[3qz]

Canada has an immigration rate 10x the rate of the US but any discussion of lowering this is considered racist. I have a top 5% income but I will never own a house in my life and can’t access a family doctor. We have way too many people! The population is expected to be 50% foreign born or children of immigrants by 2040 and it’s already majority foreign born in our biggest cities.

I honestly don’t expect this country to stay together for more than a few more decades. What is a Canadian? The “melting pot” theory of integration is also considered racist here because Canada is a “mosaic” where everyone has the right to keep their old culture and live in an ethnic enclave with no expectation of assimilation.

[chrisfosterelli]

> We have way too many people!

We're one of the least densely populated countries in the world with one of the lowest birth rates in the world. If you don't think immigration makes sense for cultural reasons that's fine, but with respect to healthcare and housing don't be under any illusion -- reducing immigration would exacerbate these issues by giving us an even more heavily aging population.

[xboxnolifes]

healthcare availability, housing availability, and immigration rate are not related by population density, but by population growth and infrastructure growth. If your infrastructure growth doesn't outpace your population growth, it doesn't matter how dense or not dense your country is.

[chrisfosterelli]

Our infrastructure is constrained because of systemic policy decisions, not because we can't practically grow it fast enough. These policy constraints would become significantly more painful under a declining, aging population.

For healthcare, we don't pay our GPs enough and we overwork them. Physicians have been either leaving the profession or moving into non-GP roles (specialists, etc). Since healthcare is taxpayer funded, reducing the number of working age tax payers and increasing the number of aging people in need of health care is going to make this worse.

For housing, we allow too much control of housing at the municipal layer and it's become a complex, bureaucratic mess to build anything anywhere. The dirty secret is that no federal government wants to step in and be the one to fix this because then it would cause housing prices to decrease and a terrifying large percentage of aging, voting population has the majority of their net worth in their house with "downsizing" forming the majority of their retirement plan. Reducing the population isn't going to fix this, we'll end up with less people who can build houses and more people who are either dependent on high house prices for their retirement or poor and in need of taxpayer programs (of which there will be less tax payers to fund) to support themselves.

These are obviously complex issues and I'm simplifying to some degree, but those are at least two key relationships worth really calling out here with respect to population. There's others, but my core point is that simplify cutting off population growth is not going to fix either of these -- it'd probably make them worse.

[Nomentatus]

Things could always be more efficient; but the housing shortage is now Canada wide, throughout jurisdictions. It's systemic, pretty much everywhere. You're right that letting low birthrate rule has problems (see Japan) but not such extreme ones, impoverishing so many.

[chrisfosterelli]

> but the housing shortage is now Canada wide, throughout jurisdictions

Yes. That's what I mean by "systemic" too. The housing policy problems are a result of incentives and the same incentives exist across municipalities in Canada. Municipalities also don't exist in isolation; for example as Vancouver prices out people they move to nearby areas like Kelowna and exacerbate the problem there.

It's not a simple matter of efficiency. The bureaucracy is a symptom of the incentive structure. Councils have the vast majority of control over new buildings and they're not incentivized to approve them. Councils are mostly homeowners and are voted in by mostly homeowners, who mostly don't want to see their neighbourhoods change or the price of their single detached homes decrease.

[addicted]

Existing infrastructure is not designed for an aging population.

But it’s good that you point out the real problem which is a lack of infrastructure.

[jwond]

> We're one of the least densely populated countries in the world

There’s a reason most Canadians live close to the southern border. Most of Canada’s territory isn’t particularly friendly to large-scale human habitation.

[chrisfosterelli]

Yes. It can both be true that large portions of Canada are not ideal to live in and also that we have a really low density. If you've ever been to London, Tokyo, New York, or anywhere really you'd see that Canada is not dense.

[m00x]

I agree, it's definitely not density. Vancouver and Montreal density is ~900p/km. NY is 2000+, London is 1500+. The Canadian boomers are cucking the younger generations with NIMBYism. Nothing gets built so they keep their house value.

[Gigachad]

Total population means less than growth rate. The country may be sparsely populated but construction is the main bottleneck. It’s hard to spit out hundreds of high rises quickly enough.

[chrisfosterelli]

Construction is the bottleneck because nothing ever gets approved, and when it does it takes years, and nobody who makes decisions is incentivized to fix this. It's not primarily because we can't physically build fast enough (although COVID has made this more notable lately, that's fair). The incentives for this situation get worse with an aging population because we lose working age people who can work construction.

