One of the strangest things about established, legal immigrants in the US.

[Baitball Blogger]

Maybe it has something to do with human behavior? Who knows. But I have seen some strange things when it comes to immigration groups that have settled into the US, and their adaption to the American Way has been a bit of a gazpacho of mixed greens.

If you look hard enough, and sometimes it's in your face, every immigration group has shown that that they haven't fully shed the very social norms that led them to leave their countries of origin.

Lately, it's the Cuban Americans in Miami. They seem enamored of dictatorship like qualities in their leaders. They seem to value the Patron system, feeling more inclined to see themselves as the patrons, rather than the plebes. You would think we would be able to reach out to those who come here without nothing, since America should be the place for people to break away from the chains that held them down in their own countries.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1016&pid=335469

And though it took several centuries to finally reach this level of crazy, the Christian Conservative Anglos seem to have forgotten that their ancestors were escaping theocratic countries that were leveling the freedom of their population with their religious beliefs. Now, they're doing the same thing here. If strict constructionist were worth their salt, they would factor in this fact.

And it's everywhere. I've seen Irish-Americans act unkind to people of color, being excessively anti-immigration. I have even seen immigrants from Italy and the slavic countries with huge anti-immigration sentiments against undocumented latin American people.

I just wish there was a Sociologist who could plainly explain all the inconsistency.

[Wounded Bear]

1. Historically, some of the biggest anti-immigration folks have been...

members of the previous big wave of immigrants. Once people get here, there seems to be a tendency to slam the door behind them.

[ripcord]

19. For most of the time he led the United Farm Workers Cesar Chavez was anti immigrant

He was worried about immigrants taking jobs from the Farm Workers and the fact that they would work for less than the union members. He set up border watchers to notify the authorities of illegal crossings and supported deportation of anyone without the proper papers and even green card holders.

[Scrivener7]

2. It is kind of fascinating. I'm Irish. The Irish were one of the most villified

immigrant groups, mostly because they came all at once in such terrifyingly huge numbers and most were pretty desperate, having only had grass to eat for a year or two.

Yet I know lots of Irish who are virulently anti-immigration, and lots who are bigoted as hell.

One thing though: Puritans were never seeking to escape the theocracies of the countries they left. They were trying to establish a theocracy of their own. They never wanted religious tolerance. They wanted to be free to be intolerant themselves. In fact they killed a bunch of Quakers and banished Baptists and Anglicans until the king told them to stop that.

[Ocelot II]

3. It's because humans are clannish and competitive (I was going to say assholes).

Members of an out-group leave a country where they are oppressed or maybe just poor, come to the US where they expect to find a better life, and eventually they or their descendants succeed. As a result they are no longer members of an out-group; they're the Establishment, and the Establishment wants to maintain its privilege. Since people are clannish they are suspicious of those who are "different," and not just on account of race. The original settlers in the US were mostly English, as were the political leaders. Immigrants from other countries started showing up in the early 19th century, and they were not always welcome. The Irish were poor and Catholic; the Italians were Catholic and didn't speak English; the Germans and Scandinavians were white and Protestant but they were poor and didn't speak English. Immigrants from eastern Europe came, too, and they, too, were poor and didn't speak English, and some were Jewish. But over the last 100 years or so all of these former out-groups assimilated, mostly prospered and became part of the establishment, and even if they didn't prosper they had to be better than somebody. People are assholes and have to have someone to look down on. Formerly enslaved Black people and their descendants were always on the bottom of the social hierarchy, and as LBJ once said, “If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket."

[Baitball Blogger]

4. The Status Quo is dysfunctional. That's the only conclusion that makes sense.

And this sentence of yours really resonated with me: "Establishment wants to maintain its privilege."

I just thought that American concepts of freedom would have managed to resist the evil forces that are trying to destroy the pedestal that this country is founded on.

[ProudMNDemocrat]

5. Cubans who fled an OPPRESSIVE regime want to embrace another?

Talk about INSANE!!! But it is America, right?

