I am saddened by the number of my 2nd generation immigrant friends of Latinx and otherwise
-even my relatives in Hawaii, who buy the right-wing media spin on this issue. How soon we forget these folks were many of us, once upon a time. Why isn't the counter message of Truth being broadcast daily with as much vigor?
I am saddened by the number of my 2nd generation immigrant friends of Latinx and otherwise
-even my relatives in Hawaii, who buy the right-wing media spin on this issue. How soon we forget these folks were many of us, once upon a time. Why isn't the counter message of Truth being broadcast daily with as much vigor?
All of us, except native Americans, had immigrants somewhere in our family background. Does anyone remember the faux45 saying “we’re full” ? America has been and hopefully always will be, a multicultural melting pot.
We've lived in 10 states from the east coast to west coast, and 2 years in London, UK (paper industry) - raised our kids mostly in MN & ME, and retired a couple years ago in N. VA (Totally relieved to have the Biden’s in the WH down the road).
I'm no scholar but, I think of myself as a life-long learner & educator. I heard a great sermon many years ago that change my perspective on the term "melting pot". I prefer to recognize, celebrate and learn from the amazing diversity in our country. So, I like to think of us as a colorful tossed salad - many unique, colorful ingredients that together create something colorful, nutritious, delicious, and amazing. Are there other, metaphors that are better than a melting pot?
How many people will celebrate their Irish heritage this week?
The immigration issue is a mess and will take time to correct, and I have faith in this new diverse administration!
Utah Phillips used to say that the U.S. was indeed a melting pot, wherein the scum rises to the top and those on the bottom get burned. Sounds about right to me. Roland, if you read this, I live in Seattle (born in Idaho, raised in Cali, but have been in WA for 36 years).
Reid, live across the Sound from you. When to school high school/college in California, travelled for 28 years, retired in WA. Been here for 20 years this summer. Love the place!
It really is lovely here. When we retired (quite recently), we contemplated moving elsewhere and just couldn't. We would love to be nearer the Oregon coast (Newport is particularly dear to us), but we love Seattle too much. We are hoping The Big One (earthquake, for those of you who don't live here) which is long overdue waits a bit longer to hit, though.
We got here after the last quake in 2006 as I recall. Been through several in my life, in California when I was at Fort Ord, and then Hurricanes while in Georgia and South Carolina. I tend to think more about Mount Rainer blowing it's top like St Helens than the earthquake.
I think if our daughters hadn't relocated here when they did, when we retired, we would have moved to be near them. But, all is good now, though my wife hates the winters.
Stew might be a good metaphor. The various elements come together to create delicious flavor, but the ingredients can still be identified like carrots, onions, etc. l love stew!
Every single soul that lives in the Americas North, Central, or South is descendant from immigrants, even the “native “ Americans who’s ancestors got here first. When the Western Europeans got here the continents were populated from north to south. None of us have any more right to be here than anyone else, all of us are among the most fortunate people on the planet 🌎. With the climate changing like it is, and desertification occurring in places that its never happened in human memory, we can expect that with our bountiful water 💦 supply and temperate climate, we will see more and more people that want to come here and raise their families. I have travelled all over this country and I can tell you that we have plenty of room. If you eat, unless you grow it yourself, it has been handled by migrant workers, that is a fact. My experience with migrant labor has been universally positive, they are good people that work hard and want to provide for their families, just like the rest of us, demonizing them is the height of ignorance. If you don’t want migrant workers here than you better learn how to farm, build your own home, and clean 🧼 it.
Bountiful water? Tell that to California, the Plaines States and to the Colorado River that nolonger reaches the Gulf of California. This is a major problem for maintaining the current urban population of LA etc nevermind increasing it. You can't have this and increased intensive farm production too.
My town is slated to "develop" to a population of 50K. There are about 10K now. There is no way this county can sustain that many people. We need to stop making so many new people, take in migrants and refugees, because they are coming.
The article below made a deep dent in my awareness years ago...the water wars
Our roofs should be very busy with cisterns, solar panels, wind turbines...
As a nation, we do have bountiful water, just not everywhere. The southwest was historically dry. I lived in LA for 10 years and I’m well aware of the waste that occurs there with regard to the water supply, better water management could improve that dramatically. As to population density I think that will self level over time, as much as I loved living in Southern California, I no longer live there today.
