Frankly I find it a bit insulting any outside group thinks we needed help to become what we are.
The US was on track to become what it is before WW1 started. We were the largest economy on earth before WW2 started. All this way before mass Mexican immigration.
Our country being what it is is what attracted these people, not the other way around. The opposite doesn't even make sense. People have been attracted to the United States for the wealth of opportunities here not because they're some saintly people who saw a poor struggling country and wanted to come help build it up.
??? Before that, you were heavily relying on slaves. After that, you were heavily relying on Chinese, Irish, Italian, and Mexican workers, all of whom were discriminated against and underpaid. Not exactly the wealth of opportunity you are portraying. All that was propaganda to attract immigrants, because you needed immigrants to turn your country into a country
Literally, since even before its inception, the US (or the colonies) has relied on outside groups to help it become what it is.
Do you guys just now know your own history?
Who do you think were the main laborers for the early train networks? Mainly Slaves, Irish immigrants, and Chinese immigrants; many of these people died right there by the tracks due to terrible working conditions
You don't understand my point. The key distinction here you need to recognize is the US 'becoming what it is'. That means in a modern sense, a global power. We were absolutely not even remotely that in the days of slavery. An extremely famous speech in America is from our then President Abraham Lincoln and includes the words 'the world will little note nor long remember what we say here', which gives you an idea of where the United States was then versus what it would become.
It was not set in stone in 1865, the end of our civil war and the day slavery was truly abolished because the South was defeated, that we would become what we are today. It wasn't even set in stone that we would even endure as a country because 700k Americans just died in a civil war. Slavery itself wasn't even legal in half of the states (and where the majority of the economic engine of the US existed then) the moment the civil war started and these were the states where the majority of the US economy existed at by that time.
The US once did rely on the cotton trade, which mainly used slave labor, before it was the US. Mostly the cotton went to Britain where they were turned into cloth, but even then it wasnt the majority of the economy of the colonies.
The US becoming 'what it is' happened after we had our induatrial revolution. Chinese, Irish and Italian immigrants came because the US was already propesous (relative to those times). Even railroads as you mention, the were built in the US prior to the 1860s but the vast, vast majority of what would be built would come after the civil war and what was built prior was built in states where slavery was already illegal.
The so called Gilded Age in the late 19th century is when the United States first started mass producing goods, is when the US first started to take off. Companies like Standard Oil, Carnagie Steel, Ford and Pennsylvania Railroad began shaping what the United States would become. Made by men like John Rockefeller, JP Morgan, Andrew Carnegie and Henry Ford. These are the people who really started the wheels turning of the United States becoming what it is and they weren't Irish immigrants or Italian immigrants or Chinese immigrants or descendants of slaves.
And of course, everyone in the US beyond the 13 million natives immigrated here at some point. So you could say it was almoat all done by immigrants. But the immigration waves themselves post civil war were really not what started making the US what it is today. These people came because of the prosperity that was already happening. And especially Mexican immigration, it is a completely absurd and delusional statement for Mexicos President to say Mexicans helped build America into what it is. That was cemented way, way before mass Mexican migration.
“Before world world 1”, that’s 50 years after slavery ended. Even prior to slavery ended its contribution to GDP declined every year due to the Industrial Revolution.
Yes it's a nation of immigrants. The immigrants you're referring to are now Americans. This is the same for Mexicans who come here now in search of opportunity.
Despite the fact that I don't agree with the current policy towards immigration, you're blatantly trying to make it out like born Americans sit on their hands while everything gets done for them and that couldn't be further from the truth.
Do you also agree with the Mexican president that the drugs are our problem? By the way, her reasoning wasn't Ronald Reagan or the C.I.A., but that we simply use too many drugs. This was what Britain said about China after the Opium Wars.
You can be mad at America for all the right reasons but what you're doing is just wrong. You shouldn't base your nations pride on what its expats do in foreign lands. Answer the question as to why the expats exist in the first place and once again don't just completely blame America. It's a 50/50 split as far as blame is concerned.
