A Century of Migration in the US

https://century-of-migration.silk.co/

by kawera • 11 years ago

19 18 11 years ago

century-of-migration.silk.co

Smart read with some perspective on immigration from a scientist studying historical migration and immigration to the United States.

Couple of take aways:

"The United States has experienced much higher immigration rates than at present alongside much larger foreign-born populations, and we not only survived, but thrived."

BUT

"...if we returned to our noble American tradition of openness like in the 1850s and welcome in 8 million immigrants a year (same rate as 1850 as % of population), the truth is, large swathes of the United States actually would be “speaking Arabic” (or Chinese or Indian languages). Just like large groups in the US in 1850 were speaking German and Gaelic. This isn’t speculative fear-mongering, this is just a sober reading of the data."

Kurtz79• 11 years ago

A more sober reading would be considering how many large groups in the US speak German and Gaelic today.

refriedbeans32• 11 years ago

Right - he makes that point in the article that it went well with the Germans and Irish, but it doesn't mean it would go well with mass immigration from China, India, or the Middle East.

Impossible to prove without doing it, but valid point that should be considered.

golergka2• 11 years ago

But this kind of reading is less relevant, because it has more factors involved than mere immigration dynamics. Before immigration, Germans, English, French and Irish lived alongside together for centuries, with similar religions and culture, and a lot of shared cultural baggage.

Immigrants speaking arabic don't share this characteristics. For better or worse, they come from a different culture, different religion, with different ways of living and values.

Some people simplify these facts to cry gibberish about "brown-skinned terrorists". These people, of course, are racist idiots. But the fact that some idiots blow the facts out of proportion and create an idiotic hysteria out of it doesn't mean that we should ignore the underlying truth. "Different culture" doesn't necessary mean bad things; there's a lot of beautiful things that western civilization has to learn from muslim culture. But some aspects of this culture are alarming, to say the least.

defen• 11 years ago

I don't know about Gaelic, but German language and culture in the USA was ruthlessly suppressed during World War 1, and they were forced to assimilate into the broader Anglo culture. I don't see that happening today if 10% of our population speaks Chinese as their primary language & we go to war with China.

Torgo• 11 years ago

open immigration periods were punctuated by closed periods that facilitated assimilation of those groups.

tryitnow2• 11 years ago

8 million per year?! That certainly puts things in perspective.

Of course, I don't think anyone other than anarchists IS calling for returning to 1850s levels immigration.

x1798DE• 11 years ago

I don't think even a significant fraction of the people over at http://openborders.info would describe themselves as anarchists...

lymanstone5• 11 years ago

As I said, I doubt anyone thinks it's a reasonable number. But I put it out there because advocates of immigration need to be aware that EVEN THEY probably prefer tighter immigration than we had in the 19th century. I don't think there's any political constituency for 19th-century levels of open-ness. I mean, I favor much higher immigration, but even I'd balk at that, regardless of origin.

bluedino• 11 years ago

Is there ever going to be a reason for people to move in the future? It seems to me like it would be climate-based instead of for work as it was in the past.

Millions of people moved to the midwest for automotive jobs. What new industry is going to cause that many people to re-locate these days? I think it wouldn't only happen if something like a drought causing people to move out of the southwest or sever flooding a la Katrina.

lymanstone5• 11 years ago

Even most postmodern industries are geographically clustered, and regional evidence within the US suggests economic prosperity is not getting more even, ergo, migration is likely to continue. Globally, migration is likely to accelerate in the near term. For my forecasts of future immigration, see here: https://medium.com/migration-issues/a-prophecy-of-immigratio...

dragonwriter2• 11 years ago

Is there ever going to be a reason for people to move in the future?

Yes.

It seems to me like it would be climate-based instead of for work as it was in the past.

There may be some point in the future where geography is irrelevant to economic prospects, but that's quite some way off still.

What new industry is going to cause that many people to re-locate these days?

Even without new regionally concentrated industries (which may still occur and draw people in, but are hard to predict), the collapse of existing regionally-dominant industries will cause people to move for economic reasons -- maybe not all to the same place, but out from places experiencing that kind of collapse to places that aren't.

A Century of Migration in the US

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