[wpdev_63]

Why must we compare ourselves to 3rd world countries that have terrible quality of life issues?

Maybe the canadian economy isn't able to support a decent quality of life and these population levels. Seriously go visit these countries these people are from and ask yourself, would you like canada to turn into this?! Let's be honest with ourselves.

Don't worry you can just label me a racist and devolve the argument around that instead of the fundamental issues with immigration today. Canada is going to turn into the countries where these people are from if there aren't cut backs.

[Pasorrijer]

Have you met any first or second generation Canadians? Yes, people bring their culture and their traditions. And by the time you get 1 or 2 generations down, aside from a few different holidays Canada's school system has done a fairly good job of normalizing the population.

Immigration is a major source of Canadian talent and innovation... A lot of the systemic issues around larger populations aren't related to immigration, as others noted, but to short sighted, "get me elected" policies for our political "leaders".

[gregjor]

Thanks, Canada, for giving us The Weeknd!

[wpdev_63]

I didn't say anything about culturism in that comment.

My point still stands that the problems of overpopulation in the countries these people are from is just going to bring that problem to canada. The economy cannot support them.

Canadians today aren't having children so why are we bringing these people in? How is this in anyway moral?

[Pasorrijer]

I don't understand how using phrases like "these people" doesn't bring culturism into the conversation. You clearly stated that "these people bring that problem to Canada", implying that their culture is the primary problem and that culture will be travelling with them to Canada.

As for the economy not being able to support them, I think this statement ignores the fact that every immigrant that meets Canada's criteria brings some useful skill. We immigrate farmers, doctors, nurses, engineers, lawyers. All of whom add to the economy in a way that, generally, expands the economy to support their presence.

Now, we have major policy mismatches, where trained individuals cannot work in their field due to obscure policies and regulations, but that's tied to misguided national policies that exist independently of individual immigrants.

[Nomentatus]

Depends where you are. I thought this until I lived in Toronto, and met many third generation Canadians with distinct accents.

[chrisfosterelli]

Do you consider the United Kingdom, France, Japan, the United States, and Germany third world countries? These are all examples of countries with more density than us. We have similar density to Kazakhstan, Bolivia, Turkmenistan, Chad, and Libya. Density is not the direct determinant for a decent quality of life.

[wpdev_63]

>Do you consider the United Kingdom, France, Japan, the United States, and Germany third world countries?

Ahh here comes the part where you call me a racist and immediately think your morally superior to everyone else in the thread lol.

Your trying making equivalence between western 1st nations that share most of the cultural values that exist in Canada vs 3rd world poor nations with population numbers higher than the whole north american continent that we should immediately treat the same otherwise it would be racist.

[goatsi]

Healthcare would be much worse without immigrants.

In Canada, immigrants make up

    23% of registered nurses
    35% of nurse aides and related occupations
    37% of pharmacists
    36% of physicians
    39% of dentists

https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/ca...

[pseudo0]

This is a pretty misleading stat. It appears to be counting people who immigrate at a young age and are then trained in the Canadian system. That isn't expanding the pool of healthcare workers, unless there were somehow a shortage of applicants. That absolutely is not the case for physicians, where every year the med school applicants vastly exceed the number of spots.

So what should really be counted is foreign-trained immigrants who were able to have their credentials considered equivalent, and entered directly into employment.

[philistine]

Yeas, exactly. Otherwise this shows the real problem with the health sector; it is undervalued, underpaid and thus requires cheap labor with less accrued wealth to maintain its labour force.

[pseudo0]

Canadian doctors and nurses do fine financially, but there aren't enough of them because Canadian healthcare is a command economy. The government sets a total cost it is willing to pay for healthcare and then sets the number of positions for doctors and nurses based on that budget, not market demand. That's how Canada is in the insane position of being a first world country where 15% of the population doesn't have a family doctor.

Retirement or nursing homes are a different story, and aren't particularly flattering for GP's point. Those do heavily rely on temporary foreign workers (TFWs) or recent immigrants paid around minimum wage, and the quality of care reflects that. There have been numerous scandals in the last couple years during COVID regarding substandard care, with seniors not receiving food/water or being left in their own feces for days. It shouldn't be surprising when bare minimum pay results in substandard outcomes, and the ability of employers to bring in TFWs prevents wages from rising according to market forces.

