America integrated large immigrant waves in it's past, and I doubt anyone would say the Italians, or Irish, or other minorities were not integrated today. Time bridges cultures, and we're the better for it.
I don't think you're thinking of the historical details to say that in such a blase manner. The path to integration went through periods much more violent and contentious than anything we see today.
I'm aware of how immigrants were treated back then and I'm not condoning it. That still doesn't change the fact that they came from cultures that IMO were quite compatible with the USAs considering their common origin and values. I think the current situation in Europe, and other instances of mass migration in history, demonstrate that not all cultures are compatible with each other
Like Cubans after the revolution, or Iranians after their revolution, or maybe the mass of Vietnamese after the war? What actual cultures are you saying are incompatible? America has worked with them all and despite hand-wringing over "compatibility". There is a much stronger case to be made human beings are humans in the end and that it just takes time.
So, only white people can assimilate then? The now many generations of people of Hispanic origin that are part of the American story would seem to indicate you are wrong. As is the case with the now multiple generations of Koreans and particularly Japanese, who remain part of the US story even after being put into concentration camps because of precisely the same sort of prejudice, that they were somehow inherently un-American due to their "cultural incompatibility", i.e. non-whiteness, unlike the millions of German-Americans in the US at the time.
The Muslims will (continue to) integrate as well. It takes a couple of generations.
That’s not true. When German immigrants were new, no one believed they would integrate since they refused to give up speaking German. Catholics like the Irish were viewed with suspicion because they revered a pope.
America’s secret superpower is the ability to assimilate pretty much any people within four generations give or take
> I think the current situation in Europe, and other instances of mass migration in history, demonstrate that not all cultures are compatible with each other.
Japanese Americans?
Chinese Americans?
Indian Americans?
Plus, the very concept of some sort of empirical “cultural incompatibility” seems highly questionable. I mean, it’s not like cultures change over time or anything like that.
Which historical details? The fact that the US was extremely racist but the immigrants managed to integrate by focusing on work and adapting instead of spiting and complaining about the host country?
The Chinese immigrated to the US at a similar time as the Irish and Italians. The more than 3 million Chinese living in the US today seem plenty well integrated and I don’t think China and America are particular close in terms of culture.
The Chinese immigrants were not (and still are not) particularly religious, and certainly didn't have a religion that promoted extremism and placed them at odds with the existing inhabitants. Other Asian immigrants in the US were also either not religious, or (like with Koreans and Filipinos) adopted the same religion as the dominant culture.
The fundamental problem, as I see it, is religion.
> and certainly didn't have a religion that promoted extremism
Lets cut through the code words then and have a direct counterexample to what you're trying to say.
Nigerians are primarily Muslims. They are also highly educated and among the most entrepreneurial immigrants to the USA. And while there's a "Nigerian prince" joke every now and then, they really are doing relatively well in the USA. Like, "better than Asians" with regards to college education statistics.
Nigerians are basically the perfect counterexample to the "Religion" (aka: Islam) problem that is so often brought up. High rates of college completion, high rates of business / entrepreneurs, high-rates of integration. Overall, clearly net-positive to the USA.
> Other Asian immigrants in the US were also either not religious, or (like with Koreans and Filipinos) adopted the same religion as the dominant culture.
What about Indians? Who are usually either Hindu or Muslim? Indians are also highly educated and start a large number of businesses.
I'm personally Catholic. I'd obviously prefer it if immigrants would come with the same Religion as me, but the statistics are in. Nigerians, Indians, and a whole host of other immigrants kind of do perfectly fine in America. There's no need for them to be Christian or otherwise "mainstream".
Indeed, bringing in immigrants on the basis of religion is severely anti-American IMO. America is certainly big enough to sustain Hindu, Muslims, and other religious groups. Especially if those people are coming in highly-skilled, highly educated, and overall are a benefit to our society.
Ok, then what is the problem then? It's not racism; Nigerians are a lot darker than Arabs. Maybe it's a cultural problem, combined with religion: you never hear of Nigerian Muslims committing terrorist acts in the West. Islam is a big, big religion, and Muslims from some cultures simply don't have any kind of bad reputation (I'm thinking Malaysia here), while others certainly do.
So maybe it is religion, just not the whole religion, but rather particular sects. All Christians are not like the Pentecostals or the Mormons, and similarly all Muslims are not the same.
Its certainly a problem that's specific to particular sects.
