Talk:Immigration

I have grave concerns about this sentence from the article (and much else, but let's start somewhere):

Western European nations, Japan, and other countries have long been deeply concerned about their national culture being subsumed by a tide of immigrants.

This sentence is pernicious in many ways:

1. “Countries” don’t have deep concerns – people do. It’s facile to personify countries. More careful language would say that “some people in Western European nations, Japan, and other countries have long been deeply concerned” or “the governments of Western European nations, Japan, and other countries have long been deeply concerned” or “elite groups within Western European nations, Japan, and other countries have long been deeply concerned” or “racists in Western European nations, Japan, and other countries have long been deeply concerned”. 2. The concept “national culture” is particularly facile and pernicious. What does this mean? Does it include literature, art, films, music, food, religion and language? I live in England: my culture includes German and Austrian composers of music, American films, French cheese and Spanish art. My next door neighbour might have a very different mixture. Anyone who studies culture knows that all culture is contested. The idea that “national culture” is a clear and straightforward notion is very dangerous. 3. “subsumed”: to subsume means “include or absorb (something) in something else”. Perhaps the writer meant “submerged” or “changed beyond recognition”. 4. “A tide of immigrants”: this is dangerous language. Only extreme xenophobes use expressions like this. -- R Salkie, 18 May 2004

Why shouldn't Immigration stand as its own article? Kingturtle 05:44 May 5, 2003 (UTC)

I agree. The article that was here was entirely US-centered, so I moved it. There really should be a standalone article here. Zoe

You mean US-centred. We've got immigrants. See Australia. PML.

I did not write that. Someone else edited what I really wrote. While understandable, they should have attributed it properly. PML.

I don't really agree with the statement: Moncrief

"Only four countries in the world actively encourage large numbers of immigrants. Canada, the United States, New Zealand, and Australia."

I really don't think that those four countries "actively encourage" (in the sense of pro-active recruitment of immigrants, which is what it implies to me) anymore, and certainly no more so than other countries that attract immigrants, such as the UK. I realize Canada is perhaps the most immigrant-friendly of the four, but I don't believe even Canada "actively encourages" immigration. It's also at some degree of variance with the sentence that follows it.

What do people think?

Canada does encourage immigration (of the right kind of people). In the late 90's when immigration reached 250,000 per year, the Chretien government raised the bar to 300,000 as its goal. It started a program of sending immigration SWAT teams to various countries to try to untangle the bureaucratic red tape that was slowing down the process. Because of its low total fertility rate (1.67 live births per woman) Canada needs about 500,000 immigrants a year to prevent its population from ageing.

Canada sees immigration as way of importing human and physical wealth and its system is designed to optimize this. While other countries wail about receiving low quality immigrants that end up being supported by the public purse, the average immigrant to Canada is better educated than the native-born and is more likely to be a doctor or computer programmer than an unskilled labourer. So there is relatively little opposition to immigration.

Because of the relatively high numbers, immigration is also a substantial business in its own right. For example, Toronto receives about 100,000 immigrants a year. This means it has to build homes for 100,000 people, provide English language training for dependents, have immigration lawyers to resolve the inevitable paperwork problems, etc., etc. Adding it all up makes a noticeable impact on the local economy. GreatWhiteNortherner 08:09, Feb 7, 2004 (UTC)

Edit: It also just occurred to me that if any country in the world could be said to "actively encourage" immigration, it would be Israel. Moncrief

I might change the wording I mention above unless anyone objects.

Moncrief

Contents

1 Anti-Immigration 2 External links 3 Food 4 Vdare

Anti-Immigration

There is currently a separate article titled anti-immigrant, which brings up two issues. First, shouldn't the organized opposition to immigration be included in the immigration article? Maybe that other article should be incorporated into this one. Second, the labels "anti-immigrant" and "anti-immigration" are considered inaccurate by many to whom the labels are applied. They prefer labels like "immigration realist or restrictionist or reductionist." Despite this, everybody else continues to use the "anti-" labels, arguing that they are accurate. Any article discussing opposition to immigration should include a NPOV discussion of the terminology. Will McW 20:02, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

External links

The external links are mostly concerned with U.S. or U.K. immigration. Unless I hear an objection here, I'll move the country-specific links to their respective articles and leave the ones that are internaional or general. -Willmcw 22:06, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Regarding the links moving: the (Mostly Illegal) Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride is definitely targeting just the U.S. Noborder.org appears to be mainly concerned with the EU.

Thanks for checking those. I'll move the "freedom Ride" link to the U.S. article. We don't yet have an article for Immigration to the EU. Until we do I guess we should leave it here. -Willmcw 07:02, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Food

An anonymous user asked:

What foods have been brought over here through immigration?

First, the phrase "here" has no context in a global encyclopedia. Second, the spread of cuisines or certain foods from country to country is a great topic and if we have any solid sources then we should have an article. Maybe one already exists. Of course, some foods have been spread by very small immigations, such as Marco Polo, who legendarily introduced pasta from China, or Maria d'Medici, who brought ice cream to the French Court. And the spread of Mexican food in the USA seems mostly independent of Mexican immigration. Americans of all stripes just like Mexican food (or American-zied versions of it). OTOH, some neighborhoods, especialy in Manhattan, have seen successive waves of immigrant communities, whose presence is reflected in the restaurants. Wars and conquest are also involved, accounting for some part of the popularity of Indian food in Britain and Algerian food in France, Italian and Japanese food in America. There might be a culinary history article somewhere. Anyway, just posting this here because the anon user posted it in the article. -Willmcw 08:05, Mar 17, 2005 (UTC)

Vdare

I'm going to add vdare into the links. Feel free to change it if I'm wrong, but I didn't see a link to an immigration reductionist site there (for balance).

The reason why VDARE was not included (and why I'll remove it again) is that VDARE is solely concerned with immigration to the United States. It is included in the external links of Immigration to the United States (along with many other immigration reductionist sites). If there is a website that is opposed to any and all immigration between countries, then that would be appropriate in this globally-oriented article. Cheers, -Willmcw 00:53, Apr 16, 2005 (UTC)