I can eat sushi, pizza, samosas, kebab (kabobs, döner or shawarmas depending on your frame of reference), gyoza/pot stickers/tortellone/pasteczki (or whatever), noodles/ramen/spaghetti, knödeln/kroppkakor and so on and so on. Leaving lots of cultures unsaid.

I can enjoy music, cringy cultural movies (animated and not), fun cirque sessions (even without animals being endangered), go to festivals for various cultures, enjoin then in our cultures of scouting, mountaineering, hiking and share my love of enjoying nature.

I can drive electric cars, communicate on Internet forums, keep in touch with new friends as well as loved ones across the world.

I would be in a much poorer world without you all.

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    Our blessed homeland vs. their barbarous wastes

    How dare you not pledge your undying allegiance to the spot of dirt that you were born on!??!?!?

    • garbagebagel@lemmy.world
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      I’ve seen a few anti-immigrant comments pop up around here that have been upvoted and they’ve made me pretty sad.

      This thread makes my immigrant ass happy though so thank y’all.

    • Bunbury@feddit.nl
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      Well, by the look of this comment section there’s at least one who really needed to hear the message, but seemingly didn’t take it to heart.

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    Completely agree! The concept of Culinary Diplomacy is actually practiced by a few countries around the world and is often implemented in partnership with emigrants from those nations. South Korea did this with their “Kimchi Diplomacy” back in 2009 and it was considered very successful. It is one of the reasons Korean food became so popular here in the U.S. around then. Culinary Diplomacy

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        I think Chinese food spread was more organic, they helped each other immigrate, shared recipes, and acted almost like a franchise in how new restaurants were chosen in unserved areas and given a general playbook

        And then the Thai government did it more formally, Korean culinary movement copied the success (or maybe the other way around)

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            Yup, and we have so many different regional cuisines but you’ll mostly just find north Indian and a little bit of south Indian restaurants in the US

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            I mean… They kind of didn’t though

            In major cities, sure. Even smaller ones will have Indian places. But they’re proportional to the amount of Indians in an area

            Because there’s a big difference… Everyone can go to a Chinese restaurant and confidently order. Everyone knows what sushi is, even if some people don’t eat it. Thai foods are less known, but the menus are very Americanized, so you go once and you get the idea

            I know the good Indian restaurant back home, but I only know the dishes by color. Lots of naan and wet dishes… They were good, but I couldn’t tell you what they were. And if the sign says Indian food, I don’t know what they serve. So I’ve only been to the one place

            Vindaloo and curry? That is everywhere, but I’ve never had an Indian version of it. The British spread vindaloo and curry spread itself

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        Seriously, HMart is the shit. The produce is generally WAY better than you can get at “normal” markets - largely because their stock actually gets cleaned out and turned over on a regular basis.

        • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
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          yea our parents go to it alot, we have jagalchi recently opened up, but i think its to pricey, for its limited selections.

    • Katana314@lemmy.world
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      Hollywood and the anime industry have done much the same - helping people around the world normalize the feeling of living in their home societies.

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    Looking back at the history of England. We have had wave after wave of immigrants/invaders. Each wave brought a period of tension. That period was followed by a period of innovation.

    The new people, with new views means old ideas are re-evaluated. New skill, flavours and modes of thought became part of our culture.

    Even our language improved. Part of English’s power is the level of nuance with word choice. A loft of that comes from melding multiple root languages in.

  • 𝕱𝖎𝖗𝖊𝖜𝖎𝖙𝖈𝖍@lemmy.world
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    I immigrated to the US when I was too young to make that decision myself. Now I’m immigrating to another country. I literally don’t know what it’s like to not be an immigrant, and I’m tired of receiving nothing but hate for it. At least my new city is more welcoming.

  • AItoothbrush@lemmy.zip
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    Some for me. So many cultures, languages and cuisines mixing. But in my case even im an immigrant but the plot twist is im european. Overheard someone talking about how bad immigrants are and they proceeded to say “but youre one of the good ones”. Only context you need to hear is im white.

    • squaresinger@lemmy.world
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      “Unser Jud’ ist eh gut.”

      That’s a sentence that was often used in Nazi Germany/Nazi Austria. It means “Our Jew is good anyway, [but the others are evil]”. It basically means that you keep believing the propaganda, even if the people you know don’t fit to the propaganda at all.