[LAC-Tech]

I feel like you need to include "% of patients" as well to answer the question meaningfully.

[goatsi]

Immigrants are 21.5% of the population. They are also on average younger than the rest of the population, so they will use less medical services. The average age of a Canadian actually went down this year for the first time in over 50 years because of younger immigrants arriving.

[adolph]

Is Canada directly importing healthcare workers or does it preferentially train immigrants for healthcare roles?

[goatsi]

They are directly importing healthcare workers.

[pcthrowaway]

Is this far off from the percentage of immigrants in the total population ages 24-65?

[gregjor]

And 100% of The Weeknd.

[bombcar]

Apparently 21% of Canadians are foreign born so those numbers aren’t entirely out of line. Yet.

[humanlion87]

Not having access to doctors or being unable to afford housing are due to policy failures in other areas, not purely due to higher immigration. Canada will find it tough to replenish it's workforce without high rates of immigration.

[sbaiddn]

Canada has a housing crisis because no one is stupid enough to arrive to Canada and move to Thunder Bay (sorry TB, but you know its true). As a result all these people go live in one of three or four cities.

The situation is more akin to the rapid urbanization in the third world. Infrastructure cant keep up. Just try GTA traffic. People move to Barrie just to afford a house in the GTA (Barries not GTA!).

Sure Canada is "empty", but its also an inhospitable frozen waste land with 90% of the population living within 100 km of the US border. When we say Canada is "full" what we mean is that Canada cannot build fast enough. That the 3000 km^2 worth living in in Canada are really really dense.

[bushbaba]

The west lost it's ability to build new cities. Canada could be more like china and use multiple billions to build/encourage growth outside their core city centers. It has the land. Arguably GDP would benefit from having more populous cities between Vancouver and Toronto.

Heck just give Canadians a 0% interest, 0 down mortgage for building a 500k home and residing in it for at least 10 years in say Regina.

[sbaiddn]

"Heck just give Canadians a 0% interest, 0 down mortgage for building a 500k home and residing in it for at least 10 years in say Regina."

No one would take it because you'd be in Regina.

And the West "cant build cities" anymore because there's no need to build a city in the Prairies anymore. 100 years ago physical labor had to man farms, and therefore you had human settlements. There's no need to put a new city in between Winnipeg and Calgary except to store people in it.

[m00x]

As someone who lived in the East and now is in Vancouver. The weather is a huge reason why no one wants to move to rural areas, or live in the East.

[myth_drannon]

And who is going to work in Tim Hortons(or take care of your elderly parents)? At least in Montreal, due to stuff shortages many Tim's are half closed with huge lines or drive throughs only. I have never seen anything like this. Also on Monday are elections in Quebec and all they can talk is about immigrants and how to limit immigration(Quebec has a separate immigration program).

[cpsns]

The huge lines are more due to the insane menu Tim’s has right now. It’s far too complex and requires endless context shifting from workers. The workers at my local Tims have been complaining about it for a long time.

The half closed ones though? Yah, that’s a worker shortage. My local one started by closing the dining area and then started closing at 8PM simply because they can’t staff it. Of course they can’t, they only offer minimum wage.

[missedthecue]

Interesting that it is cheaper to close the entire operation than it is to increase labor expense. Must be thin margins in that business.

[lotsofpulp]

Restaurants and food service have low margins in general.

It is usually easy enough to make at home or not have at all, so if prices get too high, customers can easily do without.

[sbaiddn]

Its a volume business. Timmys is really inexpensive. Some stuff are good. I liked their lunches. Their coffee is terrible, albeit better than Starbucks (low bar)

[ultrasaurus]

The margins on coffee are amazing, but I suspect coffee makes up a smaller % of sales after 8pm so the late night mix might have much thinner margins.

[sn0w_crash]

You think immigrants are limited to pouring coffee and watching the elderly?

[pseudo0]

The government has a special program for "temporary foreign workers" that has historically been used to staff Tim Hortons and nursing homes.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/headlines/who-s-look...

[myth_drannon]

Of course not, I'm an immigrant myself. But I never saw a Canada born person working in Tim Hortons(major cities, not middle of nowhere) Starbucks of the other hand doesn't hire immigrants, just hipster Humanities PhDs :) I'm generalizing of course!

