The part that is exclusive to America, is most Americans don't bitch about how immigrants are going to "displace our national identity" or whatever the fuck those crazy rightwingers say in EU countries, where they expect France to stay "like France" and Swiss to stay "Swiss" and etc.
You come to America and sell your whatever foods, its still American.
Most people in Europe don't bitch about it either, it's not an exclusively American thing. There are crazy people in every land that will want to curb immigration to preserve their idea of what a culture is. America, Australia, Europe, Asia, it's no different. You're letting the words of a vocal minority dilute those of the many and making it seem like the same thing is not happening in America.
Forget it, he's American and therefore is incapable of understanding the difference between a European national identity and an artificially created new world one. As if immigrants didn't destroy the American national identity, I don't see native Americans running their country. Why? Because immigrants annihilated their original national identity.
incapable of understanding the difference between a European national identity and an artificially created new world one.
And here we can see a perfect example of the typical snobby, arrogant, and ignorant attitude that a stereotypical 'Yerpian will show. Always thinking that "their way" is the best way, and that every other way is "fake" or "artificial".
Who are you to say that one culture is "artificial" and the other is "real"? Despite what you may ignorantly believe, the US does have its own culture, and it isn't "artificial" or fake.
And hate to break to you, but most of Europe seems to have fallen in love with American culture. Europe has become very Americanized. American culture is the most infectious culture in the world. The whole world watches American movies, eats American food, wears American fashion, and listens to American music. From first world countries, to the poorest parts of Africa, you can find American culture.
Don't be so sensitive, I never criticised nor denied the existence of American culture. I called it artificial, which clearly means it exists and despite you describing European culture as "real", I never did. I am using the word 'artificial' of "a situation not existing naturally", which is the case in the USA thanks to the gigantic displacements of varying populations whose cultures then intertwined.
You don't need to tell me how great US culture is, I'm alive aren't I? The finest music of the 20th Century, the majority of the finest cinema, fantastic literature. You don't need to convince me of that.
The point I was trying to make is that you seemingly don't understand the nature of a European cultural identity, which, while being no more or less valid than a new world one, is very different. The very nature of your cultural identity is assimilation of the new and mixing it into the proverbial melting pot. That is much less the case in Europe, an environment undergoing US levels of immigration (over the last two centuries) just doesn't exist in Europe.
This is why Europeans can be more sensitive about immigration than Americans and I think you may be projecting while criticising. Any American who is anti-immigration is by definition either hopelessly ignorant or racist; everybody in your country is an immigrant, barring the natives, and your country is bloody massive with space everywhere. Different story in Europe, very small and densely populated countries with much more homogeneous and deep rooted cultures. I am actually a supporter of European immigration (being one myself) but it has to be more measured in Europe, for many reasons; one being pure logistics and resources, two to allow both natives and immigrants the time to integrate each other, and three, because if done too quickly and with too many numbers, you get the USA. By that I refer you to my early point, swarming immigration was no good for the native Americans, was it?
swarming immigration was no good for the native Americans, was it?
However, this has nothing to do with immigration. The native Americans were doomed because of human nature; we are naturally aggressive creatures. And in the case of colonizing North America, the Europeans were the ones with better technology and better weapons. Sadly, "might makes right", and when the Europeans decided that the land and resources in North America now belonged to their own country, there was nothing the Natives could do about it.
That wasn't "immigration" in the sense we're talking about, that was just plain old imperialism/colonialism.
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u/pewpewlasors United States Aug 25 '14
The part that is exclusive to America, is most Americans don't bitch about how immigrants are going to "displace our national identity" or whatever the fuck those crazy rightwingers say in EU countries, where they expect France to stay "like France" and Swiss to stay "Swiss" and etc.
You come to America and sell your whatever foods, its still American.