[thegrim33]

It's pretty interesting, if you read through the Federalist papers, where they were discussing how to set up the US states/government, they were seriously debating and worried about whether a state full of people from England could coexist next to a state full of people from France. They were seriously worried that even people that similar, from almost the same place and culture, would eventually fracture on their differences and go to war with each other. What a world we live in today in comparison.

[benterix]

Except that was an academic discussion and eventually there were no problems between people of English and French descent, whereas what we're dealing with now is a very real issue and I don't think the so-called cultural differences are the main problem here.

[red-iron-pine]

> English and French descent

> descent

30 years after showing up most of them were speaking English and generally living in roughly the same culture (be it Catholic or Protestant) with roughly similar expectations. As opposed to Muslim, East Asian, Aztec, etc.

Like my people were French huguenots (protestants) and rapidly turned into any other VA tobacco farmers

[dsq]

The US was always the melting pot model, where immigrants assimilated into the general American culture. The second generation spoke 'Merican just like the locals. Italians, Germans, Poles, all became standard USians.

[southernplaces7]

And it continues to this very day. Your average latino American or Asian american just about can't assimilate quickly enough most of the time, and within one generation most fully identify as Americans without rejecting the fundamentals of their origin culture. One can wish and wash about racism in U.S. society in many ways but compared to many countries, the country is remarkably effective at assimilating people from extremely diverse places and making them feel like they belong to its society. Canada does a decent job of it too but I've never quite seem any country pull it off as well as the U.S., maybe because it has such a specifically charismatic cultural image from decades of overwhelmingly, globally popular cinema, pop culture and etc.