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Stop saying we are a nation of IMMIGRANTS!

Gypsy Nirvana

Recalcitrant Reprobate -
Administrator
Veteran
I recently found this article from 2006, and thought it was quite topical, even today. It talks about the settlement of America.

Stop Saying This Is a Nation of Immigrants!

A nation of immigrants: This is a convenient myth developed as a response to the 1960s movements against colonialism, neocolonialism, and white supremacy. The ruling class and its brain trust offered multiculturalism, diversity, and affirmative action in response to demands for decolonization, justice, reparations, social equality, an end of imperialism, and the rewriting of history — not to be “inclusive” — but to be accurate. What emerged to replace the liberal melting pot idea and the nationalist triumphal interpretation of the “greatest country on earth and in history,” was the “nation of immigrants” story.

By the 1980s, the “waves of immigrants” story even included the indigenous peoples who were so brutally displaced and murdered by settlers and armies, accepting the flawed “Bering Straits” theory of indigenous immigration some 12,000 years ago. Even at that time, the date was known to be wrong, there was evidence of indigenous presence in the Americas as far back as 50,000 years ago, and probably much longer, and entrance by many means across the Pacific and the Atlantic — perhaps, as Vine Deloria jr. put it, footsteps by indigenous Americans to other continents will one day be acknowledged. But, the new official history texts claimed, the indigenous peoples were the “first immigrants.” They were followed, it was said, by immigrants from England and Africans, then by Irish, and then by Chinese, Eastern and Southern Europeans, Russians, Japanese, and Mexicans. There were some objections from African Americans to referring to enslaved Africans hauled across the ocean in chains as “immigrants,” but that has not deterred the “nation of immigrants” chorus.

Misrepresenting the process of European colonization of North America, making everyone an immigrant, serves to preserve the “official story” of a mostly benign and benevolent USA, and to mask the fact that the pre-US independence settlers, were, well, settlers, colonial setters, just as they were in Africa and India, or the Spanish in Central and South America.

The United States was founded as a settler state, and an imperialistic one from its inception (“manifest destiny,” of course). The settlers were English, Welsh, Scots, Scots-Irish, and German, not including the huge number of Africans who were not settlers. Another group of Europeans who arrived in the colonies also were not settlers or immigrants: the poor, indentured, convicted, criminalized, kidnapped from the working class (vagabonds and unemployed artificers), as Peter Linebaugh puts it, many of who opted to join indigenous communities.

Only beginning in the 1840s, with the influx of millions of Irish Catholics pushed out of Ireland by British policies, did what might be called “immigration” begin. The Irish were discriminated against cheap labor, not settlers. They were followed by the influx of other workers from Scandinavia, Eastern and Southern Europe, always more Irish, plus Chinese and Japanese, although Asian immigration was soon barred. Immigration laws were not even enacted until 1875 when the US Supreme Court declared the regulation of immigration a federal responsibility. The Immigration Service was established in 1891.

Buried beneath the tons of propaganda — from the landing of the English “pilgrims” (fanatic Protestant Christian evangelicals) to James Fennimore Cooper’s phenomenally popular “Last of the Mohicans” claiming “natural rights” to not only the indigenous peoples territories but also to the territories claimed by other European powers — is the fact that the founding of the United States was a division of the Anglo empire, with the US becoming a parallel empire to Great Britain. From day one, as was specified in the Northwest Ordinance that preceded the US Constitution, the new republic for empire (as Jefferson called the US) envisioned the future shape of what is now the lower 48 states of the US.

They drew up rough maps, specifying the first territory to conquer as the “Northwest Territory,” ergo the title of the ordinance. That territory was the Ohio Valley and the Great Lakes region, which was filled with indigenous farming communities.

Once the conquest of the “Northwest Territory” was accomplished through a combination of genocidal military campaigns and bringing in European settlers from the east, and the indigenous peoples moved south and north for protection into other indigenous territories, the republic for empire annexed Spanish Florida where runaway enslaved Africans and remnants of the indigenous communities that had escaped the Ohio carnage fought back during three major wars (Seminole wars) over two decades.

In 1828, President Andrew Jackson (who had been a general leading the Seminole wars) pushed through the Indian Removal Act to force all the agricultural indigenous nations of the Southeast, from Georgia to the Mississippi River, to transfer to Oklahoma territory that had been gained through the “Louisiana Purchase” from France. Anglo settlers with enslaved Africans seized the indigenous agricultural lands for plantation agriculture in the Southern region. Many moved on into the Mexican province of Texas — then came the US military invasion of Mexico in 1846, seizing Mexico City and forcing Mexico to give up its northern half through the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Texas were then opened to “legal” Anglo settlement, also legalizing those who had already settled illegally, and in Texas by force.

