An Ordinary Man: The Surprising Life and Historic Presidency of Gerald R. Ford describes a vigorous debate about whether approximately 50,000 Vietnamese refugees should be admitted to the U.S. This was a non-representative group containing the professional and managerial elite of South Vietnam. Nonetheless, opposition was intense, including among liberal Democrats who today would be demanding more immigration. George McGovern, for example, and California governor Jerry Brown (he sought to make it illegal for private groups with California to help Vietnamese immigrants settle).
Other countries, such as the Philippines, were even more hostile to taking in these educated migrants.
Ultimately, closer to 125,000 refugees arrived in the immediate aftermath of the Vietnam War. That’s comparable to the number who walk across the southern border and introduce themselves to our border patrol agents every 12 days (300,000+ per month).
Democrats remaned protectionist & republicans were pro immigration all the way until 2016, when Trump reversed the party alignment. No-one remembers those days.
Democrats were pro-illegal immigration since at least Bill Clinton times. Back than NYT was yet slightly readable and it published articles on America farmers being outnumbered and outgunned against armed Mexican cartels intrusion, implying Bill Clinton’s government.cartel collusion.
Republican used to be pro-legal immigration, as far as I can remember, none of them were officially pro-illegal immigration, until tough guy Paul Ryan and his cheese farmer donors.
I recall reservations that many had that as the results of post-Soviet immigration influx of Soviet school mathematicians would result in unemployment for American mathematicians, LOL.
Interesting. My dentist was part of that wave of Vietnamese immigration. He built a nice practice for himself, said given his skills it was either dentistry or engineering, has three family members working for him, and is always excited to talk about the latest technological improvements in dentistry. He is a religious Christian and every morning stops by his parents’ home to see how they are on the way to work. I would bet that he ranks in the top 1-2% of the productive members of American society.
People used not to like successful immigrants. I recall that in early 1990th one paper pusher cubicle dweller saying that she liked immigrants who wait on her table in response to our outfit hiring expensive immigrant engineers. And true, even not expensive workers could afford restaurants, even those without foreign labor, in business districts back than. Minimum wage and regulations for service jobs took care of this.
In the early ’90s, I dated an attractive 1st generation, Americanized, Vietnamese woman (she came to the Northeast US as a young girl in the ’70s). She earned her BS Computer Science (“because that field paid well”) and, right out of UNH, was working at one of the tech companies along Rt. 128 in MA. After few years of working she decided to go to dental school. She ended up marrying one of her American dental school professors, and has practiced for several years.
I seem to find different answers to what defines “1st generation” but this one from census.gov seems to be reasonable:
What is generational status? Who is included in the first, second, and third-and-higher generations?
The U.S. Census Bureau uses the term generational status to refer to the place of birth of an individual or an individual’s parents. Questions on place of birth and parental place of birth are used to define the first, second, and third-and-higher generations. The first generation refers to those who are foreign born. The second generation refers to those with at least one foreign-born parent. The third-and-higher generation includes those with two U.S. native parents.
Appealing to logic, after getting naturalized, I have always referred to myself as a zeroth generation American, as in popular literature, it is quite common to refer to American born people with foreign parents as first generation Americans.