The sect of Osama Bin Laden was "Wahhabism", which is relatively rare outside of Saudi Arabia. And even then, the Saudi Princes who work with the USA are often pro-Wahabbism, so the USA can't even deride that sect (even if its the primary sect of Al-Qaeda). Because there's still "good guys" who follow that particular sect.
Note that the "Bin Laden" family was a very rich and entrepreneurial group of people. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bin_Laden_family) Some of them were huge investors in the US before their "black sheep" messed up their family name forever.
The Middle East is complicated. Like, super super complicated. Honestly, the bin Ladens in general (aside from the infamous one) should be welcome to the USA. A bit unfortunate about their "black sheep" sibling.
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Besides, if "Religion" was the problem, why did the USA DESTROY the only secular, maybe even atheist, group in the Middle East? (aka: Iraq Saddam Hussein and the Ba'athists).
Reason: the world is complicated. And thinking about it in terms of Religion only is a mistake. ISIS for example is a combination of yes, Wahhabism, but ALSO has the support of former Ba'athists.
And the Ba'athists believe in Secularism and secular law. They seemed to have joined in the ISIS fun not because of religious reasons, but because they wished to take over Iraq and saw aligning themselves with the fundamentalist Wahhabists as the best path forward and creating a unified Arab State.
So yes, we are fighting secular (arguably an atheist) groups in the Middle East. The world is a very complicated place. Yes, we have enemies some places, but Muslims exist across the entire world. You can't paint the issues of one region as a blight on all Muslims.
Even then: I'd imagine that we should welcome the many Iraqis who have helped the USA and are now getting targetted by ISIS in their country. We have friends in the region and we are turning them away with our immigration policies. We've turned our back on our closest supporters of that region, and I wouldn't be surprised if a large number of them have died because of their pro-US support or actions.
Oh right, Pakistan is where the Muslims come from. Apologies, its sometimes hard to remember everything about the world.
But yeah, neither of those are Christian. Both are IIRC Polythistic religions, about as different from Christianity as possible. Muslims for example believe in Abraham and the existence of Jesus. Their story is... very different but Allah is clearly the God of Abraham / Yahweh.
So if anything, Muslims are "closer" to the mainstream religion of the USA than Hindu's or Sikhs
> But yeah, neither of those are Christian. Both are IIRC Polythistic religions, about as different from Christianity as possible.
Many Hindus believe that the numerous deities are different forms or aspects of one ultimate deity. As such, they are much closer to monotheism than you think. It can be described as "inclusive monotheism", as opposed to the "exclusive monotheism" of the Abrahamic religions.
Sikhism is not polytheistic at all, it is very monotheistic.
Christianity itself has been accused of polytheism. Many Jews, Muslims, and non-Trinitarian Christians argue that there is no real difference between Trinity and tritheism. Many Protestants accuse the Catholic and Orthodox cult of Mary and the Saints of bordering on polytheism. Mormonism (admittedly on the fringe of Christianity) sees the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as three separate "beings", although it redefines the word "God" to refer to those three beings collectively. Mormon theology also implies that God the Father has a wife (the Heavenly Mother), and of other gods ruling over other universes (or parts of the universe.)
In my observation, religions that are extremely far apart generally get along better than religions that are much closer. Also, polytheistic religions just don't seem to have compatibility problems with other religions. The religions that get along the worst are the Abrahamic ones: Muslims and Jews hate each other, Christians hate Jews (more so in the past), Sunni and Shia Muslims hate each other, and Catholic and Protestant Christians have had many conflicts even in recent history (Ireland).
Of course, part of this could just be physical proximity: these warring groups tend to be neighbors or even in the same places, causing friction. But, for now at least, we have lots of Indians (Sikhs and Hindus) here in the US and don't have the problems with them that we do with others.
> In my observation, religions that are extremely far apart generally get along better than religions that are much closer
This seems to be more true of mutually exclusive religions that are historically geographically close together for an extended period of time than ones which happen merely to be doctrinally similar, and to be more (but certainly not exclusively) true of political conflicts between religious communities rather than theological conflicts.
> But, for now at least, we have lots of Indians (Sikhs and Hindus) here in the US and don't have the problems with them that we do with others
Part of that is because the people who would have problems are still mistaking South Asians with Middle Easterners and also (whether or not they do that) assuming they are Muslim. Give it some time, they’ll get their own targeted hate. (Hinduism already gets some through the Christian anti-yoga movement.)