[sbaiddn]

Because there were no Timmy's or nursing homes before we all showed up?

[missedthecue]

I think he's implying that the immigration system as it presently exists primarily brings in a class of person that is unlikely to work at Tim Hortons, but likely to be a customer of Tim Hortons. This exacerbates the waiting times.

That said, I do not live in North America. I am inferring from context.

[refurb]

How did you get 10x? Because the numbers this article talks about includes temporary visa like student visas.

Looking at US stats (2018 numbers):

- 500k immigrant visas (green cards)

- 9M non-immigrant visas minus 6M B1/B2 visitor visas

So each year, it totals about 3.5M, which is ~10x Canada, so not that far off per capita.

You could argue that staying in Canada after arriving with a temporary visa is much easier than the US, which is true.

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/v...

[TMWNN]

>can’t access a family doctor.

To provide context to others, an amazingly high portion of Canadians don't have a family doctor <https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/despite-more-doctors-many-cana...>. In Atlantic Canada (the four easternmost provinces) it is impossible, repeat *impossible*, to get a family doctor if you don't have one <https://www.thetelegram.com/in-depth/doctor-shortage/what-we...>. It's one thing to have shortages in rural areas—that happens in the US too—but Halifax?!? I've heard the same occurs in Vancouver too.

[TMWNN]

The second URL above has died; use <https://web.archive.org/web/20190226051406/https://www.thete...>.

[wenc]

Thanks for the info. I lived in Ontario for over a decade, and Quebec for half a decade. There were grumblings about a shortage of family doctors even when I was there a decade ago, but I never had any trouble finding a family doctor in the GTA. But it sounds like the situation is quite different in BC and elsewhere.

I'm guessing it's partly a function of where family doctors like to settle? Most of my friends who are family doctors end up in Ontario.

Also, in Ontario, Nurse Practitioners (who often work in partnership with a physician) are able to provide equally good primary care, so the system is actually quite scalable if you're not strictly looking for MDs. In the US, physician assistants and medical assistants often provide primary care. In Canada NPs often fill that role.

[whalesalad]

A lot of people will often put the US and Canada up against one another in a head to head battle but forget to realize the population is less than the state of California. For all intents and purposes Canada is a small country and their way of life is very much a small scale experiment, as-is our democratic experiment here in the US. Scalability is tough.

[rapind]

It's all part of the plan...

https://www.centuryinitiative.ca/

[tarakat]

> Canada has an immigration rate 10x the rate of the US

I assume you mean per-capita? Because legal immigration alone into the US is about 1.8 million/year and has been for almost a decade, excluding one or two pandemic years.

[moralestapia]

>I have a top 5% income but I will never own a house in my life

That's weird, really. I'm about 10% of income there and could easily buy a house in 3-5 years. Not on Vancouver, though, if that's what you mean.

[StanislavPetrov]

>Canada has an immigration rate 10x the rate of the US but any discussion of lowering this is considered racist.

Those who consider immigration a race issue are often those who view everything as a race issue, and view reality through a warped lens of race. Even worse are others who have ulterior motives (political, economic) for favoring increased immigration and use the race card as a weapon to smear opponents and prevent substantive debate.

[slater]

> Canada has an immigration rate 10x the rate of the US but any discussion of lowering this is considered racist

...or maybe don't compare Canada's rate to a country with one of the strictest immigration policies available, just because doing so fits your inclinations...?

[sbaiddn]

As an immigrant to Canada... pretty much spot on.

[aeturnum]

I do think "we" (whatever that means) are paying too little attention to the real work of truly integrating cultures. It's hard work - to be open and aware of your actions and to see how one might adjust oneself after noticing another person's actions in the same space / town / city / country. Changes on changes. Mutating culture is hard, luxuriating in a culture we know is easy.

[lettergram]

In reality, it’s becoming a colony. You know how the US captured Texas? Americans moved there (on invitation of the Mexican government), then when the government of Mexico didn’t act as expected the US supported a war of independence of Texas.

Who are most of the immigrants to Canada I wonder…

[lebuffon]

No need to wonder The Top 10 Biggest Sources Of New Permanent Residents To Canada in 2021 are:

India: 96,660 China: 24,995 Philippines: 13,310 Nigeria: 12,500 France: 10,510 United States: 9,525 Brazil: 9,270 Iran: 8,930 Pakistan: 6,625 South Korea: 6,590

[oatmeal_croc]

As an Indian, the thought of India colonizing a country is chuckleworthy.

