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Whenever I see Europeans railing about the destruction of their cultures by small number of immigrants, I want to point to California and be like “you’re doing
by bugglebeetle 3y ago
Whenever I see Europeans railing about the destruction of their cultures by small number of immigrants, I want to point to California and be like “you’re doing it wrong.” Pretty much within one generation, everyone here is bilingual, fully integrated, we all enjoy each others company, culture and food etc.
- adrianN 3y agoOften the people railing about that problem point out that in their country integration doesn’t work smoothly but politicians avoid addressing the problem.
- aa1234556 3y ago[dead]
- iaseiadit 3y agoCalifornia went from around 85% white European to 35% in roughly a generation (from 1960s to today). Statewide, only 20% of California students are white so their numbers will continue to decline for the foreseeable future. The US is a melting pot culture and people accept these changes, but there’s no reason that European cultures need to replicate this in their own countries.
- sin7 3y agoLies, damn lies and then this. 85% counts Hispanic people as white. The 35% does not. Ain't no way this is an innocent mistake. Hispanic people have always been a large portion of California.
- iaseiadit 3y agoNo, both numbers refer to non-Hispanic whites. The Hispanic population of California was 13.7% in 1970. 19% in 1980, 39% in 2020: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispanics_and_Latinos_in_California https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispanics_and_Latinos_in_Cal... And over 55% of students in CA public schools today: https://dq.cde.ca.gov/dataquest/dqcensus/enrethlevels.aspx?agglevel=District&year=2022-23&cds=1964733 https://dq.cde.ca.gov/dataquest/dqcensus/enrethlevels.aspx?a... The shift in demographics wasn't driven entirely by the increase in the Hispanic population, and in fact I didn’t mention Hispanic population at all. It also was in part driven by immigration from Asian countries. Not sure why you’re calling me a liar.
- sin7 3y agoI misread your comment. Sorry about that. I misread it because I think of a generation as twenty years and a lifetime as what you described. Sorry again.
- iaseiadit 3y agoAh, you’re right. It says online that a generation is 20-30 years so I was actually looking over 2-3 generations. Thanks for the correction.
- SpicyLemonZest 3y agoQuite a lot of Hispanic people who might have previously been counted as white no longer identify that way (https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-09-09/south-los-angeles-immigration-displacement-latinos-blacks-2020-census https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-09-09/south-los-a...).
- iaseiadit 3y agoThe article you linked to is about people who previously identified as “white Hispanic” now identifying as “other Hispanic.” But the numbers I provided are specifically for non-Hispanic whites, who never identified as Hispanic. The article is irrelevant to that demographic shift.
- TMWNN 3y ago>Hispanic people have always been a large portion of California. Not true. Whether Texas or California, the land that is now the American southwest was almost completely empty before the Mexican War; about 80,000 hispanos, or about 1% of Mexico's prewar population, mostly in New Mexico and southern Colorado. They were very, very isolated, living in "islands", and were already dependent on the US, not Mexico, for trade <http://web.archive.org/web/20070517113110/http://www.pbs.org/kera/usmexicanwar/war/borderlands_on_the_eve.html http://web.archive.org/web/20070517113110/http://www.pbs.org...>. The American takeover and attendant influx of settlers completely changed the region; by 1860 California alone had 380,000 people] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_California#Population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_California#Pop...> and was a US state. *85% of Mexican Americans today are from post-World War II immigration.* As late as 1970 <http://www.pewhispanic.org/2013/05/01/a-demographic-portrait-of-mexican-origin-hispanics-in-the-united-states/ http://www.pewhispanic.org/2013/05/01/a-demographic-portrait...> there were five million people of Mexican ethnicity in the US, including one million born in Mexico. Now there are 33.7 million and 11.4 million, respectively. The number of people of Mexican ethnicity has grown by ~16X in 75 years (from ~2 million in 1940), while the US population has grown by ~2.5X. Had the Mexican-ethnic population grown by the same rate as the broader US there would be 5 million today, not 33.7. History, even recent history, has been rewritten in peoples' minds by popular culture. Los Angeles's stupendous growth in the first half of the 20th century was driven almost entirely off of internal US migration. So many Iowans moved to LA that it was joked that southern California should be renamed "Caliowa". Almost everything we think of about the city, demographically speaking, is a post-1970 phenomenon. According to Census estimates <http://web.archive.org/web/20080912052919/https://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0076/twps0076.html http://web.archive.org/web/20080912052919/https://www.census...>, the city of Los Angeles was 7.1% Hispanic (almost all Mexican, of course) in 1940, and 15-17% in 1970. In 1990—let me repeat, two decades later—it was 39.9%. The non-Hispanic white population went from 86.3% in 1940, to 61-63% in 1970, to 37.3% in 1990. As of 2020 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles#Race_and_ethnicity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles#Race_and_ethnicity> the city is 46.9% Hispanic and 28.9% non-Hispanic white. "We didn't cross the border; the border crossed us" is only true for the aforementioned hispanos. If alien space bats had rotated the contiguous US 180 degrees in 1945, all other Mexican Americans would be living in Buffalo and Portland and Boston and Rochester and Detroit. Those cities would be known as the home of Cal-Mex and Tex-Mex cuisine, not LA and El Paso and Phoenix.
