Joanna
----- Original Message ----- A useful survey by historian Nelson Lichtenstein of the effect of immigration, internal and external, on US radical history - equally applicable to the history of the left in Canada and other developed countries.
Expanding North American capitalism sought immigrants for economic reasons, as a cheap labour force. Others saw immigration as a moral imperative, a refuge for the poor and persecuted, as many still do. But immigration’s important political consequences for today’s left are less well understood and are underscored by Lichtenstein.
“If and when a twenty-first-century left comes into being, immigrants—whether freshly arrived or one or two generations in—will be at the heart of it…For nearly two centuries, immigrants have formed a reservoir of support out of which the left has drawn millions of partisans and thousands of leaders and activists.”
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/day-without-immigrants-american-left-history-trump-resistance ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk