America without migrants

PD: Shortly after the Civil War, America becomes fiercely isolationist and limits immigration to almost zero for a few decades.

What would America have been like without all those migrants collaborating in making the Melting Pot the most powerful nation on Earth?
 

Dialga

Banned
I don't think that's going to happen, short of a Southern victory cutting the nation in two (or more). And that would have taken a miracle.

Without the burst of population growth and cheap labor the country got via immigration, I doubt we'd be the major power we are today. And think of all the great cuisine we'd miss out on....
 
Possibly better integrated blacks? Even in a scenario where the South secedes successfully, there's going to be slaves escaping over the border to the North. They may provide cheap industrial labor that was otherwise given by immigrants, and so create the effect of the Great Migration of rural blacks to industrial centers in the north a century ahead of schedule.

Of course, the sudden influx of blacks into the North's industrial center may not result in their integration, but could be what drives the US to end it's anti-immigrant isolation so as to keep 'those people' out of the northern cities:(
 
Their's no realistic reason for the country to do this, yes we did limit immigration from some places, but during the time period most of the immigration was from Germany and the British Isles, the two places people had no opposition to immigraion from (save for Ireland for some).
 
Possibly better integrated blacks? Even in a scenario where the South secedes successfully, there's going to be slaves escaping over the border to the North. They may provide cheap industrial labor that was otherwise given by immigrants, and so create the effect of the Great Migration of rural blacks to industrial centers in the north a century ahead of schedule.

Of course, the sudden influx of blacks into the North's industrial center may not result in their integration, but could be what drives the US to end it's anti-immigrant isolation so as to keep 'those people' out of the northern cities:(


If anything it's kind of how two roommates have less of a chance to get along than with three or more roommates. Without other ethnic groups to occupy racist sentiment, the "other" is going to be maybe Irish or German (to the extent that they came to America before the POD) but most likely will be African-American most of the time.
 
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