America with no post-1965 immigration: stronger or weaker?

America with no post-1965 immigration


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Much weaker. Traditionally, America has drawn much of its strength from being the place that people have immigrated to. Mainly, this allowed them to become huge after the Napoleonic Wars.

Also, anyone who thinks America has more racial tension now compared to 19-fucking-65 has some weird ideas about history.
 

Baby Kata

Banned
Much weaker. Traditionally, America has drawn much of its strength from being the place that people have immigrated to. Mainly, this allowed them to become huge after the Napoleonic Wars.

Also, anyone who thinks America has more racial tension now compared to 19-fucking-65 has some weird ideas about history.

That's not what I meant. What I meant was that if there had been no more immigration since 1965, then there would be less racial tension in modern America than there is in OTL, since most immigrants since then have been minorities, and there has been a lot of racial tension surrounding that. (for example, Donald Trump)
 
Also, anyone who thinks America has more racial tension now compared to 19-fucking-65 has some weird ideas about history.
All too often, I hear people on tv say, "From when Lyndon signed the Civil Rights Act until Trump announced his candidacy, there were no racial tensions".
 
Much weaker, our economy wouldn't have been as large nor as diverse. High-skilled immigrants came to fill major needs that occurred in several sectors of the economy. America would be less diverse, which would mean the only other minority group white people would interact with would be African-Americans, as Latin Americans would have also been limited in immigration here. Many people say that would lead to less racial tension, but I am not sure how true that is, being the singular minority in the country comes with serious hurdles.

Sidenote: As my parents wouldn't have been able to immigrate here, I most likely wouldn't have been a citizen of this beautiful country. Sigh...really makes you think.
 
Weaker relative to the rest of the world due to a smaller population. Lots of lost GDP, lost investments, lost innovations, smaller military.

Maybe more internally cohesive though. But people probably find new things to argue about and magnify other issues without immigration to talk about. There will still be two political parties that control the country and its media, who constantly lie and argue with and about each other, and instruct their supporters to do the same thing.
 
Much weaker. Traditionally, America has drawn much of its strength from being the place that people have immigrated to. Mainly, this allowed them to become huge after the Napoleonic Wars.

Also, anyone who thinks America has more racial tension now compared to 19-fucking-65 has some weird ideas about history.
The potential of 3 or 4 sided social conflict between whites blacks hispanics, and asian communities is an order of magnitude more complex than trying to remedy inequality between a 90% white majority and an African American community that's been roughly 10% of the US population over the course of the twentieth century. The LA riots back in the '90s started with whites acquitted after beating up a black person, then boiled over into looting of Korean owned business, as well as conflict between blacks and hispanics.

It's hard to compare modern American racial issues with the 1960s, the equation has more than two variables.
 
It would probably be significantly more liberal. Universal health care would probably exist, maybe as an outgrowth of Medicare. Urban centers would be much more compact without as much suburbanization so public transit would be a lot more useful. It's possible that the urban/rural divide would be flipped with a rural progressive/populist bloc competing with a pro-business, conservative urban bloc.
 
The LA riots back in the '90s started with whites acquitted after beating up a black person, then boiled over into looting of Korean owned business, as well as conflict between blacks and hispanics.
It all started over a Korean lady shooting a black girl thinking she was shoplifting, then it turned to corrupt cops beating up a black guy, which the former got acquitted. Then when the riots erupt, you got an angry community going after the Koreans who then transformed into Roof Koreans, etc. Things spiraled out of control at that time. Without the 1965 Immigration Act, the riots would still happen but without a lot of property damage happening to Koreans and other minorities since their numbers won't be ballooned without it.
 
Something I was watching a week or so ago made the point that the number of immigrants post 1945 is at record lows compared to the previous 150 years. All those grey beards complaining about the good old days grew up in a historical oddity.
 

Lusitania

Donor
So another hate inspired post by a now banned person who thinks that we get rid of anyone who came after 1965 because that was when the Vietnamese, south americans, muslims and Asians arrived s we be happy and signing kumbaya in an idealistic society oppressing the blacks, Latin Americans and Asians who had made it here before the ban. For only the Europeans are good attitude. I being Portuguese was considered persona non-grata till after the WW2 for Southern Europeans were not considered good stock and banned between WW1 and WW2.