      Nowadays this sentence is used to satirize the statement you posted.

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        “He’s one of the good ones,” is how people have always explained liking a minority that they know, while still being prejudiced against the rest of their race.

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        Good to know. It is exactly like this. Ive seen people say things like this while they had 5 friends who were from 5 different countries basically next to them. Its really sad when even some of the immigrants believe this shit.

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          Many immigrants think they can get on the good side of the xenophobes by becoming the “good” immigrants while putting the “bad” immigrants down.

          The problem with that tactic is that xenophobes and especially xenophobic laws don’t distinguish between “good” or “bad”.

          If immigrants badmouth other immigrants, the only thing that xenophobes take from that is “even the immigrants think immigrants are bad”.

          You see a lot of that happening in the USA, where frequently family members of MAGA voters are taken by ICE, because they aren’t going after the “bad” immigrants, but after immigrants, period. Even if their family voted for the people who are now taking them.

          And that’s the real take-away. When it comes to lawmaking, you can either be for immigrants or against them. There’s no nuance. Because lawmakers don’t put any in.

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    dont let the fascist whoresons read this, they will frame you mentally deranged and a danger to their homogeneous society

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      Fuck their homogenous society, its total lack of art, its dog shit food, and its boring everything. Plus its queerphobia and intellectual stasis. Stillness is death. They have guns; they can get that for themselves any time they like.

      Plus I’m kind of autistic. People already look too much the same. If they stopped being different colors and sizes with different types of hair i would not be able to go outside.

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    Some of those who burn crosses
    Are the same that love kebab bosses

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    The problem is when immigrants from countries with lower labour standards and poorer conditions are effectively used as “scabs”, to suppress wage growth and unionization. And I fear the capitalists who benefit from this are pushing the “you just hate immigrants” narrative to protect it.

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        I would stop normalizing the theory that immigrants are here only to do badly paid jobs.

        I’ve hear too many times “without immigrants who would work in insert miserable badly paid job?”.

        Immigrants are not here to do the most miserable jobs without getting properly paid for it.

        I think progressive forces should stop with that discourse. I find it a little dehumanizing. If you don’t want to do that shitty job I don’t know why anyone would think that a person, only because they are an immigrant, want to do it for you.

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          But that’s a response to “they took our jorbs!”. It’s a reframing for immigrants targeted at the reactionaries. But it is the reality - immigrants, particularly undocumented or agricultural visa recipients, are the bedrock of our society

          It’s terrible that they are in such unethical conditions. It’s terrible that they have a carve out for child labor for seasonal farm workers. The entire power dynamic is akin to indentured servitude at best

          But what we have to do is give them legal status and protections first.

          They are not working the worst jobs because that’s what we tell them they can be, they’re working the worst jobs because they’re extra exploitable

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        Lobby the government to stop doing that. In the meantime, teach them their rights, how to unionize, help them with food security and finding a place to live, so that they aren’t in such a precarious position that makes exploitation so profitable.

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          I think a very important step is to start holding businesses responsible for employing undocumented migrants and immigrants. Stop punishing the employees and punish the ones breaking the law by employing them. They’d lobby so hard to make the path to citizenship easier.

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            We definitely see a gross incentive where companies don’t want people to become citizens because it allows their labor to be cheaper.

            I think back in Trump’s first term, he had one policy that I genuinely agreed with - that the H1B Visa program should have a very high minimum salary to it, returning it to its intended purpose of being used for rare, high-talent specialized positions. As it stands, HR will just invent overly specific criteria so that they can deny local citizens jobs, claim they can’t find anyone, and then hire cheap H1Bs - and threaten them with deportation anytime they complain.

            Needless to say, because it was a good idea and anti-corp, Trump dropped it almost immediately.

          • yucandu@lemmy.world
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            Yeah but good luck holding a sign that says “Don’t shop here, they hire immigrants”.

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              That’s not my point. I’m saying that law enforcement is being targeted at the wrong people.

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        I would say make sure people have a clear way of becoming legal immigrants. If they are legal, make sure the labor laws are enforced. So no paying under minimum wage, make sure the workplace is a safe place, etc.

        • Wolf@lemmy.today
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          I would say make sure people have a clear way of becoming legal immigrants.

          Right now there are legal paths to immigration, and that’s who ICE is deporting- people trying to do things ‘the right way’.