The indigenous and the poor Mexican communities in the seized territory, such as the Apache, Navajo, and Comanche, resisted colonization, as they had resisted the Spanish empire, often by force of arms, for the next 40 years. The small class of Hispanic elites welcomed and collaborated with US occupation.

Are “immigrants” the appropriate designation for the indigenous peoples of North America? No.

Are “immigrants” the appropriate designation for enslaved Africans? No.

Are “immigrants” the appropriate designation for the original European settlers? No.

Are “immigrants” the appropriate designation for Mexicans who migrate for work to the United States? No. They are migrant workers crossing a border created by US military force. Many crossing that border now are also from Central America, from the small countries that were ravaged by US military intervention in the 1980s and who also have the right to make demands on the United States.


So, let’s stop saying “this is a nation of immigrants.”

https://mronline.org/2006/05/29/stop-saying-this-is-a-nation-of-immigrants/

About Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz is a long-time activist, university professor, and writer. In addition to numerous scholarly books and articles, she has written three historical memoirs, Red Dirt: Growing Up Okie (Verso, 1997), Outlaw Woman: Memoir of the War Years, 1960–1975 (City Lights, 2002), and Blood on the Border: A Memoir of the Contra War (South End Press, 2005) about the 1980s contra war against the Sandinistas.
 

GMT

The Tri Guy
Veteran
I'm not sure I agree with the P.C. stance. At what point does immigration stop and invasion begin? Is it numbers, politics, beliefs and culture? Is it when adaptation stops and demands start? When people claim that they want a better life, and take from yours, is it wrong to object? When they say they are afraid of the culture they come from, and seek to replicate it where they go to, is that immigration? When they pick up arms in the country they immigrate into, and use them against those who were already there, can anyone complain without being called racists? When they groom and sexually assault your children, is it really against diversification to complain (as some parents of raped children have been told, byM.P.s and police).
There has to be standards, there has to be limits, people have to have the right to defend the way of life that their ancestors gave theirs, to create for them.
 

Easy7

Active member
Veteran
Native Americans immigrated, just a lot longer ago across the ice bridge. Almost every location was immigrated to. Just a lot longer ago.

It's not even new to see cultures battling. It doesn't help the cause at all to be fasisct and they think it does. It's peoples sense, wrong sense, of supremecy. Due to senses of entitlment.

As long as people behave themselves I see no issue with human migration.
 

Lost in a SOG

GrassSnakeGenetics
So there is an argument, a conspiracy even, out there that I came across a while back and i've talked with enough people about it now involved in these worlds to seriously believe that:

Legally America is actually colony still and the same goes for Australia, S.Africa, Canada, India and Britain.. And that no one escaped the crown corporation/temple, this is not the British crown per se this is the Crown corporation, and set up their own countries, it's all been a dream or sorts not "freedom" in anyway.. Legally speaking the Crown corp still owns all that land.. we're all actually taxed by the Inn temples that are located in the same place as the Knights templar Inns on brewery lane (where 1000 odd years ago they brewed alcohol to control the masses) In the states they set up a faux Temple that is still called an Inn but that pretends to be officiating directly taxation as it's a franchise.

Frank Baum hid the whole story of America's ownorship of the crown allegorically in the "Wizard of Oz". It's not really a kids story.

This is one of the major secrets occulted from view by the worlds of Law and Freemasonry as well. Were talking the trading companies and their deeds to the lands like the Virginia Company/East India co/Hudson bay company/Royal African company etc. These companies were mercenary pirates/agents of the Crown corporation = Fact.

The United States is actually only the District of Columbia. which again is hidden meaning because Christopher Columbus is a fabrication probably made up by the Knights of Colombe (means Dove). Knights Templars.

Every single thing about America looks like a Crown colony.. The fascist taxation, the state obsession with promoting alcohol, cigarettes, gambling (check out who owns these corporations) from the flag which is based on the Virginia companies flag, to the fasces (roman fascist symbol of bound wood) to the golden eagle as a motif.. It's all bullshit the list really does go on and on..

The constitution was "designed" by British freemasons.. Do you think they were in anyway looking forward for whats best for y'all today though seriously? Those guys were all subservient to the Crown Temple.

The truth is out there if you understand a bit of European history and Law. Better educated people know this ish and become attorneys or lawyers or CEOs of the vampire corporations that want you dead or on the breadline. All that money flows back to the Crown corporations knight Templar companies and inevitably the Crowns accounts.. A vast amount of US military contracts goes to internationalist corporations and as we know half of the US GDP goes to that

The crown corporation originated in Switzerland because it is shaped like a crown on Italy's head, Italy being the gown in the "Crown and Gown" or more specifically the Vatican who really devised the fascist roman style Civil system of law that we all use still today, corporations/companies exist in Maritime law which allows them to get away with murder, literally.. And bring the history of the Normans in who were basically the psycho knights templar dudes and a bit of research on what their descendants are up to today in Canary wharf and the City of London etc and bam. The City of London is a Mile square area that the Crown owns and is the strongest, well hidden defended area in the western world, 10,000s of cctv cameras, bollards and metre thick walls defend them from any uprising, of course today we are too toxic, wrongly medicated and busy with gadgets created through slavery to question much.

