BCT Editorial – 8/21/06

This page was last updated on August 21, 2006.

American dreamers; Editorial; Beaver County Times; August 21, 2006.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“Latest immigrants and the nation will adapt and change

“The United States is not the same nation it was in 1776.

“That’s why Americans should not be too concerned about the most recent wave of immigrants from Asia and Central and South America.

“The immigrants will adapt and change, as will their new homeland.

“When the United States was founded, its white population was overwhelmingly Protestant and of English and Scotch stock, with a large German component in Pennsylvania.”

[RWC] My dad always taught me people from Scotland were Scottish, not Scotch, as his mother (from Scotland) taught him. Scotch is a whiskey or a contraction of Scottish.

As a point of trivia, one (Charles Carroll) of the signers of the Declaration of Independence was a Roman Catholic and of Irish ancestry.

“The first wave of immigrants who didn’t fit the mold were the Irish, who started showing up in the 1820s and 1830s. They were largely poor and unskilled, and they were met with virulent hostility and prejudice from the Americans who had gotten here before them.

“This was when the United States had its first serious outburst of nativism, with the anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic Know Nothing Party becoming a major political force in American politics in the 1840s and 1850s.”

[RWC] The KNP also didn’t like German immigrants. FYI, the real name of the KNP was the American party.

“Today, few Americans, if any, question the right of the Irish to be here or deny the contributions they have made to the nation.

“The second wave of immigrants to upset the nation’s religious and ethnic demographics were the immigrants from southern and eastern Europe who started to pour into the United States in the 1890s.

“They, too, were largely poor and unskilled. Worse, in the eyes of the nativists, they were even more foreign than the Irish. These immigrants spoke funny languages, had strange customs, cooked smelly food and were Catholic, Jewish or Orthodox.

“Their presence led to another burst of nativism, culminating in the prejudicial and discriminatory immigration quotas that were adopted in the 1920s.

“Today, few Americans, if any, question the right of southern and eastern Europeans to be here or deny the contributions they have made to the nation.

“Today’s Hispanic and Asian immigrants are facing the same prejudices. And, in a few decades, few Americans, if any, will question their right to be here or deny the contributions they have made to the nation.

“The great thing about the United States is that it is not the same nation it was 200 years ago, 100 years ago or even 50 years ago. It has always adapted and changed. That’s what has kept the American dream alive.

“The people who truly believe in what this country stands for are the immigrants who are coming here, not the modern-day Know Nothings who condemn them.”

[RWC] It appears the Times is back to not distinguishing between illegal aliens and legal immigrants. In other words, the Times wants readers to believe anyone opposed to illegal immigration is anti-immigrant, and no one wants to be anti-immigrant. The idea is to shut down debate by accusing people against illegal immigration of being nativists and/or racists. It’s the same sad strategy people use when it comes to race-based preferences. That is, if you oppose government-sanctioned discrimination, you are the racist.