It’s not xenophobic to be concerned about cultural change, but it is misguided to assume that culture is a fixed object that only flows in one direction. America, and much of the West, has always been shaped by the beliefs, values, and adaptations of immigrants. People change, adapt, and contribute in complex ways. Immigrants don’t arrive with a USB stick labeled ‘final values.’ They raise kids here. Their kids go to school here. They vote here. And yes, they bring different perspectives, but so did Irish Catholics, Italian immigrants, and Vietnamese refugees. The melting pot doesn’t mean erasure, it means evolution."
Also, beware of confusing correlation with cause: conservative religious values exist in all societies, not just ‘third world’ ones. We’ve got plenty of evangelical pushback on rights from people born and raised here too. If we’re going to have a conversation about values, let’s do it honestly and not use fear of ‘the other’ as a smokescreen for deeper social anxieties.
I’m not “othering” developing countries, I’m just stating a fact that the culture over here in the third world is way more conservative.
And the context now is not the same as the American immigration experience, and I wouldn’t even necessarily say that it worked out well over there. It’s cool to look at Irish and Italian immigrants right now, but then they were living in ghettos with raging criminality and the civil unrest caused by this ended up with e.g. the prohibition and Al Capone. These were the population bases that most resisted changes like implementation of divorce, abortion and gay marriage, as well.
But then the culture wasn’t even that different (protestant vs catholic), the american population wasn’t in decline, etc. Now it’s ultra developed, secular countries with an aging population, inviting immigrants from majority religious countries with thousand-year clashes with the local culture, to substitute their own working class. It’s just a recipe for disaster, with “the poors” being people that look, speak and believe completely alien to the local richer class, it’s really no wonder there is growing extremist sentiment in Europe
You’re right that immigration brings complexity, it always has. But what you’re describing isn’t a reason to reject immigration. It’s a reason to invest in integration, civic education, and community infrastructure, the very things that made past waves of immigration ultimately successful. The challenges Irish, Italian, and Eastern European immigrants posed didn’t prove immigration was a failure, they proved that assimilation is a process, not a plug-and-play switch. And they eventually helped redefine the idea of who counts as “American.” That doesn’t mean there weren’t tensions, but it does mean people changed, adapted, and became part of the whole.
What I hear in your argument is a belief that culture is static, and that outsiders are always permanent outsiders. That’s a dangerously pessimistic view of human beings. It treats people as incapable of growth, and societies as too fragile to absorb change. But that’s not how culture works, not unless you let fear do the steering.
And yes, importing labor from poorer countries can create tension, especially if the host society is structured in a way that stratifies opportunity. But then the issue isn’t immigration, it’s inequality. The problem isn’t that “the poors” look different. It’s that we’re failing to create systems where they can become something else.
Extremist sentiment is rising in Europe not because immigrants are inherently dangerous, but because politicians and media figures are stoking fear and resentment instead of investing in cohesion. We’ve seen this movie before. It never ends well.
I know immigrants aren’t the issue, I’m not saying they are, I’m saying the host countries should fix their issues without relying on them. I’m not anti immigration, I’m just pro natalism, substituting locals for immigrants won’t work
It’s not xenophobic to be concerned about cultural change, but it is misguided to assume that culture is a fixed object that only flows in one direction. America, and much of the West, has always been shaped by the beliefs, values, and adaptations of immigrants. People change, adapt, and contribute in complex ways. Immigrants don’t arrive with a USB stick labeled ‘final values.’ They raise kids here. Their kids go to school here. They vote here. And yes, they bring different perspectives, but so did Irish Catholics, Italian immigrants, and Vietnamese refugees. The melting pot doesn’t mean erasure, it means evolution."
Also, beware of confusing correlation with cause: conservative religious values exist in all societies, not just ‘third world’ ones. We’ve got plenty of evangelical pushback on rights from people born and raised here too. If we’re going to have a conversation about values, let’s do it honestly and not use fear of ‘the other’ as a smokescreen for deeper social anxieties.
I’m not “othering” developing countries, I’m just stating a fact that the culture over here in the third world is way more conservative.
And the context now is not the same as the American immigration experience, and I wouldn’t even necessarily say that it worked out well over there. It’s cool to look at Irish and Italian immigrants right now, but then they were living in ghettos with raging criminality and the civil unrest caused by this ended up with e.g. the prohibition and Al Capone. These were the population bases that most resisted changes like implementation of divorce, abortion and gay marriage, as well.
But then the culture wasn’t even that different (protestant vs catholic), the american population wasn’t in decline, etc. Now it’s ultra developed, secular countries with an aging population, inviting immigrants from majority religious countries with thousand-year clashes with the local culture, to substitute their own working class. It’s just a recipe for disaster, with “the poors” being people that look, speak and believe completely alien to the local richer class, it’s really no wonder there is growing extremist sentiment in Europe
You’re right that immigration brings complexity, it always has. But what you’re describing isn’t a reason to reject immigration. It’s a reason to invest in integration, civic education, and community infrastructure, the very things that made past waves of immigration ultimately successful. The challenges Irish, Italian, and Eastern European immigrants posed didn’t prove immigration was a failure, they proved that assimilation is a process, not a plug-and-play switch. And they eventually helped redefine the idea of who counts as “American.” That doesn’t mean there weren’t tensions, but it does mean people changed, adapted, and became part of the whole.
What I hear in your argument is a belief that culture is static, and that outsiders are always permanent outsiders. That’s a dangerously pessimistic view of human beings. It treats people as incapable of growth, and societies as too fragile to absorb change. But that’s not how culture works, not unless you let fear do the steering.
And yes, importing labor from poorer countries can create tension, especially if the host society is structured in a way that stratifies opportunity. But then the issue isn’t immigration, it’s inequality. The problem isn’t that “the poors” look different. It’s that we’re failing to create systems where they can become something else.
Extremist sentiment is rising in Europe not because immigrants are inherently dangerous, but because politicians and media figures are stoking fear and resentment instead of investing in cohesion. We’ve seen this movie before. It never ends well.
I know immigrants aren’t the issue, I’m not saying they are, I’m saying the host countries should fix their issues without relying on them. I’m not anti immigration, I’m just pro natalism, substituting locals for immigrants won’t work