Cultural Loss
Is fear of immigration is just a thinly disguised appeal to racism? No.
I’m a leftie with a cosmopolitan and (mostly) pro-immigration worldview. I’m certainly not a right-winger but I think we can do a better job of understanding what conservative folk are afraid of when they complain about immigration.
Let’s start with Orwell’s thoughts on patriotism.
Orwell said that patriotism is about a particular place and a particular way of life. Whether justified or not, people are often afraid that immigration will take this away from them.
That’s not justification for calling them racist but are their fears justified?
I’ve been both an immigrant in a new country and a native in a place with high levels of immigration. As immigrants to California, we tended to cluster together and cling to the culture of the old country. Eventually, we learned to like baby back ribs and philly cheesesteak and — eventually — the natives began to adopt some of our habits too.
During the time I was there, we persuaded their kids to play soccer and their pubs to serve IPA. That was great for me as I like both soccer and IPA but many folks in the native population resented this. The first time I witnessed an American couple get VERY ANGRY that the pub they had just entered served neither Budweiser nor Miller Lite, I quietly wondered “What have we done to this country?”.
On the whole, the USA does a great job of assimilating immigrants and by the second or third generation, the culture of immigrant families is virtually indistinguishable from that of native families and they share the same devotion to the same particular way of life.
Immigration should be like guests arriving at a party. If you come to my party, I’d love it if you bring a new dish or a song from the old country for us all to enjoy. Maybe you’ll share your baba ghanoush recipe and it will become part of our culture too along with our fish ‘n’ chips, doner kebabs and chicken tikka masala. But I might get annoyed if you sit in the corner and eat your moussaka on your own. The cultural vibe will change gradually over time as new friends arrive — but if it changes too quickly, the hosts will be bummed.
I might resent it too if the new folks insist we only play their music, or if they bring so many friends that it doesn’t feel like my party anymore. And if you don’t like bacon sandwiches — that’s fine. But don’t tell me that I can’t eat bacon sandwiches because you don’t like them.
When considering immigration, scale is important. If 100 people or 1,000 people come from a country where they don’t drink beer or eat pork, we can all still get along. But if it’s 100,000 or 1,000,000, all the pubs will close and the stalls selling bacon baps will go out of business. The natives will resent this. It doesn’t have to have anything to do with racism; it might just be the culture changing too fast for the natives to adapt.
As Orwell said, the patriotic natives are devoted to a particular place and a particular way of life and they have no wish to force it on other people — but they will surely resent it if you take it away from them. This is what conservatives are afraid of.
When I lived in the East End of London in the 90s, there was a great deal of immigration from Bengal. When our pie & mash shops and local boozers closed one by one to be replaced by Bengali restaurants, there was much sadness among the troubled natives. Fortunately, I love Bengali food! I did lament the loss of the Lord Rodney pub in Whitechaped though when it was replaced by a shoe shop.
This sense of cultural loss is entirely understandable and ‘our side’ should respond with sympathy rather than instinctively accusing the ‘losers’ of racism. A sympathetic immigration policy should take that into account.
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Exactly this.
When regular people express many of the sentiments you do, they are dismissed as xenophobes and bigots. So it’s no wonder that they begin to resent the newcomers.
Personally I think they should reserve their resentment for those who imposed this change upon them and their communities in the first place. Very often those people, the elites, have no experience of the negative effects of mass, sudden immigration on their own lives. They just get the Baba Ganoush.
Great stuff Ragged.
I'm a child of migrants and I agree. However, I think it's important to recognise that migration in large numbers tends to be because of mass upheaval in the countries of the migrants. Given the prolific interference of successive British governments in the affairs of said countries, any discontent, or anger, about it should be taken up with the government, not taken out on the migrants themselves! Get the government, along with its partners in crime the US and various EU countries, to stop causing mayhem and economic misery abroad and the problem would go away.
I'd also like to mention that it's not just loss of culture that's an issue when mass migrations occurs. It floods job markets in areas already struggling with unemployment and/or low wages, allows for exploitative 0 hour contracts, and causes rent increases - all of these affect the poorest members of society.
Sadly, anger at these outcomes is often expressed in 'racist' languages and I think that's because people are deliberately not equipped with the language and the economic knowledge to express their real concerns. And that's convenient for those who benefit most; both from the upheaval that caused the mass migration, and the problems it causes in the countries people migrate to!