The real tragedy today is that there are many Americans who want a monopoly on American identity, instead of embracing the source of America's strength: our ability to assimilate people and ideas into something greater than the sum of its parts (and genocical imperialism and slave labor helped too)
American identity is much more heterogeneous today than ever before, in no small part thanks to ecumenism.
That is what they are referring to, right?
What?
The stereotype of Asian laborers working (and dying) to build the great Western railroads is grounded in a fair bit of truth. Moreover, San Francisco's Chinatown acquired the Asian residents that lead to its name long before 1965.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_laws_concerning_imm...
Not to be mean, but I'm having some difficulty understanding how your contributions to this subthread are related to the topic broached by rm_-rf_slash.
I am trying to put this narrative into perspective.
I expect that -if you make a close study of history-, you'll find that "[America's greatest strength is its ability to assimilate people and ideas into something greater than the sum of its parts as] long as [those people] are white and [those people and ideas are] christian..." is a statement that isn't supported by the facts.
Xenophobia and racism was and is real, yes. But, -culturally and ideologically- the US has been and remains substantially less homogenous and substantially more willing to accept immigrants into its borders than many other countries.