America's social ills do not arise from influx of minorities

Our history does not blame any social problems on minorities and immigrants. Even though people, at the time, blamed them. - - Donna Poisl

By ADAM PAULUS

A recent letter suggested America's contemporary cultural problems were encapsulated in the orderly response of the Japanese people to the recent catastrophe. The writer's assertion derived from two contentions: that America's Caucasian population is historically homogenous, and that "Third World" immigration is a recent phenomenon. In both cases, the writer is mistaken.

First, to assume whites, despite divergent ethnic backgrounds, are homogenous is to make the mistake of applying current racial attitudes to historical perspective. While the Founding Fathers were generally of Scots-Irish and British Protestant backgrounds, those they represented were much more of a cultural milieu, not only ethnically but religiously as well, including diverse religions such as the Anabaptists, Quakers, Moravians, Presbyterians, Catholics and Jews.
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