I think that MAYBE a case can be made against the Wahhabi philosophy / sect (and similar sects). Maybe, but that's the furthest I'd go towards deriding a religious group in its entirety. Things are especially complicated because a large number of pro-Wahhabi Saudi princes are working very closely with the USA on this issue.
I don't think that Muslimphobia is an appropriate response to Antisemitism.
Look: the Nazis were primarily Christian. We recognized the political movement of the Nazis as independent of their religion.
People today still don't realize that the Ba'athists of Iraq (who eventually joined with ISIS) were SECULAR. Hint: Religion is at best, a minor component to the violent middle-eastern philosophy. The Middle East is far more complicated than a group of religions.
There is a concept, and this concept goes BEYOND religious grounds (as it is taking hold in the Ba'athist reminants of Northern Iraq). Middle Easterners long for the re-establishment of their lost Empires from the middle ages. They dream of a reunified Arab State. (Or at least, that's the shared dream of the violent ISIS members in general)
And yes. Ba'athists believe it should be secular and pan-religious. They're also authoritarian and incredibly violent. But its important to keep these political groups in mind. But yes, even the secular groups dream of re-establishing their former empire. And yes, Wahhabists believe it should be a religious theocracy. But there's a lot of subgroups to this political movement.
Don't mistake the political situation with the religious undertones. Besides, a Muslim from Nigeria typically doesn't give a rats ass about this "pan-Arabic" stuff. So the religious stuff is purely a distraction.
I see your point, I don't see why it is relevant, I know about Ba'ath, etc.
I know that Jews have been suffering more attacks in Europe recently including one in Berlin that wasn't a jew but wore a kippah to "prove it was not dangerous" and got attacked. So ignoring the issue or just sidelining issue is not ideal.
Its certainly an issue. But antisemitism / Holocaust deniers are kind of a universal group. Not only are there certain Arab groups who are Holocaust deniers, but there are also Right-Wing KKK Members who were making their anti-Semitism quite clear just a few months ago.
Antisemitism is on the rise. But blaming it squarely on Muslims is just plain wrong. The above Swastika was found at the infamous Charlottesville "Unite the Right" Rally.
I don't necessarily have answers. But I'm also not entirely sure why Muslims get all the blame here. There are plenty of Muslims who are literally thousands of miles away from these incidents (ie: Nigerian Muslims) who really shouldn't be lumped together with the rest of the crap going on.
You may not have read a lot about the contentious history of Catholicism in the US. Until the 1960s, many Protestant Americans still considered Catholic Americans "not really American" because of their alleged allegiance to an extra-governmental power, the Church (and in particular the Pope). As recently as the 1950s Protestant-Catholic intermarriage was truly frowned upon in many parts of the country and Catholics were prohibited from joining various civic institutions.
As recently as 1998 I had a preacher tell my Irish Catholic friend that she still had a chance to accept Jesus and be saved. There is still a feeling that Catholics are not really Christian in some circles, and that was an important factor in justifying the discrimination you mention!
> In fairness many Catholics don't accept Protestants as Christians either.
If any Catholic actually thinks this, they must be deeply ignorant of Catholic theology. According to the Catholic Church, anyone baptised using water and with a Trinitarian formula is Christian. Most Protestant denominations baptise people in this way, so most baptised Protestants are Christians according to traditional Catholic theology.
(And this is not something new introduced with Vatican II either, it historically dates back to the Donatist schism in 4th century North Africa.)
That's interesting but I thought the Donatist decision only applied to people who wanted to be part of the Roman Catholic church but their baptising priest had at some point lapsed. Generally Protestants don't recognize the authority of the church at all (i.e. Sola scriptura).
The Roman Catholic Church does not recognize, in a doctrinal sense (obviously, it does in a secular material sense) the existence of any other Christian Churches [0]; it takes the “Catholic” in its name quite seriously.
From the doctrinal point of view, there are no non-Catholic Christians, just Catholics of various degrees of imperfection, is and everyone who intends to join Christianity, or to join someone else to it, intends joining to the Catholic Church as the two are identical and coextensive.
[0] it does recognize particular churches, but they are part of rather than separate from the universal Church; in addition to those in full communion with Rome, these include Christian communities who are out of Communion with Rome but who retain valid episcopal apostolic succession, including the various Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches, among others.
> Generally Protestants don't recognize the authority of the church at all (i.e. Sola scriptura).
