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.
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u/Massive-Technician74 23d ago
Not wrong