I can eat sushi, pizza, samosas, kebab (kabobs, döner or shawarmas depending on your frame of reference), gyoza/pot stickers/tortellone/pasteczki (or whatever), noodles/ramen/spaghetti, knödeln/kroppkakor and so on and so on. Leaving lots of cultures unsaid.
I can enjoy music, cringy cultural movies (animated and not), fun cirque sessions (even without animals being endangered), go to festivals for various cultures, enjoin then in our cultures of scouting, mountaineering, hiking and share my love of enjoying nature.
I can drive electric cars, communicate on Internet forums, keep in touch with new friends as well as loved ones across the world.
I would be in a much poorer world without you all.
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Besides all of that valid stuff, immigration is the only reason the US doesn’t have slowing/declining population numbers like many developed countries now have.
The irony is most Americans are descendants of immigrants.
“You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.”
What a godless country.
Immigrants make a country great. One of the reasons why I’m happy about the increased immigration in the USA, and why I’m sad about the decreased immigration in Canada.
Looking back at the history of England. We have had wave after wave of immigrants/invaders. Each wave brought a period of tension. That period was followed by a period of innovation.
The new people, with new views means old ideas are re-evaluated. New skill, flavours and modes of thought became part of our culture.
Even our language improved. Part of English’s power is the level of nuance with word choice. A loft of that comes from melding multiple root languages in.
Obligatory Stewart Lee routine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y38pbfJ4i_U
The Normans did fuck things up, though.
As did the vikings. The long term results were generally an improvement however.
The Normans were third generation Viking settlers of France, so the Vikings did have a huge impact on the British isles for a few centuries there.
dont let the fascist whoresons read this, they will frame you mentally deranged and a danger to their homogeneous society
Theirs is not a homogeneous society. They are demented and fragmented.
Fuck their homogenous society, its total lack of art, its dog shit food, and its boring everything. Plus its queerphobia and intellectual stasis. Stillness is death. They have guns; they can get that for themselves any time they like.
Plus I’m kind of autistic. People already look too much the same. If they stopped being different colors and sizes with different types of hair i would not be able to go outside.
Some for me. So many cultures, languages and cuisines mixing. But in my case even im an immigrant but the plot twist is im european. Overheard someone talking about how bad immigrants are and they proceeded to say “but youre one of the good ones”. Only context you need to hear is im white.
“Unser Jud’ ist eh gut.”
That’s a sentence that was often used in Nazi Germany/Nazi Austria. It means “Our Jew is good anyway, [but the others are evil]”. It basically means that you keep believing the propaganda, even if the people you know don’t fit to the propaganda at all.
Nowadays this sentence is used to satirize the statement you posted.
“He’s one of the good ones,” is how people have always explained liking a minority that they know, while still being prejudiced against the rest of their race.
Good to know. It is exactly like this. Ive seen people say things like this while they had 5 friends who were from 5 different countries basically next to them. Its really sad when even some of the immigrants believe this shit.
Many immigrants think they can get on the good side of the xenophobes by becoming the “good” immigrants while putting the “bad” immigrants down.
The problem with that tactic is that xenophobes and especially xenophobic laws don’t distinguish between “good” or “bad”.
If immigrants badmouth other immigrants, the only thing that xenophobes take from that is “even the immigrants think immigrants are bad”.
You see a lot of that happening in the USA, where frequently family members of MAGA voters are taken by ICE, because they aren’t going after the “bad” immigrants, but after immigrants, period. Even if their family voted for the people who are now taking them.
And that’s the real take-away. When it comes to lawmaking, you can either be for immigrants or against them. There’s no nuance. Because lawmakers don’t put any in.
How dare you not pledge your undying allegiance to the spot of dirt that you were born on!??!?!?
What’s it called when you live on the right side and agree with the labels?
Woke. I think.
Ah, the original, unironic meaning, now largely extinct through misuse.
A shithole.
Exactly don’t people understand these foreigners steal our jobs, while at the same time they are all lazy and live on welfare?
And ‘defend’ it by destroying all other lifeforms nearby (regardless of whether they precede you)??
Agreed 100%. Unfortunately the people who need to read this are not on Lemmy.
No, I’m pretty racist and needed to read this. /s
I’ve seen a few anti-immigrant comments pop up around here that have been upvoted and they’ve made me pretty sad.
