The early 1900s had immigrants ~ but not as many as you might imagine, and due to WWI immigration fell in the dumper for a good while. Then we had the Great Depression and it went away almost entirely.
One of the stranger aspects of immigration in the early 1900 period was it consisted primarily of young men who came here to make money and OVER HALF of them returned to Europe ~ many of them back to Italy and Greece where they introduced the use of the pistol!
Can you imagine what that did to their societies ~ knives didn't work as well anymore.
The mid to late 1800s had a substantial period of immigration, and the early 1800s saw immigrants come here in the low millions from European countries faced with the famines ~ but all the while the native born American population was large and growing at a fast pace. This was like the third-world on steroids in that regard.
Currently we have the largest percentage of our population in history to be born abroad ~ 10%!!! We are also having the largest flow of folks from the British Isles in our history ~ even beats the famine years in gross numbers.
It may seem strange to you but there are vast stretches of America where people have to count back 5 or 6 generations to find an ancestor who immigrated here. I even know some who count back more than 10 generations to get to an immigrant.
“Did I strip citizenship from someone?”
I don’t see what’s different from someone who’s born in America and you, to be honest. If where a person’s parents were from matters, then I don’t see why we don’t have a Queen, since she has a better pedigree than any of us.
Citizens are just that, citizens. If we’re going to go back and do the European model (which doesn’t work), and exclude children of parents born abroad, (and their children, etc, etc, so on and so forth), we can get right back to the old model where some persons are persons and other people are more than persons.
Or we could just go by the 14th which says that all are equal in America. Your choice.
“The early 1900s had immigrants ~ but not as many as you might imagine”
You’re quite wrong about that. It only takes 1 out of 7 to have a great grandparent from abroad. If you have one out of 10 immigrate (as did in the massive immigration wave from europe, it’s easy to see how almost everyone would have at least one relative from abroad.
“Then we had the Great Depression and it went away almost entirely.”
But then they stayed. Where do you think names like New Braunfels come from?
“It may seem strange to you but there are vast stretches of America where people have to count back 5 or 6 generations to find an ancestor who immigrated here. I even know some who count back more than 10 generations to get to an immigrant.”
Not strange at all that you would know a few. I grew up with plenty of Germans and Dutch and English, and Irish and Scotch and Norwegians and even a few Italians and Portuguese. Every single one had at least one ancestor who came from somewhere else.
The math just isn’t in your favor. Sorry. Again, try posting a vanity and poll FReepers.