[stickfigure]

The difference is that - excepting about 1.4% of the population - everyone here in the US is either an immigrant or descended from immigrants. Most of them long after the Mayflower sailed. However long it takes to create a new capital-E Ethnicity, it hasn't been long enough.

[dghlsakjg]

Who cares if most people in the US had ancestors that came from somewhere else? My English ancestors have precisely no bearing on the way I live my life any more than my German, Dutch or Polish (well, they came from what is now Poland, but would never have thought of themselves as polish). The child of immigrants in Germany is going to be far more German than I am despite my ancestry.

American culture is undeniably real. American values and beliefs likewise.

Is the only thing that decides an ethnicity how far back your ancestors have been procreating within a country’s current borders?

Culture and values is a better delineator, and it is pretty undeniable that America has a distinct culture and value set.

[stickfigure]

Ethnicity is a social construct with some fuzzy boundaries, but I don't think anyone credible tries to claim that there is an "American Ethnicity". Usually when that term comes up it's from some racist overly proud that someone in their ancestry came over on the Mayflower.

Personally I think it's one of the strengths of this country that a first generation immigrant can come here and become an American. I don't think this is very common around the world.

[Amezarak]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Census-2...

Large numbers of people report their ancestry simply as "American."

I would actually argue this is the origin of a lot of political divisiveness in the US. It also sort of boils down to the "America as an immigrant/proposition nation" vs "America as a settler nation" debate. The former seems to be ascendant in the past few decades but it's definitely not consensus.

[quadrifoliate]

> My English ancestors have precisely no bearing on the way I live my life any more than my German, Dutch or Polish (well, they came from what is now Poland, but would never have thought of themselves as polish). The child of immigrants in Germany is going to be far more German than I am despite my ancestry. American culture is undeniably real. American values and beliefs likewise.

I don't think you are disagreeing with the parent commenter as much as you think. The clear belief statement you are making and not considering your ancestry is a pretty core value of Americans (and one I like) that is not seen in other countries.

Most countries in the world automatically default to "my ancestors were X so I am X, if someone else's ancestors were Y then they are Y, no matter how many generations or how illogical this is". Example: people keep commenting how many players of African descent there are on the French men's soccer team. No one cares or talks about the ancestry of the players on the USMNT.

[mr_toad]

German citizens didn’t evolve in Germany. Any attempt to delineate ethnicity based on how long you ancestors have been in a country is just a veiled attempt to argue that you belong and they don’t.

[warumdarum]

And that is what binds them together, they all took the leap of faith, they all seperated from the old world, they all brought only their work and their spirit. The us is a phyle of choice and you must have made that choice to belong to it. This Choice is also the freedom so often referenced. Which also means you can leave the us by abandoning its values.

[mr_toad]

> The us is a phyle of choice

Well, except for the people who didn’t have any choice.

[warumdarum]

Which is why they are not part of the us. They should get a severance package, yhe ability to leave to a country of choice and the ability to choose to choose the us.

[baranul]

> excepting about 1.4% of the population - everyone here in the US is either an immigrant or descended from immigrants

Your data and percentage, is very wrong. America has significant Black and Indigenous (usually referred to as Indian or Native) populations. Around 15% Black and 3% Indigenous. Combined, they make up around 18% of the US population, with wild and vigorous arguments they are even a greater percentage than that (20% or so).

[stickfigure]

The black population of the US is unquestionably descended from immigrants.

1.4% of the U.S. population is "American Indian and Alaska Native alone". 2.9% is "alone or in combination with another race" per the 2020 census.

I have no idea what you're going on about.

[baranul]

Slavery and indigenous are not considered immigration. You might want to study again about this.

Being multiracial, and of indigenous ancestry, does not necessarily mean or always count as immigrant. It is nebulous. No definitive conclusions, in regards to immigration, is made about those of mixed and indigenous ancestry. Speaking of mixed ancestry, the US has a very significant percentage in that category, from both the census and DNA testing.

There are also Canadian and Mexican indigenous people, who refute or argue about immigrant status, regardless of their present citizenship. Making the argument that their people were already in America or pushed out of their lands.

[Dylan16807]

I don't know what pedantic definition you're using, but the context was clearly about indigenous or not. Insisting on a definition from a completely different context doesn't make you right, it makes you annoying.

[baranul]

I see what you're saying, however, the terminology used (immigrant) and then percentages given, were debatably incorrect and misleading. Please refer to reading material, where it makes it clear that slavery is not immigration[1][2][3].

Immigrants go through a set immigration process, where they make a voluntary move to a new country. A huge portion of the American population were not immigrants, but were rather subject to involuntary migration (aka slavery), going as far back as 1526 (hundreds of years before the USA was created). Thus a better term would arguably be "migrants" (without distinguishing between voluntary and involuntary).

> And that is what binds them together... they all seperated from the old world... The us is a phyle of choice and you must have made that choice...

It is a false dichotomy or representation, that America is about those who are indigenous or not, or old world choice for the new.

[1]: https://lithub.com/dont-call-slaves-immigrants/ (Don't Call Slaves "Immigrants")

[2]: https://www.thewitnessinc.org/blog/african-slaves-not-immigr... (African Slaves Were Not 'Immigrants')

[3]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/03/09/... (Slaves weren’t immigrants. They were property.)

[Dylan16807]

The percentages were fine for what they were actually saying. We can have a healthy discussion about the 1.4% and 2.9% but bringing in voluntary versus involuntary migration is a totally different topic.

Also what's the point of making "immigrant" and "migrant" apply to different groups of people? This seems like the worst way to make the distinction.

Edit: This article has a pull quote of the definitions of 'immigrant' and 'slave' and both of them apply. This is not convincing.

Edit 2: You added "Slaves weren’t immigrants. They were property." The article isn't loading but I can respond to the title. Even by the logic of them not being people at the time of the slave trade, what, the idea is that when they became people again that resets their history and we act like they just appeared in the southern US? That seems far more disrespectful to me.

[pessimizer]

It shouldn't be annoying when somebody politely and indirectly asks you to stop calling kidnapped slaves "immigrants."

[Dylan16807]

But that's not what they did, they acted like people were already using that definition and started pulling out the wrong numbers.

Also can you explain why "involuntary migrant" is fine but "involuntary immigrant" isn't? (I mean I'd probably default to stronger language than "involuntary" but let's stick with that for now.)