Posted on Aug 31, 2016
President Teddy Roosevelt made a very profound comment on immigration in the early 20th Century. Is it applicable, unabridged, to us today?
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I am an immigrant. My wife is an immigrant. We did it legally. We waited years to become naturalized American citizens. The flood of predominately European people in the late 19th and early 20th centuries gave rise to considerable attention to and control over immigration policies. Was Teddy's position right then, or is Teddy's position wrong today? This second meme is a caricature of his quote.
Posted in these groups: 
Immigration
Refugees
Immigration Refugees
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 20
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I am second generation on both sides. When my dad's family came here from Italy in the early 1900s they settled in New York. When my mother's family came here from Ireland in the late 1800s they moved West. My mom's family spoke, mostly, English. My dad's family spoke Italian. When his family got here his grandpa wouldn't allow Italian spoken in the house because he wanted everyone to speak and understand English so they could be successful here. Neither side surrendered their heritage but they worked to become Americans. My family is proud to have Irish and Italian ancestry but we are Americans first and foremost. We don't hyphenate. All of my grandparents were proud of the struggle their parents made to come here and make a new and better life for their families. I think that pride is being lost.
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CPO Gregory Smith
My grandfather was the same way. He said "you don't need no to speak Italian, you're American". Different mindset.
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SFC (Join to see)
CPO Gregory Smith - The only Italian I learned from my grandparents was how to swear. For some reason they always reverted back when they were pissed.
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CPO Gregory Smith
Happens a lot with folks that aren't native English speakers. That's how we knew we were in real trouble. Good memories.
I'm a hiring manager for a multi-national company. We have the same issue. When people get nervous or in a high pressure situation, English goes out the window.
I'm a hiring manager for a multi-national company. We have the same issue. When people get nervous or in a high pressure situation, English goes out the window.
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I really think family timing on immigration is irrelevant, as is all this genetic roots nonsense. The commercials for the service where you send in a sample and they tell you where you come from is illustrative. He's German, no wait he's Scottish. Really what he's trying to do is to find some sort of "specialness" based on culture. Other people in ads for the same service are using the service to make themselves special because of their ethnicity or race.
My mother was a legal immigrant to the US from Mexico. My Fathers side is all European and arrived here sometime between the 1840's and 1910, both sides had its detractors that fought our assimilation into American culture. So what? I am not Mexican, I am not Irish, German, Scottish, European. I am American.
What that means is I prefer music with predominantly Afro-Caribbean roots. I prefer to eat Hunan style Chinese, Italian,and BBQ. I follow traditional protestant European Christian religious traditions. I think nothing is as beautiful as a beautiful redhead, regardless of her skin color. My wife and I decorate our home in a style we call Texas cattle robber Baron meets British Major General. Our yard s landscaped in a style we call Irish Country Cottage. According to my dictionary, that makes me an American.
But maybe I am just a serial culture-appropriating jerk. Maybe that makes me an American more than anything else.
My mother was a legal immigrant to the US from Mexico. My Fathers side is all European and arrived here sometime between the 1840's and 1910, both sides had its detractors that fought our assimilation into American culture. So what? I am not Mexican, I am not Irish, German, Scottish, European. I am American.
What that means is I prefer music with predominantly Afro-Caribbean roots. I prefer to eat Hunan style Chinese, Italian,and BBQ. I follow traditional protestant European Christian religious traditions. I think nothing is as beautiful as a beautiful redhead, regardless of her skin color. My wife and I decorate our home in a style we call Texas cattle robber Baron meets British Major General. Our yard s landscaped in a style we call Irish Country Cottage. According to my dictionary, that makes me an American.
But maybe I am just a serial culture-appropriating jerk. Maybe that makes me an American more than anything else.
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SSG (Join to see)
Here's a conclusion I've recently arrived at, and feel free to share if you agree with me or not. Being American isn't an ethnicity, it's a nationality. Any individual can do enough research and find some branch of their family tree with roots in a different country. That's to be expected with a relatively young country; we haven't existed long enough to establish our own genetic or ethnic identity. That would truly be the "melting pot" concept, where all the ingredients add to the flavor of the whole, but cannot be distinguished from it. Instead, America is like a really good salad; every ingredient compliments the others and lends itself to the whole, while still retaining its own unique flavor.
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Maj John Bell
SSG (Join to see) - I love your salad analogy. Take away any one of the elements of that perfect salad, and it just isn't satisfying anymore.
Not to long ago, I read a piece on race by a geneticist. He says that race is a complete construct with no real genetic basis. There are only temporary manifestations of species adaptation to environmental forces and cultural perceptions of beauty. You could take any viable breeding population and given enough generations, replicate any "race".
Given the increasingly global mobility of the world populace, and the growing acceptance of "inter-racial" and "inter-cultural" marriage, he expects that those temporary manifestations will disappear over the next 25-50 generations.
Then what will we choose to hate each other for? I vote for length of the second toe. :)
Not to long ago, I read a piece on race by a geneticist. He says that race is a complete construct with no real genetic basis. There are only temporary manifestations of species adaptation to environmental forces and cultural perceptions of beauty. You could take any viable breeding population and given enough generations, replicate any "race".
Given the increasingly global mobility of the world populace, and the growing acceptance of "inter-racial" and "inter-cultural" marriage, he expects that those temporary manifestations will disappear over the next 25-50 generations.
Then what will we choose to hate each other for? I vote for length of the second toe. :)
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SN Greg Wright
Maj John Bell - This is why I laugh at white supremacists. 'Hey, buddy, go get your dna checked, then tell me how supreme you are.'
Every person on earth has African DNA.
Every person on earth has African DNA.
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