Hacker News Reader

Comment by chaostheory | Hacker News Reader

> If they just started allowing large numbers of people to become citizens, their culture, people, and society would rapidly shift in a way that their historical roots would have little place other than in the footnotes of history textbooks.

You've inadvertently described the US. A lot of our culture and traditions are a mismash of the immigrants who came before.

As for Japan being "pure" culturally, that's a fantasy conjured up by "nationalists" if you're generous or xenophobic racists when we're not.

The historical lineage of the Japanese includes continuous mixing with the Chinese and Koreans, alongside the Ainu and Ryukyuan. Elements considered central to traditional Japanese life were borrowed from neighboring civilizations like China, with Buddhism and rice cultivation being the most well known. I'm sure there are plenty of other examples, and we haven't even gotten to the modern era.

View on HN

This is a common misconception about the US. Here [1] is a graph of foreign born population in the US. It previously peaked at around 14.8% in the late 19th century. This started causing substantial anti-immigrant sentiment to emerge as it was felt to be having an overall negative affect on culture, society, labor, etc. That eventually led to various restrictions on immigration sending it to a valley of 4.7% in 1970.

That graph is by decade; the actual valley was probably more around 1965 because That's when a new immigration act was passed that greatly loosened the requirements and immigration rates began skyrocketing to where they are today at around 14.8%, with rising anti-immigrant sentiment emerging for the same reasons, at almost exactly the same percent. Note that 14.8% includes all groups, including illegal aliens. The number of foreign born residents in Japan is, and has been, much lower.

[1] - https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2026/07/foreign-born-...

nothing in your comment disproves my point about US culture being a mixture of all the immigrant populations that have settled here. Also until very recently, US immigration controls were really terrible. In the past, the only country with amazing and consistent immigration controls is Japan at over 99% enforcement. In light of that, it isn't surprising that we're witnessing population collapse in Japan due to xenophobia. Coincidentally with better immigration controls, the US is now at a fertility rate of 1.6 instead of the population sustaining 2.1

> It previously peaked at around 14.8% in the late 19th century. This started causing substantial anti-immigrant sentiment to emerge as it was felt to be having an overall negative affect on culture, society, labor, etc.

Yes, in the 19th century there was a lot of racism and prejudice directed towards the Irish, German, and Italian immigrants. Not surprisingly, they did not destroy US society or culture. Instead, the US absorbed respective parts of their cultures and assimulated all of their populations over decades. now they are an integral part of America

Reply on news.ycombinator.com