Yeah call me crazy if you like.. Sadly i'll be laughing sardonically all the way to the grave on what I know and can hardly share with anyone. sorry for this vaguely off topic interjection but in someways I felt it important to get some people to look into why america is the way it is and always has been. As a scientist having spent my life trying to get that riddle this is the best answer I have come to/across. It's all out there though in history and today in places like canary wharf/wall street and our fascist super similar governments. And this is what these people do for a living
 
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Iffy

Nil Illegitimus Carburundum
ICMag Donor
Veteran


Are “immigrants” the appropriate designation for Mexicans who migrate for work to the United States? No. They are migrant workers crossing a border created by US military force. Many crossing that border now are also from Central America, from the small countries that were ravaged by US military intervention in the 1980s and who also have the right to make demands on the United States.[/B


In the words of Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler;
“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer - a gangster for capitalism.
I began by helping to make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. I also helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street around the same time. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested.
Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts - I operated on three continents!”

Not much changes....
 

Gry

Well-known member
We Are a nation of immigrants.
Between the civil war, and the first world war, there were successive waves of immigrants brought over to the US as cheap labor, the railroad companies were notorious for it.
We have the the population we do now as a result of it.
I have found it interesting that we have a population in the US from almost each of our conflicts.
The Philippines, Korea, and Nam being only a few examples.


Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz is a wonderful person and a frequent contributor to several feminist programs on pacifica, where she is a regular guest.
Something else to listen to, a very gifted story teller with a delightful wit and a sharp sense of humor.
Extremely well educated, with some amazing educational accomplishments behind her.
There are no shortage of people with half her education, and twice her ego who insist on being referred to as 'doctor'.
 

St. Phatty

Active member
Seems like most nations are at least 1/2, children and grandchildren etc. of immigrants.

Looking back a few generations, my ancestors were in Northern Europe.

I figure that might be related to me doing well when it's cold and not being comfortable in the heat.
 

hubcap

StackinCalyxs
Veteran
Name one -great- nation that wasnt built on the bones and blood of the previous tennant.


Name one.


I, for one, am not ashamed to say white male aristocratic colonials brought forth the greatest country this globe has ever seen.
Sure, weve made our share of mistakes, but, given the fact that we are all here, able to voice our opinions, freely........without fear of government oppression....


Id say they, WE, did a damn good job.
Otherwise, the whole rest of the world wouldnt be itching to get here.


Think about that for a minute.
SO MUCH anti-US sentiment out there, yet, if you asked these people if they would take free US citizenship, theyd do it in a HEARTBEAT!


Ill NEVER apologize for being a white male repuiblican.
This isnt the 1800s, snowflakes.
The very fact you can cry about your DTS (Donald Trump Syndrome) and have no fear of jail (or worse) should be enough for you to say THANK YOU to those evil white males that brought forth your freedoms and the means to protect them.








'MERICA.
 

Gypsy Nirvana

Recalcitrant Reprobate -
Administrator
Veteran
I had a green card for the USA once, I was a legal registered alien in 1977.... but as things have worked out in my life, its a good job I didn't take citizenship and remained a British citizen, or I would be sitting in one of your wonderful federal resorts right now, most probably having to bunk with a Babba.

Phew.....somehow managed to dodge that bullet.

* hubcap, how about Bhutan?
 
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Teddybrae

Referring to original post: Indigenous Australia is impacted in the same ways ... still.


What Hubcap sez minus the belligerent tone is also true for me. Pre Colonisation Europe was a continuous battlefield. All of us Europeans have violence and dependence on Alpha males deep in our psyche. It was humanly, non-thinkingly, inevitable, that as we Europeans travelled we would behave the only way we knew how.


One World!
 

hubcap

StackinCalyxs
Veteran
I had a green card for the USA once, I was a legal registered alien in 1977.... but as things have worked out in my life, its a good job I didn't take citizenship and remained a British citizen, or I would be sitting in one of your wonderful federal resorts right now, most probably having to bunk with a Babba.
Only if one is stupid.
Know plenty of those like you Gypsy. "Behind enemy lines" for decades. Nary a cell or partner named Bubba. Lay off the BBC documentaries about America.


Phew.....somehow managed to dodge that bullet.


If I recall correctly, your time in the UK hasnt been all that uneventful, now, has it?


* hubcap, how about Bhutan?
I said -great- nation.
Bhutan, while beautiful and its people wonderful, doesnt make any rational persons list of -great- nations.


-cap
 

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