Sola scriptura is a doctrine of a subset of protestantism; there are Protestants who don't adhere to it but instead to prima scriptura, or to doctrines that aren't clearly either. It is certainly not the case that Protestants as a whole reject ecclesiastical authority.
> it takes the “Catholic” in its name quite seriously.
I'm pretty sure you know about this, but for laymen who may not be familiar with the terminology.
The word "catholic" (little c) literally means "universal". And it is a strong doctrine of the "Catholic church" (big C) that the group of worshipers is singular and universal.
It's not clear to me whether Rome accepts Christians who completely reject its authority. The central point of Lutheran Protestantism is that it's open source: anybody with a Bible can decide for themselves how to implement it without asking for permission. Of course there's value in a community of believers but the requirement is just to gather "two or more".
I guess Protestants have a harder time deciding who's a Christian; probably acceptance of the Nicean Creed is a popular standard, though I prefer "anyone who seeks to imitate Christ".
> It's not clear to me whether Rome accepts Christians who completely reject its authority
Rome absolutely accepts them as Christians.
It views them as wrong, but it does that for plenty of Christians that don't completely reject it's authority, too.
> The central point of Lutheran Protestantism is that it's open source: anybody with a Bible can decide for themselves how to implement it without asking for permission.
It would seem to me that the central point of Lutheran Protestantism is that there is a right way to implement Christianity, that right way is clear in Scripture, and having intermediaries between the believer and the Scripture is a barrier to the believer finding the truth in Scripture.
Lutheranism also seems generally pretty strongly defined by a particular opinion on what the right answers are, or at least a wide range of them, though somewhat internally divided by the degree of certainty ascribed to those answers.
Thank you, just to be clear: there is no obstacle to a Protestant sponsoring a child's baptism in the Catholic Church as parent or godparent?
Also I think you are right that many Protestants believe their opinions are clearly implicated by scripture, but it should be obvious on reflection that Scripture is not self-interpreting.
> Thank you, just to be clear: there is no obstacle to a Protestant sponsoring a child's baptism in the Catholic Church as parent or godparent?
Strictly speaking, there is a distinction between "sponsor" and "witness". The sponsor must be a Catholic, the witnesses can be non-Catholic Christians. However, in my personal experience (having had one child baptised Catholic, and the other will be baptised soon), everyone just collectively treats the "sponsor" and "witnesses" as "godparents". The parish just tells people "one godparent must be a Catholic". The sponsor is just the first godparent listed on the baptism certificate.
As far as parents go, technically there is no requirement that either parent be Catholic, or even Christian. A Buddhist couple could ask for their child to be baptised as Catholic. Now, in practice, priests will be extremely hesitant about fulfilling such a request, but strictly speaking it is allowed.
My understanding is there needs to be a reasonable expectation the child would be raised to be Catholic. A typical heuristic is at least one Catholic parent. I guess "be Catholic" in this context means "will go through confirmation" or something to that effect.
Yes. A priest is not supposed to baptise without such a "reasonable expectation". (Although if he does it anyway, he has broken the rules, and could be disciplined for it, but the baptism is nonetheless valid.)
One Catholic parent is the usual heuristic but it isn't actually the rule so isn't absolutely binding. For example, if a non-Catholic is known to regularly attend Catholic services, but for whatever reason is hesitating in formally converting, a priest may very well agree to such a parent's request to baptise their child.
Donatists claimed that sacraments were only valid if the priest who performed them was a faithful Christian. So if the priest was a heretic or grave sinner, the sacraments he performed were invalid. The Catholic Church declared that to be a heresy – a heretic or a sinner can still perform valid sacraments, provided the heresy doesn't involve a radically different understanding of the nature of the sacrament.
So, from the viewpoint of traditional Catholic theology, Protestants are heretics, but their beliefs about baptism are close enough to the Catholic belief that their heresy doesn't invalidate their baptisms. (Different story for ordination and the eucharist, since Protestant theology on those topics is further away from Catholic theology.) Whereas, non-Trinitarian Christians, the Catholic Church views their beliefs to directly touch on what the sacrament of baptism is about, so their non-Trinitarianism invalidates their baptisms from the Catholic viewpoint.
> So, from the viewpoint of traditional Catholic theology, Protestants are heretics, but their beliefs about baptism are close enough to the Catholic belief that their heresy doesn't invalidate their baptisms. (Different story for ordination and the eucharist, since Protestant theology on those topics is further away from Catholic theology.)