One of the key strategic worries of the canadians is that THEY have bountiful water but wish to keep it where it is and not be "obliged" to ship it south.
That certainly was the fear being taught in the 60s at the University I attended in western Canada. The suggestion was that there were secret plans afoot to move water from Canada to the SW USA through the "Great Rocky Mountain Trench". Dams, it was suggested, were being strategically placed along this trench to support that plan.
Hear, hear! A continuing problem in California was have the water for irrigation being syphoned off to support the LA area. My father-in-law was a rancher that grew peaches, almonds, and walnuts. He'd complain every year about the diversion and the taxpayers having to pay for it versus the rate payers who ultimately got the water. (In full disclosure, not sure if that part of the complaint was valid, but wouldn't be surprised.)
Some Native Americans too but 15 to 40000 years ago if one accepts the theory of their Siberian origins particularly concerned apparently are the Dene peoples that include amongst others the Navajo.
There were other ancient migrations, not just the commonly known Siberian one. Migrations up from the Columbian region through Central America and into the Southwest. For an excellent review see Graham Hancock "America Before". This back and forth migration has been going on for thousands of years. Mostly driven by climate changes (is that PC?) but now political instability in Central America. Obama had it right. Go to the root cause and the source of what's driving it. Rant off.
For the neophite there is also Charles Mann's 1491. The last thing i read on the subject was on "gene/dna" research in archeological finds of human remains which both predate any finds in Europe and bear no relation to possible Asian origins. This was at a site in the Amazon Basin.
Charles Mann is an outstanding popularizer of history and archeology. As a journalist, he is prone to a journalistic habit: interviewing authors instead of reading their books. But 1491 and 1493 are well-written and quite accurate.
Yep, exactly. It is a fascinating thread to follow. More questions than answers. But the DNA evidence is the strongest. I got going down this trail after having my DNA sequenced. Very mysterious findings I'm still tracking.
Linguistic evidence of the early Americas is another revelation in the last c.40 years. Though he is very controversial among "Americanist" linguists, Joseph Greenberg is generally convincing to my mind. He began his career as an Africanist (that's how I encountered him) with equally controversial theories about language classification there. The experts resented him as an outsider, resisting those ideas which are now orthodoxy; the same may happen with his American studies.
Greenberg posited that there were only three distinct language families in all the Western Hemisphere: Eskimo–Aleut, Na–Dene and Amerind (first and by far the largest). The main implication is that each family grouping was evidence of three successive migrations from Siberia to North America and then present distributions. That's very big history to me.
<> J Greenberg, Language in the Americas
____, The Languages of Africa (These are NOT books for reading)
<> Current Anthropology 1987 (summary w/ critiques)
OK, Time for a break from LFAA for a couple of hours.
Personally, although it's surely not good that conditions at home are so terrible that they would make the trip, I think it's going to be very, very good for this country to have immigrants coming in again. It always has been.
Failed45 promoted the lie that pushing everyone non white either down or out would make life better for all the people distraught by the degradation of their lives of the last 40 years. It's like that cartoon of three caricatured figures - rich white industrialist, working white man, working black man - at a table, each with a plate. The black man's plate is empty. The white man has one cookie. The rich white man, his plate piled with cookies, is saying to the poor one, "He (the black man) wants your cookie."
Gigi, I remember the first time I heard/learned the term "melting pot" with regard to the US of A I felt so proud. And except for our shameful treatment of the indigenous peoples of the land, I still do feel proud.
Melting pot or salad bowl: this is a fun question I sometimes posed to my students. Which is the most apt metaphor? Melting requires assimilation; a salad combines a lot of things that remain distinct but all add to yumminess. It was always a lively discussion.
Many studies of successive generations after immigration suggest that the first generation works hard to survive and integrate and keeps alive memories of ethnic and geographic origins, the second generation is "American to the core" and succeeds "in the American way while the third generation tries to find out more about their origins as the finances are a little less of a worry and something a little more "spiritual" or cultural is needed in their identity.
I am saddened by the number of my 2nd generation immigrant friends of Latinx and otherwise
-even my relatives in Hawaii, who buy the right-wing media spin on this issue. How soon we forget these folks were many of us, once upon a time. Why isn't the counter message of Truth being broadcast daily with as much vigor?