This thread makes my immigrant ass happy though so thank y’all.
Well, by the look of this comment section there’s at least one who really needed to hear the message, but seemingly didn’t take it to heart.
Reminds me of this for some reason
I dunno, the left path looks far easier because it’s far less uphill
That is pretty on the nose, but still an interesting perspective.
It might be on the nose, but we sure as hell have regressed in my short lifetime.
Completely agree! The concept of Culinary Diplomacy is actually practiced by a few countries around the world and is often implemented in partnership with emigrants from those nations. South Korea did this with their “Kimchi Diplomacy” back in 2009 and it was considered very successful. It is one of the reasons Korean food became so popular here in the U.S. around then. Culinary Diplomacy
I think the Chinese government also supported the Chinese restraunt industry similarly in the US
I think Chinese food spread was more organic, they helped each other immigrate, shared recipes, and acted almost like a franchise in how new restaurants were chosen in unserved areas and given a general playbook
And then the Thai government did it more formally, Korean culinary movement copied the success (or maybe the other way around)
What I’m gathering is Indian government is incompetent af and our foods become popular on their own.
Yup, and we have so many different regional cuisines but you’ll mostly just find north Indian and a little bit of south Indian restaurants in the US
I mean… They kind of didn’t though
In major cities, sure. Even smaller ones will have Indian places. But they’re proportional to the amount of Indians in an area
Because there’s a big difference… Everyone can go to a Chinese restaurant and confidently order. Everyone knows what sushi is, even if some people don’t eat it. Thai foods are less known, but the menus are very Americanized, so you go once and you get the idea
I know the good Indian restaurant back home, but I only know the dishes by color. Lots of naan and wet dishes… They were good, but I couldn’t tell you what they were. And if the sign says Indian food, I don’t know what they serve. So I’ve only been to the one place
Vindaloo and curry? That is everywhere, but I’ve never had an Indian version of it. The British spread vindaloo and curry spread itself
Hopefully this guide might help you with your next Indian meal👍
Never read about SK or China (just not familiar, not to say it doesn’t exist) doing this but Thailand went all in.
https://www.foodrepublic.com/1318428/how-gastrodiplomacy-brought-thai-food-world-stage/
Hollywood and the anime industry have done much the same - helping people around the world normalize the feeling of living in their home societies.
and so many korean markets chains opened up, and people are lovign it.
Seriously, HMart is the shit. The produce is generally WAY better than you can get at “normal” markets - largely because their stock actually gets cleaned out and turned over on a regular basis.
yea our parents go to it alot, we have jagalchi recently opened up, but i think its to pricey, for its limited selections.
I immigrated to the US when I was too young to make that decision myself. Now I’m immigrating to another country. I literally don’t know what it’s like to not be an immigrant, and I’m tired of receiving nothing but hate for it. At least my new city is more welcoming.
Which country now?
You can have culinary trends without migrants. Like sushi, the best sushi IMO is still the authentic sushi. Its neat I can get it in my vicinity though.
Street food fusion is a whole other level though. With that you couldn’t be more right. Craving late night street snacks now
It didn’t take long before they started deporting anyone and everyone. By no means just violent criminals. Horse shit.
What happened to the bull(shit)?
You want to diversify your shit.
But careful not to go apeshit.
No, that’s fine if it’s sufficiebtly processed. You want it to be from a vegan though.
Oh ok.
The world would be a lot poorer without the music genres that spawned from the USA and UK, too. And most of those were only possible because people from Africa were (forcefully) brought to the USA.
I don’t think that logically follows.
Music genres that came out of poor black sharecroppers in the Mississippi Delta could have just as easily come from middle class black manufacturing workers in Congo or Nigeria, if the continent had been integrated with the industrial west back in the 19th century rather than raided and plundered for 400 years.
Hell, maybe it would have come from middle class American Natives in the Mississippi Delta. Or Chinese rice farmers in a country not ravaged by opium. Or Iranians not ground under by the Shah’s dictatorship. Or Austro-Hungarians who weren’t cannibalized to fight the Napoleonic Wars or the 30 Years War that caused the Caucasian Exodus across the Atlantic.
