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What Tomi Lahren Gets Wrong on Immigration
In a widely shared clip from a Fox News appearance over the weekend, Tomi Lahren showcased just how little she understands how this country was built:
.@TomiLahren: "You don't just come into this country with low skills, low education, not understanding the language and come into our country because someone says it makes them feel nice. That's not what this country is based on." @WattersWorld pic.twitter.com/Dux0cABHar
— Fox News (@FoxNews) May 13, 2018
My friend Brooke had exactly the right take:
https://twitter.com/bkerogers/status/995806378043367424
Lahren’s statement doesn’t just display an ignorance of American history, but also a total disregard for the work previous generations have done with genealogy. Thanks to the power of the Internet, it’s easier than ever before to do genealogical research. A subscription to Ancestry.com opens up a trove of documents from all over the world; painstakingly scanned and transcribed.
Over the years, I’ve delved into this world, and unfortunately find that I am the youngest person in the room at genealogy events by about two generations. As with many trades and skills, genealogy is one of those hobbies that millennials have no interest in taking up.
When I began researching my own family, I only knew my grandparents’ names on both sides of my family, and the name of one great-grandmother. Thanks to Ancestry and a few hundred dollars spent ordering death and marriage certificates from the archives in New York City, I’ve learned an incredible amount about my family’s origins.
The investigation has come with some fascinating discoveries: after a great aunt died, her widower married his sister-in-law. These second cousins saw their aunt turn into their step-mother overnight. Also uncovered was an infant brother of my grandmother’s, buried in the family plot without a headstone or marker of any kind. That discovery was made a few weeks after the birth of my second child, and we discovered this long-lost great uncle who never saw past his first week had the same name as our new son.
What has been most personally enriching is really understanding how much the history I already knew affected my family personally. It’s one thing to intellectually know that the graves and documents belonging to European Jewry was destroyed; it’s quite another to run into a brick wall because of it. While on my mother’s side I was able to easily reach back as far as eight generations thanks to the documents on Ancestry and the work done on the site by long-lost distant cousins; I was barely able to reach back two generations on my father’s. I was able to learn the names of the relatives who made it to America, and sometimes those of their parents if their names were listed on death certificates, but nothing else.
The most humbling part of doing this research has been seeing just how little my family had in terms of money, education, and expertise upon their arrival here. The first relative of mine to arrive here did so 12 years before he died, and managed to bring over all of his adult children before dying. What I know of him is from the 1900 census: he was a tailor from Austria, spoke no English, and could not read or write. His children would be able to learn how to read and write according to later censuses, but they too would work in menial jobs and live in rented homes, bouncing around New York City over the course of their lifetimes. It doesn’t seem as though my great-grandparents were even able to afford to be buried together in the same cemetery (I’ve been thus far unable to locate my great-grandmother, though I am reasonably certain she is buried in the same location as her husband).
Published in General
I know. I had a great grandfather who ran one. But he spoke English too. And would not have expected the government to accommodate him by having ballots printed in German.
Yes it seems to have to do a lot with a shared culture there and attitudes towards immigration are quite different then they are from, say Arizona.
People always try to tell too simple of a story on all this stuff.
My great grandmother, when she came as a child, had a little German Lutheran Hymnal. It’s the only thing in German her parents let her keep. Even having been born in Germany and coming here after being able to read, she could not speak German by the time she died at 101.
Massachusetts has dealt with immigration for several centuries. In fact, at one point, we had the highest “flow-through rate” in the country. In other words, immigrants came here but didn’t stay more than a year or two. It just got overcrowded.
It has always been rough for immigrants. That’s why there were entire Italian, Chinese, Greek, Jewish, and Irish neighborhoods. Now there are Brazilian neighborhoods. Catholics wanted their owns schools for a long time. They did not like the public schools in Massachusetts. That was a big conflict here for decades.
I read somewhere that the way most immigrant groups made friends in the United States was through their food. Americans like to try new kinds of food. :-)
My Italian mother-in-law grew up in Boston. Her mother had emigrated from Naples, Italy (it’s “immigrate to” and “emigrate from”–:-) ). Mamma non (sp?) was a great lady. I loved hearing my mother-in-law’s stories about her mother. Her mother, for example, was the only embroiderer in the city of Boston allowed to embroider the button holes on Brooks Brothers shirts. There were stacks of shirts by her mother’s chair in the evenings. By the way, not only did she not teach her children how to speak Italian but she did not teach them how to sew either. :-) They lived near Massachusetts General Hospital, and the obstetricians would send for Mamma non whenever a non-English-speaking Italian mother was giving birth.
People who are mean and prejudiced are everywhere. We all need to ignore them and carry on in spite of them. There are lots of nice people in the world too.
The current immigration issue in the United States is partly about culture. I’d be a lot happier if we read Muslims the riot act when they came here: “We all get along here. Leave your Muslim supremacist ideas back in the Middle East. And in this country, we respect women and girls. Period. You break that rule and you will be out of here so fast it will make your head spin.” :-) This was the moment they missed in Germany and France. It was a fantastic opportunity to reform Muslims: “You need our help. Your society is dying because of these hateful attitudes. We’ll help you, but on our terms.”
