Posted on 03/19/2026 5:42:40 AM PDT by MtnClimber
The contrast between the grateful immigrants who once embraced America and the resentful newcomers who scorn it reveals how radically—and dangerously—the nation’s immigration ethos has changed.
The Traditional Immigrant
Silicon Valley was energized by legal immigrants from all over the world who founded eBay, Google, Nvidia, SpaceX, Stripe, Sun Microsystems, Tesla, Yahoo, and a host of others.
The Greek American Elia Kazan’s 1963 film America, America is a fictional account based on the Herculean struggle of the director’s uncle to immigrate to the United States from an impoverished and hostile Turkish Anatolia.
The film summed up Americans’ traditional view of immigrants: They had risked everything for the chance to reach America, and once there, became hyperpatriotic in their gratitude for the magnanimity of their new hosts.
An excellent example is the recently released memoir from Encounter Books, American Trojan, by former University of Southern California president and Cypriot immigrant Dr. Max Nikias. It resonates with thankfulness to America for offering him opportunities undreamed of elsewhere.
He and his wife arrived in the U.S. from war-torn Cyprus nearly penniless but determined to work hard, master English, and enrich the country that welcomed them with their talents and education. What followed was an amazing American trajectory that saw Nikias become president of the University of Southern California—arguably the most successful one in recent memory.
I grew up in rural California surrounded by hard-working immigrant farm families from Armenia, India, Japan, and Mexico. Their work ethic, love of America, and productive farms were models for U.S. non-immigrants. Such immigrants explained why the San Joaquin Valley was the most productive and richest agricultural region in the nation.
My own Swedish grandfather, disabled by poison gas while fighting on the Western Front in World War I, loved all things Swedish, but not nearly as much
(Excerpt) Read more at amgreatness.com ...
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VDH ping
VDH ping, second try is a charm.
A lot of immigrants think we are suckers for being nice to them (they are right)
They need to end all immigration until we get proper immigration reform
That's CRIMINAL ILLEGAL ALIEN INVADERS, Victor.
ALL IMMIGRATION NEEDS TO STOP. Sorry virtue signalers if that hurts your feelings.
All illegals are criminals and need to go PERIOD.
100%, and that includes their offspring, whether they were born here or not. And all of the foreign students and "naturalized" citizens VDH talks about in this piece should get the boot as well.
Why was VDH’s Swedish grandfather fighting on the Western Front in WWI? Sweden has not been in any wars since 1815.
They just want money NOTHING else
I made it a point to watch most of Kazan's films because the Hollywood left hated him. America, America was a great movie. Another Kazan film that I highly recommend is 'A Face In The Crowd. You'd swear it was based on Bill Clinton but it was made in 1957!
Joe Pedo’s 20 million are nothing but freeloading foreign scumbags who have divided Americans and have invaded America to collapse and break our country. Unfortunately, most people living in this country and calling themselves Americans have too many mental issues from the concussions they received playing pickle ball and corn hole and being brainwashed and hypnotized by their lying national “media”.
We did.
I do not accept vdh's conclusion.
I had absolutely nothing to do with lunatic liberals inviting the world into the USA.
Nothing wrong with America that a substantial bounty on illegals wouldn’t fix.
What’s the bag limit?
He had emigrated to the USA and became a US citizen.
The really big things like monetary policy, immigration, tariffs and trade the people have no real say. It’s a faux democracy.
No room for argument on that.
They are egged on and encouraged by the media and Democrats (who need their votes) and some Republicans who want to keep the cheap labor pipeline open for their wealthy donors.
They also have friends in the judiciary who refuse to deport them, even after they've committed horrible crimes. Sanctuary city policies keep illegal criminals from being handed over to law enforcement.
As for Somalis:
"Minnesota: ‘Nearly Every’ Somali Household with Children Is on Welfare" -- Breitbart
My ancestors also were immigrants who came in the later part of the 19th century. They had little when they came off the boat, but became homesteaders in the harsh northern plains settling and raising families in rough claim shacks or even sod homes constructed from the prairie grassland. They wanted to be Americans and live the American dream of freedom. With hard work and perseverance they prospered, creating successful farms and businesses. Their descendants became part of what makes America great. Now I see immigrants particularly in the local Somali community living off government aid a decade after coming to Minnesota, refusing all integration into American society and becoming adept, likely with help from various NGOs and church groups, at perpetuating billions of dollars in fraud.
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