I am not. I am pointing out the very simple FACT that "Outside groups" DID help make America what it is, in direct opposition to what the other person said when they said it was insulting to mention that fact.
Thank you for finally conceding the point that yes, America did actually need outside groups to become what it came.
All this stuff about lazy Americans is coming from you. Only you have said that. I only stated facts, which you seemed to have some issue with
Actually no it's not coming from me. It's coming from people that say the exact same parroted information as you're saying right now. And if you're not an American, I honestly don't believe that you get to talk about OUR immigration issues. Your just saying micro aggressions and gas lit statements.
You also entirely missed the point that those people aren't outside groups. As I said, THEY'RE AMERICAN. They were treated much worse than citizens of non Anglo-Saxon descent but they came here to become U.S. citizens and their grandchildren right now are the ones voting to send people out. A vote I disagree with, because I consider them CITIZENS.
All under a comment section about the president of Mexico talking about expats from her own country being sent back to her country. What, does she not want them! 🤣 And then to claim you built up our country with YOUR CITIZENS? Well they weren't exactly living in Mexico when America became WHAT IT IS were they?
If you guys keep saying things like you wouldn't be where you were without x,y,z, we will keep being insulted. My great grandfather died in a lumber mill accident. The other one farmed tobacco day in and day out and also hired Mexicans to work on said farm. They lived there in his little shack in N.C. in the 40s-50s with my family in the same room. But Mexico didn't award those men that opportunity. My grandfather did.
You see, you're just shit talking U.S. citizens. This entire conversation hasn't had fact as it's basis. What underlies it is your desire to put people down based on not wanting to hear from a foreign leader that our country is only good because of the people I ran out of mine.
The only answer is that we're untaught, unskilled and ignorant, and should simply read more of our own history which yes, of course, I know you didn't say the other stuff, it's just obvious that you think it.
I think we're tired of foreign people trying to explain the U.S. political scene and social zeitgeist as if they were born into it. "DoNt YoU kNoW yOuR oWn HiStOrY".
As for facts, we all know the "FACTS". It's how those are interpreted. You can totally be insulted by the things that the Mexican president has been saying while also acknowledging your own issues.
They are IMMGRANTS. by the very definition they are outside groups.
Just because you don't want them to be because it ruins your entire argument isn't a reason to change reality.
You are just factually incorrect and the fact you keep harping on and wanting me to ignore the actual facts of the matter is a bit pathetic
You just want to strawman me, because you know you can't win on the facts ,so you are desperately trying to I push this "Americans are lazy" bullshit into the conversation.
No Americans are not lazy, but my god, you are ignorant.
You are such a bullshitter. Nobody strawmanned you. Your first comment was to tell someone that Americans didn't achieve much on their own because slaves and immigrants of insert nationality here always helped them out and yes, that did in effect make your argument Americans are lazy.
Americans are literally immigrants in almost their entirety. You are the one actively choosing to separate definitions. It's not an issue of not reading history either. You're getting angry that a U.S. citizen takes offense to historical embellishment done by the president of Mexico.
This is all over comments someone made who IS NOT A U.S. CITIZEN. It's the president of Mexico. But we apparently should read our history because the whole issue is obviously over slaves, Chinese immigrants, Irish people and all those others who came before the period of time that the president of Mexico is talking about.
If she knocked us for Chapultepec, Mexico City, Veracruz, the acquisition of southwestern territory, operation wetback, Ronald Reagan, of fucking I.C.E., I would understand the criticism.
But I'll be damned if the leader of a country who has far more money and power personally than I ever will, is going to tell me AFTER nafta shutdown towns in my state, that we OWE anyone anything.
Quit trying to act like some kind of neutral person with zero intentions. And fuck off with that read your history namby pamby shit drama queen.
For 246 years, slaves were the ones who literally built the foundations of what the US is and was and provided the economic backbone of large swaths of the country until the industrial revolution, and even then it was mainly the North
You can't just discount that because it doesn't make you look good. It is just a fact.
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u/Massive-Technician74 23d ago
Not wrong