[LAC-Tech]

Your ethnic group has never invaded and colonised an area?

[oatmeal_croc]

I'd say no. For thousands of years, we've been the colonisees, not the colonisers.

[LAC-Tech]

If you'd been colonised for thousands of years your group would not exist anymore.

The fact your group - which you are being very coy about - still does exist, suggest that not only have you not been continuously colonised for thousands of years, but that you've probably colonised and absorbed some of your neighbours.

[StanislavPetrov]

>Americans moved there (on invitation of the Mexican government), then when the government of Mexico didn’t act as expected the US supported a war of independence of Texas.

Americans were invited to live in what is what is now Texas by Spain long before there was a Mexican government, to act as a buffer against the Comanche who had decimated Spanish ranches, towns and outposts in raids from the north.

[bombcar]

Texas was also emptier than Nova Scotia at the time.

If Nova Scotia stats being filled with Russian immigrants maybe it’s worth noting.

[gxt]

Put me in the same bucket.

And in Quebec the extreme-left party (QS) is promoting religious sectarianism in schools, in favor of political indoctrination of children.

There are also unashamed communists promoting war in Montreal, just today there was a dude flying the soviet flag on a bike while I was getting coffee, and nothing can be done it about otherwise --> Jail.

Contemporary Canada has only existed for 50 years, and for some reason everybody left of center thinks it's always been this way and it feels like they are all ready to cut their veins open in shame of being born in a successful country...

[kingofpandora]

> There are also unashamed communists promoting war in Montreal, just today there was a dude flying the soviet flag on a bike while I was getting coffee, and nothing can be done it about otherwise --> Jail.

Out of curiosity, what would you like to do to the bike-rider that would land you in jail?

[gxt]

So your question is What would I like to do to someone who asks to boycott elections, and start a violent revolution to impose an autocratic government that has in history killed millions by war and famine?

[kingofpandora]

Sure. We're exploring your fantasies here.

[cycrutchfield]

So build more houses and train more doctors then? Seems weird to hate on immigrants and say your country is overpopulated (it isn’t)

[downvoteme1]

They don’t even need to train mor doctors. Canada imports a lot of medical professionals as part of their immigration programs. However due the CMA regulations, they cannot practice in Canada even if their degree is from an accredited university.

Even doctors trained in developed countries like UK have no guarantee that they will be approved to work in Canada as noted on the BMA’s own website [1].

On top of that most medical professionals moving to Canada are not from highly developed but rather developing countries and they spend years just trying to get their license and give up in the end .

https://www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/career-progression...

[version_five]

This sort of reactive anti-intellectual "hate on immigrants" response is exactly what seems to happen whenever somebody suggests that unchecked immigration is not the only way.

[ecpottinger]

What unchecked immigration? Canada takes people who pass the immigration tests. The rejection rate is over 70%, one thing Canada does not have is unchecked immigration.

[orwin]

Canada don't have unchecked immigration. I'd even say that the poor choice their quota are set on is a detriment to their building capabilities.

[crakenzak]

No need for the aggressive tone, but maybe what the comment you’re replying to isn’t saying that the country is overpopulated, but they’re saying that the infrastructure available isn’t capable of sustaining this type of population influx (regardless of where they’re from) and leads to a lower quality of life for the people already in the country.

You and OP can probably agree that infrastructure needs to improve to support more people, but until that happens, there shouldn’t be such availability of immigrant visas.

[chrischen]

But demand has to happen first followed by infrastructure. Nobody is going to spend the money on infrastructure first then hope demand and tax receipts catch up.

The correct solution is yo say hey we need to build better infrastructure now because our tax receipts are up.

[bombcar]

Some infrastructure can be built first - for example a train line with planned stations that aren’t active yet.

Can help direct development.

[3qz]

> the infrastructure available isn’t capable of sustaining this type of population influx (regardless of where they’re from) and leads to a lower quality of life for the people already in the country.

This is exactly the problem.

[dixie_land]

Chinese buyers would simply buy them all with cash and rent the, back to you

[cycrutchfield]

That’s cool, build more of them then and pocket the cash. Free money and property taxes for your local economy.