The Peace Dividend reaped across the Gulf Coast and the Mountain West that gave us modern western music could have been collected anywhere.
There’s little chance that immigration wouldn’t have been involved somehow in your scenario(s). But true, maybe we could have gotten blues and jazz from a thriving, industrialized Congo, Nigeria etc.
Hell, maybe it would have come from middle class American Natives in the Mississippi Delta. Or Chinese rice farmers in a country not ravaged by opium. Or Iranians not ground under by the Shah’s dictatorship. Or Austro-Hungarians who weren’t cannibalized to fight the Napoleonic Wars or the 30 Years War that caused the Caucasian Exodus across the Atlantic.
They might have invented interesting musical genres that merge mainstream european music with their own more rhythm-focused music styles, but I really doubt any of them would have invented something that closely resembles early black music. Maybe one of them could have invented techno, but blues, jazz, soul, and blues-derived rock music as we know it? Very improbable. Music genres don’t spawn out of thin air.
there’s little chance that immigration wouldn’t have been involved somehow in your scenario(s)
Immigrants approaching the US from a position of common interest, a la French foreign investors or Chinese manufacturing interests or Saudi oil companies. You won’t just have people crossing the Atlantic to (be made to) make music, you’d have them coming over to distribute it under home-grown record labels and on contractual terms that favored their domestic interests.
They might have invented interesting musical genres, but I really doubt any of them would have invented something that closely resembles 1950s-1960s era black music.
Maybe they’d have made something just as compelling, but different. Maybe they’d have made something better. It’s very hard to say. But the claim that you have to whip people and chain them up to synthesize European folk melodies with African base rhythms seems at once absurd and sadistic.
If music history has proven anything, it is that great art flourishes when people have more leisure and more material resources. The Blues and Jazz traditions that eventually gave birth to modern Rock were the consequence of a rapidly expanding middle class. And that came out of unionization, urbanization, the modern entertainment industry, and the eight-hour work day.
Absent prior centuries of pre-industrial slavery and emiseration, we may have achieved this musical tradition sooner and developed it more fully, before the 21st century flattened and assembly-lined its production.
But the claim that you have to whip people and chain them up to synthesize European folk melodies with African base rhythms seems at once absurd and sadistic.
Cool, I never made that claim. They probably needed to immigrate to a western country to invent it and popularize it, that they went there as slaves is a different matter.
Cool, I never made that claim.
How do you think Africans came to be in the New World?
They probably needed to immigrate to a western country to invent it
Brits didn’t need to immigrate to the US in order to learn about American rock music.
I did write that they came as slaves, but that’s not the necessary part. I’m starting to think that you just really want me to be racist, facts be damned.
Brits didn’t need to immigrate to the US in order to learn about American rock music.
Yeah, because american rock music already existed, and USA and UK have a long shared history. Inventing rock music without close personal proximity is much less likely, and inventing a style is one thing but popularizing it is quite another. It wouldn’t have gotten as popular in the USA and Europe if all the early blues and jazz musicians were in Africa.
you just really want me to be racist
I don’t think you’re racist. I think you’re clinging to this idea of the Transatlantic slave trade as some kind of necessary evil.
It wouldn’t have gotten as popular in the USA and Europe if all the early blues and jazz musicians were in Africa.
Cultural traditions have cross-pollunated without mass migrations on plenty of prior occasions. The Silk Road didn’t need to move legions of displaced people in order to bring food, clothing, and music into the Mediterranean. Neither did Dutch traders need to flood into Japan in order to convey their art and technology.
The idea that you need a mass resettlement in order to mix musical traditions doesn’t bare out in practice.
Southern blues really were the catalyst that brought about rock and country music. There are some good clips of people playing rock solos in a jazz form. The chord progressions and phrases are the same, they’re just played with a different feel. There’s one guy on YT who’s short I’ve seen a lot of that does it fairly frequently. A bit clickbaity title like, “rock guitarist plays a jazz gig” and then he’ll solo something like slipknots psychosocial over a jazz backing. It’s pretty awesome.
I was gonna say this, but not specific to USA and UK. Other countries have thriving music cultures born of immigration we just don’t hear about. Nigeria, for example, had a progressive rock scene in the 70’s and it was kinda baller. Check out the Lijadu Sisters.
