4 ms·
>Anecdotal example: In Brazil, you don't see people claiming they are Irish when their families have lived in the US for generations. That is actually the key
by rhino369 11y ago
>Anecdotal example: In Brazil, you don't see people claiming they are Irish when their families have lived in the US for generations.
That is actually the key to Americas success. The total separation of ethnicity and national identity. It allows an immigrant to keep their ethnic identity and merely add an American one.
It's also helps when a white 5th generation american thinks they are Irish and American. They'll be less likely to believe that a newly arrived Mexican isn't really American. They intuitively know you can be both.
- vinceguidry 11y agoThat is something we inherited from the British. You can be British and any ethnicity. The US just took that idea and rolled with it. America's success results largely from its geography. Being isolated from Europe by a large ocean and having the mighty Mississippi river system to build an agricultural powerhouse from made it pretty much inevitable.
- fortes 11y agoI disagree completely, I think that type of attitude leads to the notion of "Real" Americans. Keeping the ethnic identity is the opposite of the melting pot. In Brazil, you're just Brazilian, regardless of color.
- apalmer 11y agoBrazil has a pretty significant and open classism via race issue. Not sure we should hold them up as a superior melting pot...
- umanwizard 11y ago100% of the Brazilians I have met (I'm in the US) are middle class and above. Also, as if by magic, 100% of them appear white (or mostly white), despite non-whites making up a large fraction of Brazil's population. It's absurd to act like everything is great for racial minorities in Brazil.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- rpgmaker 11y agoExcept that Brazil is known to be pretty racist, even by Latin American standards. There is, somewhat surprisingly, a lot of racism in Latin America.