🥇 Is Multiculturism Worth It?

Too much identifying with one's family's original country and not America is killing us.

I don’t want to sound like a troglodyte (love that word), but both sides of my family, came from Italy a few generations ago. The Italians were pretty much treated like dirt as the Irish were when they came over a few decades earlier.

Between 1820 and 1870, fewer than 25,000 Italian immigrants came to the U.S., mostly from northern Italy. These early arrivals settled in communities all across the country, from the farm towns of New Jersey and the vineyards of California to the ports of San Francisco and New Orleans.

However, between 1880 and 1924, more than four million Italians immigrated to the United States, half of them between 1900 and 1910 alone—the majority fleeing grinding, rural poverty in Southern Italy, that would be the provinces of Abruzzo, Campania, Apulia, Basilicata, and Calabria and from Sicily.

Most planned to stay a few years, then take their earnings and return home. But they found out, Mama mia, America, what a paese fantasico. Today, we are the nation's fifth-largest ethnic group.

4 million Italians Immigrants landed in America in early 1900s

By the way, Italian ancestry dominates here in New Jersey. The Census estimates roughly 17 percent of New Jerseyans, or 1.5 million, are of Italian heritage. I think it’s because we have a similar climate to Southern Italy and produce great tomatoes. :-) and not too far from Ellis Island.

Charles K. Landis, a Philadelphis lawyer and land developer had had a dream when he carved a city from the South Jersey wilderness in 1861.

“I am about to build a city, and an agricultural and fruit-growing colony around it,” he stated, and who better to do that than the Italian farmers. Vineland first, then Landisville, Hammonton, and even Sea Isle City are all from his efforts.

Here’s a good website animated graphic on Italian Immigration.

Lucky for the Italians their immigration to the USA happened after the Civil War. A lot of those poor Irish who got here just before us wound up being cannon fodder for the Union army. Both nationalities, as well as the others before them, faced a highly protective nationalistic public of native Americans.

Actually, the newcomers were immigrants themselves but unwilling to accommodate new newcomers (sound familiar). Between 1840 and 1860, 4.5 million Europeans arrived in the United States, most from Germany, Ireland, and Scandinavia just before the Irish and Italians.

Having faced a wall of bigotry and Xenophobia, the Italians tried to quickly assimilate by learning English, and anglicized their last names, dropping vowels and syllables, even changing it all together.

My cousins, the Camaranos, are now Cameron. My cousin-in-laws started out Giangiordano, changed it to the much more manageable “George.” Italian immigrants wanted to be American, not Italians in America. Many other European immigrants did the same thing with their names.

Because they adapted so quickly, they mixed well into the melting pot. Being white no doubt helped quite a bit. There were benefits to what this Caucasian skin produced and gave the Europeans a helping hand getting absorbed. The exception were the Sicilians, having been just a spit away from Africa, were regularly suspected of being colored.

A big Puerto Rican migration was facilitated after 1917 by the granting of US citizenship to all the residents of the Island, which had been acquired from Spain in the War of 1898. However, the change of legal status which took place in 1917 did not immediately produce a wave of migration from Puerto Rico to the United States.

That large migration of Puerto Ricans to the United States took place after 1945 as a result of economic changes when the Island moved from a plantation economy to an emphasis on export-production in factories. The northeast, especially New Jersey, was highly agricultural and provided a great spot for migrant workers.

The big Puerto Rican migration happened after 1945.

I remember my grandfather and uncles heading up to Glassboro where there was a Puerto Rican labor facility and hiring 20 or so migrants to work on the farm. He had constructed barracks for them like most area farmers. They worked all summer and went home to the family once growing season was over. Once they got hip to how great we had it here, instead of going home, like the Italians, they brought their families here.

Okay, so here’s the main point of all of this. I think this was the point where multiculturism started to take hold. Multiculturalism is a word that describes a society where many different cultures live together and try to maintain their own native identites. In a multicultural society, there isn’t an official culture (decided by its history) that every person must be a part of. In my opinion, introduction of multiculturalism was the beginning of the de-construction of America.

