renard_ruse
Break up Amazon
- Joined
- Aug 30, 2007
- Posts
- 16,094
Some proponents of unending mass immigration say that "only Native Americans have the right to have an opinion on immigration policy." The outright stupidity of that statement, of course, is obvious, both in terms of the law and democratic principles as well as common sense. If true, why not expand the idea and say that only American Indians have the right to an opinion on defense policy, or farm policy, or any other government policy. In fact, maybe everyone else should be disenfranchised and stripped of their right to vote or hold office? It makes as much or more sense as this absurd "argument."
However, lets examine this question from another perspective. How does mass unending contemporary immigration help Native Americans? I can't see many positives for those communities. As the non-Native American population keeps soaring because of immigration, this simply makes Native communities even smaller minorities of the population than they already are. In fact, the Native American percentage of the population would be increasing if it wasn't for the massive influx of current immigration. The massive influx does ZERO to help preserve native cultures, languages, or communities, but dilutes their percentage of the population even more than it already is. The massive growth of the non-Native population also puts population pressures on reservations as they become surrounded by ever growing populations around them and dilutes their share of the population even more.
From an economic perspective, of course, just as with all Americans, they have to compete with newcomers for jobs. For tribes with casinos and certain other enterprises, they might benefit from the lower cost immigrant labor, of course, but that's a rather convoluted reasoning not to mention the many tribes that don't have casinos or who's members work at the casinos themselves.
The only real reason that one could assume that Native Americans would support mass immigration would be racial, and again that's convoluted reasoning. The idea of course, which is also the reason most liberals support mass immigration, is that it "makes whites an ever smaller share of the population" since 90% of the immigrants are non-white. Which a rational person would of course conclude is a racist reason to support an otherwise harmful public policy.
One other possible reason from a racial perspective is a pan-Native ideology that views Mesoamericans, who form a large part of the immigration (though surely not all of it) as the "same people" as Native North American nations. That the majority of Mexicans and Central Americans are Hispanic mestizos and have historically not been considered American Indians, as well as the fact that Mesoamerican tribes, with the exception of some of the Uto-Aztecan peoples of the US Southwest are of different linguistic stock and culture, argues against this. Further, the mainstream opinion both of Natives and the general US and Mexican populations has never considered North American Native peoples and Mexicans the same race. Its a fringe view mostly from a small number of radical activists such as La Raza and AIM.
However, lets examine this question from another perspective. How does mass unending contemporary immigration help Native Americans? I can't see many positives for those communities. As the non-Native American population keeps soaring because of immigration, this simply makes Native communities even smaller minorities of the population than they already are. In fact, the Native American percentage of the population would be increasing if it wasn't for the massive influx of current immigration. The massive influx does ZERO to help preserve native cultures, languages, or communities, but dilutes their percentage of the population even more than it already is. The massive growth of the non-Native population also puts population pressures on reservations as they become surrounded by ever growing populations around them and dilutes their share of the population even more.
From an economic perspective, of course, just as with all Americans, they have to compete with newcomers for jobs. For tribes with casinos and certain other enterprises, they might benefit from the lower cost immigrant labor, of course, but that's a rather convoluted reasoning not to mention the many tribes that don't have casinos or who's members work at the casinos themselves.
The only real reason that one could assume that Native Americans would support mass immigration would be racial, and again that's convoluted reasoning. The idea of course, which is also the reason most liberals support mass immigration, is that it "makes whites an ever smaller share of the population" since 90% of the immigrants are non-white. Which a rational person would of course conclude is a racist reason to support an otherwise harmful public policy.
One other possible reason from a racial perspective is a pan-Native ideology that views Mesoamericans, who form a large part of the immigration (though surely not all of it) as the "same people" as Native North American nations. That the majority of Mexicans and Central Americans are Hispanic mestizos and have historically not been considered American Indians, as well as the fact that Mesoamerican tribes, with the exception of some of the Uto-Aztecan peoples of the US Southwest are of different linguistic stock and culture, argues against this. Further, the mainstream opinion both of Natives and the general US and Mexican populations has never considered North American Native peoples and Mexicans the same race. Its a fringe view mostly from a small number of radical activists such as La Raza and AIM.
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