This would be a sorry state totalitarian country poorer I think for immigrant countries have grown rich from the hard work of the immigrants. Look at the number of immigrants who are collecting social assistance and willing to work any job including two jobs and then look at the ones who are here for multiple generations and not willing to work in menial jobs. Who would work in the ohio animal slaughter couses, work in the farms?
 

marathag

Banned
Something I was watching a week or so ago made the point that the number of immigrants post 1945 is at record lows compared to the previous 150 years. All those grey beards complaining about the good old days grew up in a historical oddity.
Immigration from anywhere but western Europe was curtailed by 1924, after the post WWI economic downturn.

Fewer Workers means they have more power. Not have boatloads of fresh scab labor to break Unions, means Unions could grow, that was not the case from the 1870s till WWI.

2nd, the Frontier had closed. There was no more farmland available that was almost free, so Immigrants pretty much had to goto cities, and would put up with terrible conditions, like at Ford's new factories that worshipped Taylorism, that workers were just cogs that were to work 8 hours at the same job every day, forever, slaves to the line speed.

Didn't like it? you could:
1 put up with it till you went insane
2 quit, hope the next job is better
3 get fired
4 get beat up, then fired from having a union pamphlet in your house.
 
So another hate inspired post by a now banned person who thinks that we get rid of anyone who came after 1965 because that was when the Vietnamese, south americans, muslims and Asians arrived s we be happy and signing kumbaya in an idealistic society oppressing the blacks, Latin Americans and Asians who had made it here before the ban. For only the Europeans are good attitude. I being Portuguese was considered persona non-grata till after the WW2 for Southern Europeans were not considered good stock and banned between WW1 and WW2.

This would be a sorry state totalitarian country poorer I think for immigrant countries have grown rich from the hard work of the immigrants. Look at the number of immigrants who are collecting social assistance and willing to work any job including two jobs and then look at the ones who are here for multiple generations and not willing to work in menial jobs. Who would work in the ohio animal slaughter couses, work in the farms?
Was Japan totalitarian between 1945 and 2018 until they passed a recent law to allow for more immigration? It's possible to argue against a policy without being this hyperbolic.

The immigration restrictions of the 1920s only barred Europeans and Asians, the US had de facto open borders with Canada and Latin America until the quota system in 1965. The lack of a numerical cap or quota from Latin America was a concession to the employers of migrant labor in the Southwest, if the pre-1965 rules had continued America could've had a larger wave of Latin American immigration than OTL.
 

Lusitania

Donor
Was Japan totalitarian between 1945 and 2018 until they passed a recent law to allow for more immigration? It's possible to argue against a policy without being this hyperbolic.

The immigration restrictions of the 1920s only barred Europeans and Asians, the US had de facto open borders with Canada and Latin America until the quota system in 1965. The lack of a numerical cap or quota from Latin America was a concession to the employers of migrant labor in the Southwest, if the pre-1965 rules had continued America could've had a larger wave of Latin American immigration than OTL.
No they were not but the Koreans that were there left after war and to compare Japan to US is little off. 99% of Japan are Japanese. They started bringing over non-japanese in small numbers to help in some industries.

The same could not be said about US who had a 1/4 of population of African American and 5-10% Latino. Plus other small minirities. The whole thread was stop all emigration after 1965. Would there be social harmony. How does a society closed off to all emigration evolve. How do they deal with the growing African American population and their aspirations? What causes a country to turn against all emigration? Totalitarianism not democracy.
 
If you can find it check out George Megalogenis' "Australia's Second Chance" or "Making Australia Great". Basically he correlates Australia's booms with periods of open migration policies while the bust follows the country locking itself up after Federation (1901). The cynic in me notes that the booms also correlate to two massive mining booms, but George is usually a pretty canny operator so he is worth a look.

If I am being honest I don't blame a proto Australian in 1900 being keen on the White Australia Policy. Drought (and end of a mining boom) have just destroyed a standard of living higher than contemporary USA. Jobs are scarce so you want to keep foreigners out to save what you have. Especially those who aren't properly English as they are clearly inferior as any glance at a map will tell you.

With WAP in place Australia became an insular little bubble continually recycling the internal orthodoxy. In some ways that's good as it established a strong cultural identity in a small and under developed country. OTOH it probably did restrict growth (culturally and economically) for the best part of 70 years.

Like anything there are good sides and bad sides. Are the rewards worth the costs? In the case of the US after 1965 those immigrants basically powered the IT revolution. That is a revolution mentioned in the same breath as the Industrial or Agricultural ones so that is a big deal if you miss out on it. Heck it probably keeps the US competitive as Asia begins its Industrial Revolution. That is food for thought.
 
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