Comment on Is there any point for current US-based "skilled immigrants" to stay in the US?

• Acernum@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Go back even further, we’re all immigrants from the ocean

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  • TachyonTele@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    We migrated from the stars.

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• southsamurai@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Well, yeah, that’s the point. I didn’t bring Europe and Asia into it since the original thing was about the U.S., but it applies there too. It applies everywhere.

  We aren’t some magically unique group because of where we live. There’s no inherent barrier between people just because someone got somewhere first.

  I’m not saying that there’s no point in borders, or that nations don’t/can’t have rules about such things.

  I’m just saying that when it comes to the U.S. and the rhetoric around immigration and immigrants, there’s a lot less differences between everyone over on these continents than differences.

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  • Letme@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Natives are pre-colonization, by definition

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    • southsamurai@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Well, yes and no.

      Wherever the first humans existed are fully native, if the people there descend from the first humans in a relatively straight line. Which, we all come from them, but anyone that moved away and their descendants came back, it would be hard guy else descendants in particular to claim to be natives there.

      Anyone and everyone else had ancestors that colonized somewhere. Like, the mayans were descendants of colonists, just not European colonists. Same for Cherokee, Cree, Inca, Hopi, whoever. Their ancestors got here first for sure, and they colonized these continents. So, they’re native, but not pre-colonization because nobody was here until they came here from somewhere else.

      So, yeah, in one context, if you only refer to the people that came after whoever got there first as colonists and pretend that that’s the only meaning of colonization, then that definition fits. But it isn’t the only definition, and it’s not the one under discussion here.

      To give a different view on it, what would we call the first humans to go to Mars and stay there? Colonists, right? We’d have a colony on mars.

      You can use the word native to mean the people born on mars, and that’s what you were saying, that the people born in a place are native to that place, and any further waves are called something that. But with other definitions of native, it’s impossible for there to ever be human natives on mars at all, because nobody evolved on mars that we know of.

      And that’s what I’m getting at. Here in the U.S. in specific, and across the Americas in general, everyone came from somewhere else originally, regardless of how long ago that was.

      Which is why I personally prefer the way Canada refers to the people that were here first, as First Nations. They conquered and colonized this side of the planet first. The rest of us need to respect that, but we also need to recognize and respect that being an immigrant isn’t a bad thing at all because everyone here is either an immigrant or the descendants of immigrants. We’re connected in that way, and should treat each other more as neighbors and family than insiders and outsiders.

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      • Letme@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Sure, you can use those terms symanticlly to go all the way back in time, but with respect to world history, the “era of colonization” was between the 15th century and 1960. And native/indigenous people were the people that existed in their respective regions before the 15th century. By definition.

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