This is largely an issue of apostolic succession; regardless of the theology of the communities about ordination and the eucharist (which do differ critically), the sacraments cannot be valid because they are valid, in Catholic doctrine, only when performed by a validly ordained bishop (ordination) or consecrated by a validly ordained priest (Eucharist); the absence of episcopal apostolic succession (or, in much of protestantism, even the episcopal office) means that there are no validly ordained bishops and priests around. Now that is intimately tied to the doctrine around ordination, but even if the doctrine around the substance of the sacrament of the eucharist were identical, the absence of a valid minister of the sacrament would be critical.
> Whereas, non-Trinitarian Christians, the Catholic Church views their beliefs to directly touch on what the sacrament of baptism is about, so their non-Trinitarianism invalidates their baptisms from the Catholic viewpoint.
Well, there's two issues there. Sure, it's debatable whether a non-Trinitarian would have the requisite intent to validly (if, necessarily, illicitly) perform a baptism in the eyes of the Catholic Church, but what is more certainly fatal of most baptism by non-Trinitarians would be the failure to baptise using a Trinitarian formula, which is required for the sacrament to be valid, whether or not it is licit.
> This is largely an issue of apostolic succession
There are two different cases here. Protestants differ in their ecclesiology; some retain belief in episcopal apostolic succession, others reject it. Of course, those Protestants who reject episcopal apostolic succession, there are (from the Catholic viewpoint) no valid bishops, and hence no valid priests, and hence no valid Eucharist. On the other hand, the Anglicans, and some (but not all) of the Lutheran churches, claim to have bishops with valid apostolic succession. In the case of the Anglicans, the Catholic Church has decided that their eucharistic theology is so different that their episcopal consecrations and ordinations are invalid as a result (Apostolicae curae, 1896). Presumably, the same judgement would apply to other Protestant denominations claiming episcopal apostolic succession also.
I see, but in addition to a valid baptism aren't there required beliefs as well? Such as the immaculate conception and Papal infallibility, which Protestants would deny?
According to Catholic teaching, any validly baptised person is a Christian, regardless of their beliefs. Baptism is an indelible mark on the soul, like a spiritual membership card that you cannot destroy. Once you join, you can never really leave. Even if you convert to Islam, or become an atheist, you remain (in some spiritual sense) a Christian as long as you live. This is very different from the Protestant understanding of what it means "to be a Christian", which is based on a person's belief and (more importantly) the inner attitude of their heart.
"Being white"'s an interesting phrase to use, because I don't think Irish (or Italians at a different point) were considered white at the time they were being discriminated against here. It shows how much whiteness is socially constructed.
The racists of the day were apparently quite progressive. They couldn't even see the color of the person's skin. It's almost like race is more of a social construct than a biological one.
That's not what anti-immigration crusaders said at the time. It was a common belief that Italian and Irish immigrants (who were mostly Catholic) could never fit in to Protestant American society. Your statement is pure revisionism.
This movie, Gangs of New York, by Martin Scorsese about New York City during a period of Irish immigration might suggest otherwise. I recall attempting to watch it when it came out on DVD but it was too violent for a Friday night:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangs_of_New_York#Historical_a...
Not really true, especially for southern Sicilians Italians
They shared neither language nor religion (US was overwhelmingly protestant). At the time, they were considered a distinct race from your typical white American due to their Sicilian heritage. Their diet was also significantly different, to the point where some states actually sent out social workers teaching Italian families to cook "American" foods -- the fear being their pasta-heavy diets would prevent them from integrating. Politically, they were far more pro-labor and were viewed as agitators, socialists and anarchists -- far removed from the political mainstream during the roaring 20s. They were hated and feared enough that there was a mass lynching of 11 Italian-Americans in Louisiana.
> There was a widespread suspicion that Catholicism was incompatible with democracy.
And that was the secularized, polite face of the common religious belief that both the Papacy as an office and the particular occupants of that office were the literal referent of the biblical Antichrist, and that “Papists” were, therefore, followers of the Antichrist.
That was back when there was a broad social concensus in favor of integration. Both sides of the political spectrum have destroyed that (the right through nativism and the left through cultural relativism).
I agree. I should clarify my point is just that it's very hard to undo a decision to increase immigration after the fact; I do think there should be some amount of cross-cultural immigration.
