Virginia Postrel, Columnist

Pro Immigration? Then Support All Who Came Here

Celebrating Americans by choice needn't also disparage Americans by birth.

June 24, 2017 at 12:30 PM UTC

Virginia Postrel is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. She is a visiting fellow at the Smith Institute for Political Economy and Philosophy at Chapman University and author, most recently, of “The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World.”

She got here in 1886.
Photographer: Timothy A. Clary/AFP -- Getty Images

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Here’s a helpful hint for my fellow immigration enthusiasts: Stop dissing Americans whose ancestors got here before yours.

It’s a common trope: “Immigrants make America great.” You can buy a T-shirt that says it. It sounds like a happy celebration of Americans by choice. But it quickly becomes a way to disparage Americans by birth.