Mediterranean city than a British or Dutch city.

> I don't hear many WASPs today complaining that their fears from a century ago came true, nor many who are bothered by Italians at the moment.

All those people are dead, and the ones there currently have no other reference point.

> Maybe it's human nature for groups to not want to share, and that's a big part of the problem.

Why do they owe it to anyone else to share what they built?

> Why do they owe it to anyone else to share what they built?

I agree with you that there is a cultural component to this, and that opinions vary around that. There's also many factors influencing how a culture changes over time, and it's hard to avoid change. But there's also an economic component to immigration that should be part of the conversation.

The only non-controversial immigrants to the U.S. were the Native Americans, since they came here first. The Europeans who came next went on to import slaves to work plantations, enriching the south. They gave land to immigrants in the west, to secure it. They used immigrant labor in the north to industrialize, leapfrogging Britain and Germany to become the richest country in the world. Immigrants literally built NYC, the railroads, and other infrastructure like canals back in the day. Immigrants were brought over as indentured servants, then later as transport was cheaper they made their own way over, poor and desperate for work. More recently we've had Mexicans in cunstruction (up until 2009) and are still bringing in doctors and nurses to rural area.

I assume that one of the dynamics that has always been in play is that the rich like the cheap labor that immigration provides, and would prefer that the poor majority who eventually notice that they have to compete economically blame the immigrants for their problems, as opposed to blaming the rich who profited. This same thing has happened over and over in our history - the rich employ the immigrants, until the poor notice they are being screwed. Did you know that prior to the world wars there were no border checks for immigration? Passports prior to that time were for commerce only, not for people. Now it is the opposite. Money can move freely across international borders, and labor has become something to arbitrage. I predict that we'll have more immigrants as pleases those with money, perhaps to reduce inflation in service sector wages as boomers continue to retire by the millions and labor shortages continue to increase over the next decade or two. The alternative is what we have today - service sector wages increasing along with inflation.

The people making money off immigrants don't appear to care about the future of the culture, it appears they never have, not when they brought in slaves, not when they were industrializing, or building railroads, or houses, or picking strawberries. This is why I question the popular narrative on this topic. It's not just the rich who profit, the middle class enjoys lower prices, also. Is it fair to blame the immigrants? Why don't we talk about the economic component of this? Why don't we talk more about immigration checks at meat packing plants and farms and construction crews and motels?

I'm curious what you think about the economic component of this, and how important that is to talk about compared to the cultural component?

It’s not just the rich, but the average American who benefits from having an immigrant underclass. They enjoy cheaper food prices, more attentive and polite service in restaurants, etc. (Contrast Europe with its surly native born service workers.)

But I think focusing on the economics is short termism. I agree with Lee Kuan Yew (founder of modern Singapore) that “culture is destiny.” The most successful country in the history of the world, that’s the product of a singular British culture, should be really skeptical about importing huge populations of people from a different cultural background. Fundamental cultural dispositions, such as levels of social trust, are both important to national prosperity and extremely sticky over generations. See: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/just-like-home/

> It’s not just the rich, but the average American who benefits from having an immigrant underclass. They enjoy cheaper food prices, more attentive and polite service in restaurants, etc.

I agree. And I wonder if this is talked about enough.

> But I think focusing on the economics is short termism.

I'm inclined to say economics is the root cause of immigration, and should be talked about more.

Would everybody be in favor of decreasing immigration if they knew if might mean a 10-15% lower standard of living for all citizens? I assume the net effect would be more jobs for poor people, higher prices for everyone, and less profits for the rich. Would the richest ten percent allow that to happen?

We're already seeing some of that as we roll into another year of inflation, with service worker wages and food prices leading the way. Every year three million boomers are leaving the work force. Other countries are having big problems with the lack of young workers. Latino immigrants have been a boon to the U.S. in this regard the past couple of decades.

> The most successful country in the history of the world, that’s the product of a singular British culture, should be really skeptical about importing huge populations of people from a different cultural background

The U.S. has already imported huge populations from different cultural backgrounds, and prospered at the same time. We absorbed more immigrants, as a percentage of population, in the 19th century than we are now [0] (a bit more, for over 60 years, slavery goes back earlier than this reference shows).

Would the U.S. have replaced that singluar British culture as the most powerful nation on earth if it were not for immigrants? What if the U.S. as a new country wasn't making money exporting cotton? What if the civil war never happened? What if we took longer to settle the west and push out the Spanish? What if we didn't industrialize at the scale we did before the world wars?

> Fundamental cultural dispositions are extremely sticky over generations.

I grant this. We don't stay isolated in small homogeneous groups any more, we have national media and cheap international travel mixing us all together. We agreed that opinions vary as to whether this is a good thing or not. One could also wonder how much of the problem is the animosity that some people feel towards immigrants, as opposed to the immigrants themselves.

Gosh, as far as culture go, I'm more concerned that so many of our civic and social institutions that tied communities together, things like clubs, leagues, and third places, have deteriorated over the last 50 years, than I am about immigration.

In general I do share many of your concerns, to some extant, but am opposed to only talking about the cultural component of this, which we both agreed is a matter of opinion. Changing demographics, the geography of long borders with disparate neighbors and cheaper transportation may make much of this inevitable, not just in the U.S., given human nature, politics and economics. They are people like us. Can't just shoot them all, right? The world is a changing place, and we are along for the ride sometimes.

[0] https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/imm...