Wouldnโt they benefit from more people? Of course it would come with the condition of learning the language at an acceptable level and that being tied to residency.
Because people fear having their culture and race replaced by immigrants. Even if theyโre not overtly racist, few people wish to become a minority in โtheir own country.โ
The US is famously a melting pot, and yet we still have a bunch of descendants of white immigrants from Europe who fear that South Americans will take over; that Mexican culture will replace good old-fashioned hodge-podge Western European culture. That their language will become less dominant. That theyโll find themselves strangers in their own country.
Itโs usually an indistinct fear. It seems obvious from the verbiage in the dog-whistles, but white European immigrant descendants donโt want to become second-class.
Now, if we treated our own minorities well, they wouldnโt be so afraid. They wouldnโt be afraid that theyโd be the ones with Hispanic cops kneeling on their necks; or that Hispanic immigrants would be living in giant homes and theyโd themselves be the ones having to eak out a living as seasonal workers.
I think itโs not despicable to want to preserve your cultural heritage, your cultural language, and to have your country legislated with the values you grew up with; but people react poorly when they think itโs happening.
What I most despise in the Republicans in the US is that theyโre advocating for preserving cultural values that never existed broadly in the US. The closest subculture to what theyโre pushing is a return to the Confederate South: religion, and white supremacy. The Confederates got their asses handed to them, but the racist fuckers never gave up their values, most most Americans are blind to what their real agenda is. And theyโve been good insurgents, cleverly taking advantage of weak areas in our democracy to return power to a minority: themselves. Itโs been said and itโs true: if America was a true democracy and we selected leaders by popular vote, no Republican under their current platform would ever be president again.
Anyway, getting back to your question: immigrants bring their own culture with them, and very few completely abandon it and adopt the culture and language of their new country. This dilutes the host countryโs native culture, and people are afraid of that. In the US, itโs the highest form of hypocrisy, because our native culture displaced the indigenous culture, and now weโre afraid of someone else doing the same to us.
I agree with everything up until you said โdilutesโ. I would argue that immigrant cultures donโt dilute the host countryโs culture, they add to it. In other words, the culture that was there still exists in the same amount and in the same โconcentrationโ, and immigrants bring their culture to newly developing areas of the country/state.
Its very hard to add more of something else and not have dilution.
Take 1 litre of vodka and add 1 decilitre of water - there will be more fluid but the vodka will be?
framing is important though. Nobody considers a cocktail โdilutedโ even if thatโs technically applicable, the resultant mixture usually improves the beverage.
The word has negative connotations, but I stand by it. I an not saying there result isnโt stronger, but if you extend cultural mixing out to the maximum - say humans and the planet survives another thousand years, and global travel is no harder than traveling to the next town over - what you end up with is homogeneity, and this would be sad, I think. Imagine it: the entire world speaking some pidgin derivative mashup of Mandarin, English, and Hindi, with essentially the same culture everywhere on the planet. Just as has already happened, languages are lost, because nobody speaks them natively anymore. All thatโs left of the original cultures are some UNESCO sites and preserved old movies. I canโt say the world wouldnโt be stronger for it, but in the process, something irrecoverable is lost.
Definitely agree with your points but maybe โdilutesโ. Isnโt the right term. I donโt think theyโre worried about their culture being โwatered downโ or โthinnerโ, but replaced.
I had a recent conversation with my brother that fits here. We grew up the same, but he became more conservative and moved to a conservative area, or maybe I became more liberal and moved to a liberal area. Iโve been exploring cooking, and actually this has been several conversations where Iโm excited over learning about preparing a different cuisine, being able to appreciate what that brings, and he responds with โwhy canโt you make regular American food?โ โDilutingโ the cuisine we grew up with would be to use salsa instead of ketchup or mayo. But I have entire meals replaced with new and different. I have a much bigger spice cupboard full of new and different. I make meals that he doesnโt understand, doesnโt know how to prepare, so he gets defensive about what he is comfortable with being replaced
I donโt disagree. In fact, I think a strength of US culture is the diversity in embraces. I do feel sorry that this came at the cost of indigenous cultures, but the end result has been a wonderful melting pot, ruined only by Laissez-Faire economics and some badly wrong turns in how we do Capitalism. Plus the inherent bigotry that hypocrite descendants of immigrants are unable to recognize. Or, worse maybe, an attitude of โwe stole this land fair and square, and now itโs ourโs and everyone else fuck off!โ
All Iโm saying is that my personal preference would be that this not happen to the entire world. Iโd like to visit Germany and see a historic Germany, not another version of America with different preserved buildings. Iโd love to visit the Basque region and immerse myself in Basque culture, not some mashup globalized culture selling Basque trinkets, which no-one uses at home anymore, to tourists. Itโs selfish, I know.
Edit 2024-07-04 relevant comic
The difference is US culture is bland and stupid. Its con artists, police and shitty corporate bullshit. In fact the last time the US lost a major cultural element it was slavery. I think its about time ditch some more bullshit. The con artists need to be tried for fraud, the police need to be disarmed, the supreme court dismantled and the corporations razed.