By a liberal definition multiculturalism is a way of compensating cultural groups for past exclusion, discrimination, and oppression by giving them exceptional advantages. Most modern democracies are comprisedby members with diverse cultural backgrounds, some considered to be more disadvantaged.

Here’s the rub, by cutting out a special privilege for one group, you are no longer a melting pot. Every special group consists of self-serving, individual, national identities and are perceived by the rest as trying to get one up on everyone else. It becomes highly political and confrontational, especially when financial benefits and employment are involved.

Blame it on the Canadians. They not only brought us freezing weather, but they started the multicultural revolution.

The Canadian government has often been described as the instigator of multicultural ideology because of its public stance on the social importance of immigration. The Canadian Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism is often referred to as the origins of modern political awareness of multiculturalism. Multiculturalism has been official policy in several Western nations since the 1970s, for reasons that varied from country to country, including the fact that many of the great cities of the Western world are increasingly made of a mosaic of cultures.^{[15] .. Wikipedia}

However, what’s been happening in America is an incredibly large number of undocumented, poor and illiterate immigrants from Mexico & Central and South America have crashed the border and have begun to inherently change the national identity, and in the process, fragmenting us.

As I write this post, there is a massive migration happening from South America through Mexico to the USA of around 7,000 people.

Part of the 7,000 migrants headed to the US border through Mexico

And of course, we older folk, remember the Cuban Mariel Boatlift, when around 125,000 Cubans and 25,000 Haitians arrive in the United States in 1980. After 10,000 Cubans tried to gain asylum by taking refuge on the grounds of the Peruvian embassy, the Cuban government announced that anyone who wanted to leave could do so and provided boats for them to get here. Gracias, Fidel! and thanks for giving us the corrupt NJ Senator Menendez.

It was a good opportunity for Castro to empty out all the prisons and send thousands of criminals and malcontents on their way. If you don’t remember, watch Al Pacino’s Scarface. “Rebenga!!”

I am not criticizing legal immigration. Foreigners who stand in line and come in the front door should be accepted with open arms. The country thrives on diverse talents and peoples. Getting over-run is a different problem. Not to mention the eventual big problem. Balkanization.

When a country divides (a region or body) into smaller mutually hostile states or groups, its called Balkanization. That can happen to us here in the USA. We could fragment into different republics due to nationalities and political leanings.

This is a sample of how North America could be broken apart and Balkanized from https://www.deviantart.com/muzik-maniac. This just one of many examples you can find online.

From deviantart.com  Note: I cleaned up their graphic to make it more readable.

My personal opinion, and I think it reflects the opinion of a large part of America, is that by creating separate identities with segregated needs for each group, cultivating a negative mindset toward established Americans, and identifying with their native country instead of America—all this is pulling the country apart.

This multicultural experiment is happening all over the world. The result England, France and all of Europe are overrun with fleeing immigrants who are changing the host country’s culture. They’re mostly from war-torn countries in the Middle East and Africa, but now Ukrainian people are all flooding Europe from the wars we created.

In London, Paris, Rome it’s becoming increasingly more difficult to find a native Englishman, Frenchman, or Italians. I liked those cultures. So what if they aren’t  “multicultural.” Viva la diference!

Now, some may say this is good. Those European countries were too white. So what? Is Nigeria too black? Are there too many Australians in Australia? Are there too many Chinese in China or too many Japanese in Japan? Do they really need to be multicultural. Duh? To what purpose?

America, who never had one major, national identity (except for the Native tribes, of course—whole different story), created one by assimilating all the cultures that arrived here, hence, “The Melting Pot”.

It was a good, tasty recipe that we cooked up. Certainly cultural clashes, but not like now. Now it’s all “a la carte” every dish for itself. Diversity is good when you have many races living together as one nation with one identity—multiculturalism… not so much.

Unfortunately, nothing is going to change as long as extreme poverty exists in other countries. People will be flocking to the more prosperous West, especially America thinking that this is the golden goose that’s going to lay them some golden eggs. They come by the millions.

Eventually, they will find mostly their own, poor selves here and, with all the increasing income inequality in the USA, it’s not going to be as good as where they escaped from. Americans are already moving to other more accoodating countries than the ones they left. Check this out.

So, Salud amigos! Y pasa la tequila, por favor!

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