Is “Chinese buyers” supposed to sound scary or something? Honestly this reeks of xenophobia.

[bombcar]

Canada should make multiple cities named Vancouver and build tons of houses there and sell them to unsuspecting foreigners.

Big money win/win.

[dixie_land]

It's just a fact. Vancouver is the favorite place for corrupt party officials to park their money in real estate.

[Method-X]

Yeah, not shit. Everyone here wants that. It's not happening because baby boomers only vote for politicians who limit supply and increase demand. I own a successful tech company and I own real estate here, so I'm not saying this out of bitterness. I'm good but my friends are NOT (and some of them are immigrants). Throw whatever slur you want at me but that's the damn truth. This has NOTHING to do with racism and everything to do with artificial supply and demand.

[bergenty]

You have too many people in a country with the average population density less than a person a square mile? This is such strange thinking- your solutions should be build more houses and train/immigrate in more doctors!

This country is doing better than it ever has in history. The immigrants Canada lets in are a gift to the economy. If neighboring US is anything to go by, 90 of the top 500 US unicorns ($ 1 billion+) have an Indian born founder.

[version_five]

Sounds like you're not very familiar with canada. We have a very narrow populated strip within about 50-100 km of the us border, and then a vast uninhabitable area in the north. Overall population density is a meaningless metric

[PuppyTailWags]

The Atlantic coastal regions are pretty moderate and they're also sparsely populated. There's plenty of space in southern Ontario/Quebec, in Edmonton and Calgary...

[bergenty]

That’s because all 38 million comfortably fit in those places. There is plenty of inhabitable land between Toronto and the frozen northern lands.

[sbaiddn]

There's nothing there. Canada has one road linking every city together (well, except TO).

Imagine Iowa, but emptier.

[chitowneats]

What about the agricultural land needed to support that many people with Western diet and lifestyle? No matter who moves there, they will adopt those customs in the short to medium term.

[bombcar]

Average population density is a useless metric on a country of that size; it’s like saying the US has no density problems at all anywhere because the density averages out to 94 per sq mile (that is one person per 6 acres or so).

[ohCh6zos]

I have discovered my ideal population density is far lower than most people. Perhaps yours is higher?

[rjzzleep]

The thing that gets me about the US and Canada is that those countries don't even have an ethnic population to begin with. The ethnic population was put into camps and then replaced by a bunch of Europeans for a bunch of different countries to begin with.

Germany losing its national identity I can follow. France losing its national identity I can follow as well, although my sympathies are somewhat limited given the context of it. But the US and Canada ? You ask an average American and they tell you their a quarter Italian, A quarter German, 1/10 native American and 2/5th danish. What is the national identity here?

[notadev]

We’re not allowed to have an American identity. Trying to cling to traditions is considered a conservative thing and thus inherently racist. American can only be defined by her failures, and any attempt to point out the successes is considered whitewashing history or something.

There were a number of places that sought to, or outright skipped, the Independence Day celebration this year. It’s now totally normal for some people to find the US flag “problematic” and itself a sign of oppression.

[rjzzleep]

Little misunderstanding here. I'm not saying that the USA doesn't have a national identity, because it clearly does. What I'm saying is that because it is an entirely manufactured one, it is therefore predestined for conflict.

One of the bigger conflicts that societies have is that as they move from whatever traditional identity have they have find a set of common values that still makes for a common goal.

[foogazi]

> One of the bigger conflicts that societies have is that as they move from whatever traditional identity have they have find a set of common values that still makes for a common goal.

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness

What more could one ask for?

[nine_k]

An American may lack a cleat ethnic identity, but I suppose that the American national identity is very much a thing. The American values, the American dream, the liberty, the flag, etc. A large number of Americans is pretty patriotic, despite being ethnically varied.

While at it: both Germany and France used to be much more varied in cultures and languages, but were unified by their centralized states. A dilution of this unity is, in a sense, return to a more natural state of cultural variety.

[bombcar]

If America didn’t have an ethnic identity you’d not be able to recognize Americans the world over l.

[nine_k]

A ton of Americans around me identify ethnically in various ways, and keep some of their ethnical habits (Mexican, various Caribbean, Jewish, Irish, various African, several Chinese, etc).

Still, they see themselves as fellow Anericans.