Comment by officeplant
4 days ago
>Fetishizing the "nation of immigrants" narrative at the expensive of the native-born Americans who actually built most of this country's prosperity is, at best, ahistorical.
Except many of us can trace our family lines to immigration. On one side I have to go back to the early 1800's to see when they immigrated, but this is literally a country of immigrants. (other half of the family is late 1800s/early 1900s immigration)
Even today I would assume the average American doesn't have to trace back more than 100-150 years to see when part of their family moved here.
>We scoured the country's public school system for the sharpest young minds, sent them to institutions of higher learning with rigorous curricula, and found them positions in industry, government, or the military which made good use of their talent.
Don't even get us started on ahistorical nonsense when you just want to make things up. Not when talented folks[0] had to work through system that didn't want them so they could eventually make all the difference.
[0]https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/hidden-no-more-...
I hear you, I took umbrage with that comment as well. But I think it’s fair to consider whether we are doing enough for Americans just as we are welcoming newcomers to settle here at the same time? My experience as a native born Californian, raised by a single immigrant mother living in urban poverty is no, we do not. Granted I escaped poverty by self-funding my engineering education (Federal Loans and working full time) but it took the better part of my 20s to do so, at great personal cost and risk. In many ways that experience taught me just how unfairly stacked the odds are against the working poor, let alone their children.
I am really curious how welcoming do you think US is to new comers.. Most of the early immigrants in 1800s and early 1900s were blue collar workers (exactly like the people coming from the south of the border). Do you think there is any part of the system that is welcoming to them?
The brain-drain from the rest of the world to US started only after WW2 when US became the only industrialized country with a viable student -> employee -> citizen path and even that only works for a very small set of people.
I would love to hear about programs where the newcomers are treated better than you as a native citizen when both of you are equally qualified.