The “no such thing as too much immigration” spirit really leans on the schoolroom narrative of the happy, friendly incorporation of the great 1800s-1900s “white ethnic” immigrant waves.

So worth reminding that for generations until the 1950s or even 1970s, they were known as the “unmeltable ethnics” – distinct, persistent alien cultures characterized by ethnic solidarity, tribal feuding, peasant superstition, quasi-revolutionary mob violence, organized crime, and corrupt transactional unprincipled strongman politics

It was actually a hell of a strain that bent America a lot of ways, and if you don’t hear much of that it’s largely because our civic mythology’s been nipped and tucked to flatter them!

Like, the Irish-Americans, my half-heritage – whitest of the white ethnics, Literally The Police levels of status quo bias – all through the Cold War and into the 1990s 4th+ generation citizens were raising funds and weapons to support a terrorist bombing campaign against the United Kingdom, assassination attempts against the Queen and PM, on the tail of a century plus of social, electoral, paramilitary, and terrorist efforts to start a war with the British Empire on principle.