All of us, except native Americans, had immigrants somewhere in our family background. Does anyone remember the faux45 saying “we’re full” ? America has been and hopefully always will be, a multicultural melting pot.
We've lived in 10 states from the east coast to west coast, and 2 years in London, UK (paper industry) - raised our kids mostly in MN & ME, and retired a couple years ago in N. VA (Totally relieved to have the Biden’s in the WH down the road).
I'm no scholar but, I think of myself as a life-long learner & educator. I heard a great sermon many years ago that change my perspective on the term "melting pot". I prefer to recognize, celebrate and learn from the amazing diversity in our country. So, I like to think of us as a colorful tossed salad - many unique, colorful ingredients that together create something colorful, nutritious, delicious, and amazing. Are there other, metaphors that are better than a melting pot?
How many people will celebrate their Irish heritage this week?
The immigration issue is a mess and will take time to correct, and I have faith in this new diverse administration!
Utah Phillips used to say that the U.S. was indeed a melting pot, wherein the scum rises to the top and those on the bottom get burned. Sounds about right to me. Roland, if you read this, I live in Seattle (born in Idaho, raised in Cali, but have been in WA for 36 years).
Reid, live across the Sound from you. When to school high school/college in California, travelled for 28 years, retired in WA. Been here for 20 years this summer. Love the place!
It really is lovely here. When we retired (quite recently), we contemplated moving elsewhere and just couldn't. We would love to be nearer the Oregon coast (Newport is particularly dear to us), but we love Seattle too much. We are hoping The Big One (earthquake, for those of you who don't live here) which is long overdue waits a bit longer to hit, though.
We got here after the last quake in 2006 as I recall. Been through several in my life, in California when I was at Fort Ord, and then Hurricanes while in Georgia and South Carolina. I tend to think more about Mount Rainer blowing it's top like St Helens than the earthquake.
I think if our daughters hadn't relocated here when they did, when we retired, we would have moved to be near them. But, all is good now, though my wife hates the winters.
Tom Robbins refers to "a grey November light that might have been filtered through frozen squid bladders." Good old Seattle winter skies.
My twin brother lives in Kitsap County. I'm always impressed when it rains 6 times a day and clears to blue after each shower.
That's sad - not giving up hope
Yikes.
Thank you Reid 🙏
"A colorful tossed salad" does the trick, Laurie.
Stew might be a good metaphor. The various elements come together to create delicious flavor, but the ingredients can still be identified like carrots, onions, etc. l love stew!
Best comment yet, Laurie!
Every single soul that lives in the Americas North, Central, or South is descendant from immigrants, even the “native “ Americans who’s ancestors got here first. When the Western Europeans got here the continents were populated from north to south. None of us have any more right to be here than anyone else, all of us are among the most fortunate people on the planet 🌎. With the climate changing like it is, and desertification occurring in places that its never happened in human memory, we can expect that with our bountiful water 💦 supply and temperate climate, we will see more and more people that want to come here and raise their families. I have travelled all over this country and I can tell you that we have plenty of room. If you eat, unless you grow it yourself, it has been handled by migrant workers, that is a fact. My experience with migrant labor has been universally positive, they are good people that work hard and want to provide for their families, just like the rest of us, demonizing them is the height of ignorance. If you don’t want migrant workers here than you better learn how to farm, build your own home, and clean 🧼 it.
Bountiful water? Tell that to California, the Plaines States and to the Colorado River that nolonger reaches the Gulf of California. This is a major problem for maintaining the current urban population of LA etc nevermind increasing it. You can't have this and increased intensive farm production too.
My town is slated to "develop" to a population of 50K. There are about 10K now. There is no way this county can sustain that many people. We need to stop making so many new people, take in migrants and refugees, because they are coming.
The article below made a deep dent in my awareness years ago...the water wars
Our roofs should be very busy with cisterns, solar panels, wind turbines...
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/05/the-coming-global-water-crisis/256896/
As a nation, we do have bountiful water, just not everywhere. The southwest was historically dry. I lived in LA for 10 years and I’m well aware of the waste that occurs there with regard to the water supply, better water management could improve that dramatically. As to population density I think that will self level over time, as much as I loved living in Southern California, I no longer live there today.
One of the key strategic worries of the canadians is that THEY have bountiful water but wish to keep it where it is and not be "obliged" to ship it south.
