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Hispanics are not the only new immigrants. I live in the same NJ suburb of NYC where I was born and raised.
Growing up in the 70s and 80s it was 100% Caucasian. It was about 40% Jewish, 40% Italian, and 20% Irish.
Now, it is approximately 40% Jewish, 20% Italian, 5% Irish, 20% Chinese, 10% Indian, 5% Other.
I don't see that as a bad thing, but only because I am assuming that most of our immigrants are here legally. It is an expensive town to live in, so I have to assume that anyone earning enough to live here is doing it legally, though I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few exceptions.
I grew up in the 60s and 70s in a metro area in the Midwest of 100,000 people. 99% of the people were 4th generation white people. Houses were built, factories hummed along, meals were cooked at restaurants, bed pans were changed at the hospital and road and bridges were maintained. All this was done by non immigrant white people.
Now I return to my home town and the area is flooded with Hispanic immigrants. (Nice hard working people). They are doing the jobs mentioned above.
What happened? How did we survive without the immigrants back in the 1960s and 70s in many towns all over America?
(Yes, I know there were Hispanic Immigrants in that era, but not nearly as many. Most of the towns in the Midwest were mostly white people.)
Please don't call me a racist or a troll, this is a serious economic and political question!
Except for farm workers, things hummed along in the 60's and 70's. Roofers, slaughterhouse workers, drywall installation, painting, landscaping... was all accomplished with little visible immigrant labor.
Many of the stores and restaurants had the owners working in them. Everyone seemed to be making a living. There weren't a lot of McMansions, but everyone seemed to be able to afford a home and often a vehicle of some sort.
Home ownership rates in the 60's - 70's are about what they are now.
What has changed is the size of homes. The average house today is 1000 square feet larger than homes 40 years ago. Go back 50-60 years and it's double, despite fewer people are living in these homes. It costs substantially more to heat, cool, illuminate and insure these homes.
People had more babies back then, and started having them younger. If white people want that time back without needing immigration, white people need to have more babies, and have them younger.
I am a middle class white person, and in my social circle, having children before 30 is almost unheard of. And having more than 2 is also rare. I am 29 and none of my friends or family around my age have had kids yet.
Where I live, if you haven't had a child by 30 you're looked at as odd. But you're right, most whites only have one or two kids, blacks usually have more.
As far as the jobs, many younger white kids today think they're too good for any kind of manual labor, they'd rather sit in front of a computer. It wasn't like that when I was a kid.
Thinking illegal immigration became a real problem in the 80's is still not knowing the history of the whole migrant worker, the concept of tolerating illegal immigration, etc.
Just came from our McDonalds -- everyone there was Hispanic or Black -- and I know they were all legal residents. Many Hispanics are here legally you know.
People had more babies back then, and started having them younger. If white people want that time back without needing immigration, white people need to have more babies, and have them younger.
I am a middle class white person, and in my social circle, having children before 30 is almost unheard of. And having more than 2 is also rare. I am 29 and none of my friends or family around my age have had kids yet.
Fertility rates are declining in most of the developed world. People are having fewer children and having them later than at any point in history.
US teen birth rates have not been this low in 75 years.
The poorer a country, the higher the fertility rate.
The poorer the population in any country, the higher the fertility rate.
Countries with the least social welfare tend to have the highest fertility rates and the countries with the greatest social welfare programs tend to have the lowest fertility rates.
Same thing when I visit my wife's family in IN. All of the "jobs Americans won't do" are amazingly worked by Americans. Coming from the borderlands, I always find this fascinating.
OP wants to go back to the past. The country of the 60s and 70s is gone forever - the change was always inevitable.
Stop looking backwards and instead look forward. I assume you still have a lot of life left to live.
I disagree with the birth-rate argument. The unofficial unemployment rate for non-immigrants ("natives") is high and almost all the jobs that immigrants are filling could be filled by natives. The problem is that immigrants are willing to work for less and can't complain about it. True, if natives has to do the jobs, the cost of everything would go up but you would also have more natives working and less on welfare.
Another problem is that many of the natives who would be doing these jobs are now working for the government. Eliminate government bureaucracy and these people would be available to work for a living.
You all know migrant workers started in the early 1900's.
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