I’ve been listening to Creole music all morning as “research” for my next writing project.
Made me think about the volume of information we take in about other cultures through stories, art, music and food without ever opening a history book.
Edited for context and to clarify I don’t think slavery was a necessary evil. Because I have to do that now.
I included foreigners such as the US and UK too.
The problem is when immigrants from countries with lower labour standards and poorer conditions are effectively used as “scabs”, to suppress wage growth and unionization. And I fear the capitalists who benefit from this are pushing the “you just hate immigrants” narrative to protect it.
And how do you propose the solution?
I would stop normalizing the theory that immigrants are here only to do badly paid jobs.
I’ve hear too many times “without immigrants who would work in insert miserable badly paid job?”.
Immigrants are not here to do the most miserable jobs without getting properly paid for it.
I think progressive forces should stop with that discourse. I find it a little dehumanizing. If you don’t want to do that shitty job I don’t know why anyone would think that a person, only because they are an immigrant, want to do it for you.
But that’s a response to “they took our jorbs!”. It’s a reframing for immigrants targeted at the reactionaries. But it is the reality - immigrants, particularly undocumented or agricultural visa recipients, are the bedrock of our society
It’s terrible that they are in such unethical conditions. It’s terrible that they have a carve out for child labor for seasonal farm workers. The entire power dynamic is akin to indentured servitude at best
But what we have to do is give them legal status and protections first.
They are not working the worst jobs because that’s what we tell them they can be, they’re working the worst jobs because they’re extra exploitable
You make a good point.
I would say make sure people have a clear way of becoming legal immigrants. If they are legal, make sure the labor laws are enforced. So no paying under minimum wage, make sure the workplace is a safe place, etc.
I would say make sure people have a clear way of becoming legal immigrants.
Right now there are legal paths to immigration, and that’s who ICE is deporting- people trying to do things ‘the right way’.
We should make sure the labor laws are enforced for everybody regardless of their immigration status, that would go a long way towards addressing the issue you are talking about. It’s not the fault of people desperate enough to accept being exploited, it’s the fault of companies doing the exploiting, they are what needs to be fixed.
You realize that there are other countries…
I do realize that. What does that have to do with my comment?
Your comment for me reads as every legal immigrant is getting deported by ICE, not some but all and as the US isn’t the only country that has immigrantants, it reads as false but maybe I just can’t read which wouldn’t be surprising.
Your comment for me reads as every legal immigrant is getting deported by ICE, not some but all
It’s a significant number of them so far and I see no signs of it slowing down. Perhaps the goal is to deport every legal immigrant? At any rate it’s enough of them to expose the lie that MAGAts have been spouting for the last decade that they “have no problem with immigrants, they have a problem with illegal immigrants.” Clearly that isn’t the case.
Besides even deporting just one LEGAL immigrant is one too many. Especially when they aren’t just being deported, but being thrown in foreign prisons/ possible death camps.
and as the US isn’t the only country that has immigrantants, it reads as false
I’m still not sure what you are getting at, what does other countries having immigrants have to do with how we treat immigrants in the U.S.? Other countries also have authoritarian dictatorships, that doesn’t mean we should have one here.
Lobby the government to stop doing that. In the meantime, teach them their rights, how to unionize, help them with food security and finding a place to live, so that they aren’t in such a precarious position that makes exploitation so profitable.
I think a very important step is to start holding businesses responsible for employing undocumented migrants and immigrants. Stop punishing the employees and punish the ones breaking the law by employing them. They’d lobby so hard to make the path to citizenship easier.
We definitely see a gross incentive where companies don’t want people to become citizens because it allows their labor to be cheaper.
I think back in Trump’s first term, he had one policy that I genuinely agreed with - that the H1B Visa program should have a very high minimum salary to it, returning it to its intended purpose of being used for rare, high-talent specialized positions. As it stands, HR will just invent overly specific criteria so that they can deny local citizens jobs, claim they can’t find anyone, and then hire cheap H1Bs - and threaten them with deportation anytime they complain.
Needless to say, because it was a good idea and anti-corp, Trump dropped it almost immediately.
Yeah but good luck holding a sign that says “Don’t shop here, they hire immigrants”.
That’s not my point. I’m saying that law enforcement is being targeted at the wrong people.
Seize the means of production?