That certainly was the fear being taught in the 60s at the University I attended in western Canada. The suggestion was that there were secret plans afoot to move water from Canada to the SW USA through the "Great Rocky Mountain Trench". Dams, it was suggested, were being strategically placed along this trench to support that plan.
It's been discussed here in Washington State as well.
Hear, hear! A continuing problem in California was have the water for irrigation being syphoned off to support the LA area. My father-in-law was a rancher that grew peaches, almonds, and walnuts. He'd complain every year about the diversion and the taxpayers having to pay for it versus the rate payers who ultimately got the water. (In full disclosure, not sure if that part of the complaint was valid, but wouldn't be surprised.)
Some Native Americans too but 15 to 40000 years ago if one accepts the theory of their Siberian origins particularly concerned apparently are the Dene peoples that include amongst others the Navajo.
There were other ancient migrations, not just the commonly known Siberian one. Migrations up from the Columbian region through Central America and into the Southwest. For an excellent review see Graham Hancock "America Before". This back and forth migration has been going on for thousands of years. Mostly driven by climate changes (is that PC?) but now political instability in Central America. Obama had it right. Go to the root cause and the source of what's driving it. Rant off.
For the neophite there is also Charles Mann's 1491. The last thing i read on the subject was on "gene/dna" research in archeological finds of human remains which both predate any finds in Europe and bear no relation to possible Asian origins. This was at a site in the Amazon Basin.
Charles Mann is an outstanding popularizer of history and archeology. As a journalist, he is prone to a journalistic habit: interviewing authors instead of reading their books. But 1491 and 1493 are well-written and quite accurate.
Excellent resource. Ordered.
Looking forward to a rec from you, Charlie.
Yep, exactly. It is a fascinating thread to follow. More questions than answers. But the DNA evidence is the strongest. I got going down this trail after having my DNA sequenced. Very mysterious findings I'm still tracking.
Linguistic evidence of the early Americas is another revelation in the last c.40 years. Though he is very controversial among "Americanist" linguists, Joseph Greenberg is generally convincing to my mind. He began his career as an Africanist (that's how I encountered him) with equally controversial theories about language classification there. The experts resented him as an outsider, resisting those ideas which are now orthodoxy; the same may happen with his American studies.
Greenberg posited that there were only three distinct language families in all the Western Hemisphere: Eskimo–Aleut, Na–Dene and Amerind (first and by far the largest). The main implication is that each family grouping was evidence of three successive migrations from Siberia to North America and then present distributions. That's very big history to me.
<> J Greenberg, Language in the Americas
____, The Languages of Africa (These are NOT books for reading)
<> Current Anthropology 1987 (summary w/ critiques)
OK, Time for a break from LFAA for a couple of hours.
This group is driving my reading these days - so many good suggestions.
Personally, although it's surely not good that conditions at home are so terrible that they would make the trip, I think it's going to be very, very good for this country to have immigrants coming in again. It always has been.
Failed45 promoted the lie that pushing everyone non white either down or out would make life better for all the people distraught by the degradation of their lives of the last 40 years. It's like that cartoon of three caricatured figures - rich white industrialist, working white man, working black man - at a table, each with a plate. The black man's plate is empty. The white man has one cookie. The rich white man, his plate piled with cookies, is saying to the poor one, "He (the black man) wants your cookie."
Studies of the economic impact of the influx of Asian immigrants into California suggest a 4% improvement in GNP with a lag of 4 years .
Gigi, I remember the first time I heard/learned the term "melting pot" with regard to the US of A I felt so proud. And except for our shameful treatment of the indigenous peoples of the land, I still do feel proud.
Melting pot or salad bowl: this is a fun question I sometimes posed to my students. Which is the most apt metaphor? Melting requires assimilation; a salad combines a lot of things that remain distinct but all add to yumminess. It was always a lively discussion.
Ooh, gimme that thar bowl of colorful tossed salad!
How about alchemy? Turning base Republicans into gold.
Many studies of successive generations after immigration suggest that the first generation works hard to survive and integrate and keeps alive memories of ethnic and geographic origins, the second generation is "American to the core" and succeeds "in the American way while the third generation tries to find out more about their origins as the finances are a little less of a worry and something a little more "spiritual" or cultural is needed in their identity.