[dalton99a]

6. It is a rite of passage for many white/white-looking immigrants

To be more racist than the native whites and look down on nonwhites

Many are vile sadistic assholes who ENJOY their newfound power over nonwhites

Exhibit A: Los Angeles City Council

[MichMan]

7. People from different backgrounds bring a wide variety of opinions and thoughts

That is really the definition of diversity, isn't it?

[Baitball Blogger]

9. Absolutely, but the American beliefs should draw the line for

people to avoid discrimination and practices that infringe on other people's American freedom>

If you read it properly, the Constitution was against fiefdoms and Kings.

[multigraincracker]

8. Those that convert to a different religion

are usually the most devote(brain washed).

[Sympthsical]

10. Always interesting to see people react when minorities don't "behave"

You get a sense of those who genuinely believe in anti-racism, and those who make it just barely past the bumper sticker level so they can be on the team and think of themselves as a good person.

Latinos in general have been getting a lesson in racism from some quarters at this election cycle.

"Why aren't you behaving the way I expect of you?"

And people keep doing this, not having that light bulb moment. "Wait a minute. Do I have a problem with how I think about race?"

Naw. Let's just keep lecturing non-whites about our expectations of their behavior. It doesn't look at all messed up as fuck.

[Beastly Boy]

11. it's not strange at all. It's called assimilation.

When an immigrant leaves the entire set of familiar values and conventions behind, it creates a huge void in their existence. This void needs to be filled as soon as possible with the new set of values and conventions, new language being among many others, in order for an immigrant to survive. In most, if not all countries, immigrants are inevitably the group being discriminated against and exploited by the native residents, including established immigrants. This is the environment that predominantly, if not exclusively, informs the void in the lives of new immigrants, a process that is absolutely necessary for them to fit in, or else they run the risk of becoming social outcasts for the rest of their lives.

Starting out as social outcasts, new immigrants learn mostly from those who are inclined to keep them as social outcasts and, in order to fit in, mimick their oppressors. Few can escape this vicious circle. But their children usually do.

[dalton99a]

13. +1. When in Rome

[Beastly Boy]

15. And it depends on what kind of Romans you end up being surrounded by.

[Salviati]

12. It's not that surprising, some people who are opressed want to build a fairer society...

... others that are opressed just want their turn as the opressor.

[DavidDvorkin]

14. Not all of us immigrants are part of a group

Astonishingly, many of us are individuals and don't identify with other immigrants whose ancestors came from the same country as we did. For example, I came here from South Africa but have nothing in common with Elon Musk or Lara Logan.

Strange, but true.

[brooklynite]

16. Cubans may be unique, but there's a simpler explanation...

"Established, legal immigrants" (more specifically, US CITIZENS) have, for the most part, been here for generations. They speak English and the live the same types of lives as other US citizens: they run (or work for) businesses, send their kids to school, worry about crime etc. Some of more religiously conservative, some aren't. But still too often, Democrats and progressives view them as a monolithic voting block and reach out to them on that basis.

If you a US citizen of Mexican (or Dominican or Ecuadorian) descent, and one Party addresses you as "Latinx" (because that's what the up to date kids in Blue State cities expect) and focuses on DACA and kids in cages, and the other party focuses on taxes and business regulations and crime, a portion of those Hispanic voters are going to go with Party they fee is addressing THEIR concerns.

[Samrob]

17. I have raged about this for years. You have said it much more eloquently than I ever could.

Still the anger rages within me when I see a Russian or German person in the grocery store demean the black cashier waiting on them. There can be no acceptable sociological explanation except that basically SOME humans are just unkind, greedy, selfish, racist, or evil.

[malaise]

18. Have you ever observed Afro- Caribbean folks

showing nothing but contempt for African Americans or recent arrivals from Eastern Europe or South Asia treating them like outsiders after they were dragged to the US centuries before many of these new arrivals’ home countries had their current names.

Important OP.
Man to man is so unjust and women too.