10/03/2007
I’m almost flattered that my critiques are critiqued in both Commentary’s Contention and National Review’s The Corner twice in two weeks. (See Ramesh Ponnuru and Jonah Goldberg ). There isn’t much to say, although Jonah Goldberg’s attempt to prove his Americanness through who came here earlier is weird and self-contradictory, probably reflecting a guilty conscience.
Neither I nor Peter Brimelow nor anyone at VDARE has ever suggested that non-whites, much less non-WASPs are incapable of assimilating. We have just argued that certain groups assimilate more easily than others, and that the numbers of a group that come in at the time matter too. Generally, groups with stock closer to the founders, such as Peter Brimelow, assimilate the easiest, as I noted in my response to Max Boot.
I also mentioned that my father’s family came to this country in the 1840s, though I did not mention, as Goldberg noted, that my mother is Korean. However, she immigrated to this country before the 1965 Immigration Act, when the US was very selective about the 100 Koreans who come each year. Accordingly my mother was a prime candidate for assimilation. Her father was a pro-American newspaper editor who had been killed by the Communist Chinese, while my grandmother had a job at Harvard waiting for her and was to remarry another Harvard professor. This selection, as well as the fact that there were literally none of her co-ethnics in this country, allowed for quick assimilation.
Of course these factors that are conducive to assimilation, the proof is in the pudding. The best evidence that Peter Brimelow and I have assimilated is that we support an immigration and foreign policy that puts the interests of America before any other considerations.
[Peter Brimelow adds: Of course it would be nicer if VDARE.COM readers were polite when emailing Ramesh. But I must say we get abusive email all the time. We just don’t whine about it.
I also think that Ponnuru and Goldberg are foolish to dismiss so arrogantly the intense anger building up out there in Americaland. Similarly, I think the Roman Catholic hierarchy is foolish to resurrect, through its anti-national immigration arrogance, the arguments of Paul Blanshard.]
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.