- femiagbabiaka 3y agoBelieving demographics is a zero sum game is uhh.. well let’s not invoke ~Conways~ Godwin’s law. Why do you think it’s a zero sum game?
- hot_gril 3y agoI can understand if Europe doesn't want to replicate this, but then they might have to fix their issue with birth rates.
- iaseiadit 3y agoYes, that’s an issue and it’s affecting countries all over the world. Sub-Saharan Africa and some Middle Eastern countries are pretty much the only places left with high fertility rates: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_fertility_rate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_f... But we may need to consider more solutions than simply using Africa and the Middle East as a breeding ground to populate the rest of the world?
- cmehdy 3y agoI think most Europeans agree we're doing it wrong, but we disagree as to where the solutions are. Generally left leaning parties will want to create support for immigrants through money, education, and some nebulous flexibility with repression. Right leaning parties will want strict adherence to the ideals of the Republic, more enforcement/repression when any transgression is observed, and some nebulous perfected criteria to "let people in" or not. For a decent amount of countries currently the right leaning ideology tends to be taking hold.
- thegrim33 3y agoHow many European countries can you list that have stricter immigration policies today than 20 or 30 or 50 years ago? I can't list a single one. How do you square this with your claim that right leaning ideology is "taking hold"? If anything the actual data points to massively loosened immigration laws and massively loosened penalties for choosing to evade immigration laws.
- hot_gril 3y agoThe right-leaning side is taking hold very recently, is what he probably means.
- slaw 3y agoI can't list a single right-leaning European country government.
- bugglebeetle 3y agoHungary, Poland?
- slaw 3y agoNeither government is right wing.
- financltravsty 3y agoIt's quite easy to integrate into a culture when the culture itself is relatively young, and by virtue, relatively shallow in comparison to older cultures. It also helps that most Americans are not direct, so we can all pretend to get along. Whereas in other cultures, like Dutch, Oceaniac, Egyptian, etc., it would be made plain when someone has a problem with you. These are either positives or negatives depending on one's values, and incentives.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- morbicer 3y agoI am risking getting flagged to oblivion but I perceive that there are immigrants that integrate better than others. Asians and south Americans integrate well. Not just in USA, in Europe as well. My country accepted over 500k of Ukrainian refugees into population of just 10m. They integrate outstandingly. I am not one of the haters that would claim that immigrants are "ruining our culture" but I see issues. Example: the support Hamas gets in certain communities. I would be interested what would Americans say if a huge influx of North African and Middle Eastern people arrive to USA.
- bugglebeetle 3y agoI’m not going to flag or downvote you, but this is a very typical European mentality. We have large numbers of immigrants from the places you cite and they integrate fine. I think there are ~1 million people of Middle Eastern descent in California and again, zero issues. At some point, people have to recognize it’s their own culture’s biases that create the social conditions that prevent integration and not the fault of the people themselves.
- morbicer 3y agoI am not saying those regions only have bad people. Lots of good people, just some bad apples. But in USA you usually get whole families and not a bunch of young single men. That's one factor that de-risks the integration. The second factor is you get people that can afford plane ticket (likely more educated) and go through some form of border check. I believe the vast majority of the Middle Eastern people in California are Persians. Again, that's a nationality that fares well in inclusion even in Europe. I am all for immigration, we need it, we are an aging continent. But we should be a little bit more picky and cautious. And I am not saying we should not get any people from Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria or Horn of Africa, it's just often people coming from these countries have a risky mix of low education and culture that doesn't respect women or institutions. And it's not islamophobia from me, that's why I specifically say culture, not religion. Persians are often muslims and fine, same for Indonesians or Turks. Problem is we can't have meaningful and polite debate about it like I have with you - you get immediately labeled as racist or xenophobe. Thus the sad rise of far right groups in Europe. On this note, I am sad that someone is downvoting/flagging you.
- kdwikzncba 3y agoWell. It also depends on who you're importing. I don't think anyone in Europe complains that their Filipinos aren't integrating.