Its what I am here for.
You don’t think voting overwhelmingly for Democrats qualifies, I take it?
I do.
The issue isn’t even about assimilation in most cases; the children of immigrants are assimilating all too well…..into the ‘social justice’ identity politics worldview promoted by Democrats, who now control all cultural institutions. The lack of familial cultural legacies based on the founding ideals of the country, and the cultural attributes supporting those same ideals, makes the children of immigrants more susceptible to this toxic influence, as demonstrated by voting patterns. So long as that state of affairs persists, mass immigration means the death of America.
I don’t think basing immigration on which of the two parties immigrants are likely to vote for is a very moral standard.
In my experience, 2nd generation immigrants are graduating from High schools and college with various degrees and are no more prone to be politically active than any other kids going through our leftist education system. They seem to be pretty representative of the general population of the area they grew up in…..more so than I expected in fact.
I don’t think importing Democrats and risking the Republic in order to avoid difficult moral decisions is particularly moral.
Besides, I was talking about reducing immigration in general, not excluding specific groups. But since you bring it up, my personal preference would be, in conjunction with lower levels of immigration overall, prioritization be given to immigrants who face active, and severe religious persecution. And yes, the fact that such immigrants would be more likely (or at least less unlikely) to vote Republican does influence that preference of mine. Would you consider that immoral for discriminating against economically motivated migrants?
How do you propose to screen for Democrats?
Here’s an idea: how about Republicans just become more appealing to immigrants? As an immigrant I can tell you that’s it’s possible.
The aggregate data suggest otherwise, though the Democrat preference is reduced in areas with a Republican majority.
I don’t think the people of Texas and Oklahoma would agree. Or does they not matter?
Which people? Illiterate, low skilled and likely to use welfare? How about people who don’t want to be assimilated and want to fundamentally change the US? Do we get to decide who and how many?
It matters because people don’t come her alone. They bring their culture and their beliefs with them. It is fundamentally changing the US. I for one don’t want it changed. I’d like to pass on a country pretty similar to what I had to my grand children.
All these exact same arguments were used against European immigrants last century.
1.) I just gave you an example. Religious, primarily Christian refugees from religious persecution will be more likely to vote Republican, much like Cuban refugees were more likely to vote for the more anti-Communists party. Besides which, my main point is to simply limit the damage by limiting immigration overall and thereby give us time to take back the institutions from leftist domination.
2.) In other words, become even less conservative. No. There is a reason only one major group of recent immigrants have leaned Republican. The issue is the immigrants themselves, and how they are influenced by the Democrat-controlled institutions of cultural transmission.
This isn’t helping your cause. America has changed. Societally and culturally, not for the better.
We need to import FICA slaves to support our intergenerational theft systems (Medicare, SS, pensions) because we aren’t procreating enough FICA slaves to make our Ponzi stupidity work.
The problem is, I think that we can’t absorb “Illiterate, low skilled” types in this non-libertarian economy. We need to be more choosy.
Procreate for LBJ Comrades!
And look at what we’ve got today.
Past generations immigrated to an America that insisted on the melting bowl.
In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person’s becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American…There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag… We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language… and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”
Teddy Roosevelt
Not one where they were encouraged to maintain a separate existence and insist on special treatment and priveledge.
In the second place the difference between someone coming from another European country is going to have far more in common with American culture then someone coming from Asia, or Africa or Latin America. Culture matters.
😂😂😂😂😂, ” People ..who get on TV because they look good” ARE the entire Lefty media! I’m so happy we have a gorgeous, smart millennial on our side.
You gotta fight fire with fire.
“Oh, it’s Tomi this, and Tomi that..”. Yuh, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s ” Thank you, Ms Lahren!” , now that the guns have begun to shoot.. (ref Kipling, Tommy, in case you dont get it…)
Right. Because only illegals can build things right?
There is no reason why a Republican party that appeals to immigrants has to become less conservative. Most of the immigrants I know are Republicans. So there must be something appealing in conservatism.
When it comes to building things in 2018 I’m gonna side with the guy who owns a concrete installation business.
This really is true.
My parents were Orthodox Christians, fiercely anti Communist and raised all their kids to speak English, and love America. They followed all the rules, never received a penny from the government never expected any special treatment. My parents had been bombed by the USAF in WW2. My dads proudest moment when was when I was commissioned in the USAF.
There is something to this.
More than 100,000 noncitizens are registered to vote in Pennsylvania alone, according to testimony submitted Monday in a lawsuit demanding the state come clean about the extent of its problems.
Immigrants Are Getting the Right to Vote in Cities Across America
Meh. Thats your argument.
LOL.
Most of the immigrants you know are not representative of the whole. I agree that conservatism should be appealing, but it hasn’t been (except among Cuban refugees). It can’t be a lack of conservatism given the opposition, so I believe my theory explains the discrepancy better than a lack of effort to appeal to (legal) immigrants, which I do not believe was absent for the past three decades.