          We should make sure the labor laws are enforced for everybody regardless of their immigration status, that would go a long way towards addressing the issue you are talking about. It’s not the fault of people desperate enough to accept being exploited, it’s the fault of companies doing the exploiting, they are what needs to be fixed.

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                Your comment for me reads as every legal immigrant is getting deported by ICE, not some but all and as the US isn’t the only country that has immigrantants, it reads as false but maybe I just can’t read which wouldn’t be surprising.

                • Wolf@lemmy.today
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                  Your comment for me reads as every legal immigrant is getting deported by ICE, not some but all

                  It’s a significant number of them so far and I see no signs of it slowing down. Perhaps the goal is to deport every legal immigrant? At any rate it’s enough of them to expose the lie that MAGAts have been spouting for the last decade that they “have no problem with immigrants, they have a problem with illegal immigrants.” Clearly that isn’t the case.

                  Besides even deporting just one LEGAL immigrant is one too many. Especially when they aren’t just being deported, but being thrown in foreign prisons/ possible death camps.

                  and as the US isn’t the only country that has immigrantants, it reads as false

                  I’m still not sure what you are getting at, what does other countries having immigrants have to do with how we treat immigrants in the U.S.? Other countries also have authoritarian dictatorships, that doesn’t mean we should have one here.

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    great point, and many countries would be literally poorer as well.

    even undocumented immigrants pay about $100 billion in taxes to the US each year.

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      I loath people that claim immigrants aren’t paying taxes and just taking free money. If they have an official job, they’re paying taxes and every time they make a purchase, taxes are paid, just like everyone else that’s not rich.

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        Seems weird that an illegal immigrant would have an official job that taxes are paid on. Seems like it would be a big risk for both

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          For sure, it is. But, if they do have one, they are likely paying taxes. They could be filing exempt, but I do feel that may be even riskier. Obviously if they are cash under the table, then it’s only on purchases, not income.

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            Because if they paid into it, but don’t file then the government got money it won’t have to refund. A lot less risky than asking to pay your refund.

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      for which the only benefit they enjoy is to be underpaid for their essential contributions to US society & economy

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    Fun fact for you: All döner is kebab, but not all kebab is döner. Because döner is just a type of kebab (grilled meat on a stick). Which also means that shawarma’s status as kebab is questionable, as it’s usually sometimes roasted or pan fried, as far as I know.

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      Pan fried shawarma is something Im still trying to get used to. The Lebanese Shawarma places in Ottawa all stack the chicken on a stick rotisserie and it is cooked exactly like the lamb or beef kebabs, they then slice thin portions off of it just the same.

      It wasnt until I moved out west that I ever saw Shawarma done any other way, and everything out here has been disappointing by comparison.

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      The name shāwarmā in Arabic is a rendering of the term çevirme in Ottoman Turkish (چيويرمى [tʃeviɾˈme], lit. ‘turning; hence, roughly synonymous to döner in this context’), referring to rotisserie.>

      So maybe it depends whose version of shawarma you’ve had. All the ones I’ve seen so far (in different European countries) have been with rotisserie /doner kebab.

      Names seem interchangeable in many places, in my experience. When I was a kid the difference between kebab and shawarma used to be that one was in a bun and the other was a wrap, for some reason. The bun has been phased out, unfortunately, and now it’s only wraps everywhere.

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        Thanks for that etymology bit. I wonder why I never bothered to check, but it makes perfect sense, as I know Turkish.

        And yeah, I should have used “sometimes” not “usually”. Pan fried shawarma is a thing, while döner isn’t, so depending on the way it’s prepared it may technically not be kebab.

        Btw, kebab doesn’t need to involve any bread element whatsoever. In fact, in places that use the term natively, it usually isn’t. Kebab is just any grilled meat on a stick, and often is just the equivalent of BBQ.

  • Burninator05@lemmy.world
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    Besides all of that valid stuff, immigration is the only reason the US doesn’t have slowing/declining population numbers like many developed countries now have.

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      The irony is most Americans are descendants of immigrants.

      “You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.”

      What a godless country.

  • Wytch@lemmy.zip
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    I fucking love the diversity of the United States. It enriches us all.

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      Diversity is everywhere, the US isn’t special (in any good way, at least).

      • Match!!@pawb.social
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        no, but we could make a special place that is extra welcoming to diversity and immigrants, and I would like to live there and call that place America