don't want to live in a linguistically Balkanized country. Sorry. Speak whatever you want at home, but English should be the lingua franca.

People have been warning about this for over a century. Hasn't happened yet. It's just that the masses speaking Yiddish and German and Polish and Italian have been replaced by masses speaking Spanish and Arabic and various Asian languages.

Interesting. I think some people might choose to phrase that as "poor treatment of immigrants."

Many people in fact.

And France is actually a far greater (recent) immigrant nation than the US is. In the early 90s when I was studying such things, I think the stat was something like 1 in 4 people had at least 1 grandparent that wasn't born in France.

Also, I would trade the violence and poverty levels in France for the ones here any day.

People have been warning about this for over a century. Hasn't happened yet. It's just that the masses speaking Yiddish and German and Polish and Italian have been replaced by masses speaking Spanish and Arabic and various Asian languages.

Exactly.

Two of my four grandparents were born in the US. One of my eight great-grandparents was.

I know that it's different in different parts of the country, but I remember, when I was in fifth grade, we were learning about immigration, and we had an assignment to interview an immigrant. At least half the class interviewed a grandparent, and a few people interviewed their parents. At least five kids of the 25 or so in the class were immigrants themselves, maybe a few more.

(I interviewed my grandfather for that project. He said that he was very disappointed when his ship docked, because he looked out and thought, "This is the New York City that's so famous? This place isn't anything special." Turned out, the ship had actually docked in Hoboken.)

All the talk about making the border walls higher and adding more patrol, etc, just makes me shake my head. People will still try and succeed in coming here. They're leaving situations where they've got nothing to lose; they're desperate. Bigger walls? More patrols? It's like teaching abstinence instead of comprehensive sex education; it's not being realistic and it's grounded more in fear than in hope.

All the talk about making the border walls higher and adding more patrol, etc, just makes me shake my head.

As a 1st generation American, with no grandparents who were born here, I realized I just can't process anti-immigrant sentiment at all, legal or not.

As a 1st generation American, with no grandparents who were born here, I realized I just can't process anti-immigrant sentiment at all, legal or not.

Cosigned.

As a 1st generation American, with no grandparents who were born here, I realized I just can't process anti-immigrant sentiment at all, legal or not.

And I trace my maternal roots in the U.S. back to 1700's and I feel the same way.

It's just so "fear of the other".

As a birthright citizen, I've seen and heard some brow-raising rhetoric in the last couple years around my very own status. Not that they mean me, of course. I'm pale enough for them. And they probably don't know my parents weren't American. Doesn't make me not want to punch them in the face, mind.

It occurs to me that I don't even know if my Dad's parents ever became citizens.