Carl, I checked up on your idea: <I love how foreigners get all confused about American history. Just because we're the superpower they think that they know everything about us. Immigration here has not been at all gradual, but has always come in fits and spurts.> :
It's a law of the universe, "Mq is always right". This time anyway. library.uu.nl If you look through that list from the 18th century until now, you'll see that what I said is right. Apart from the Great Depression and into WWII, when growth understandably slowed somewhat, and the post-war baby boom, which is not exactly news, the population growth of the USA has been very steady indeed. It has been a relentless, gradual growth, slowing as a percentage as the decades have rolled by.
As a percentage, growth was faster in the early stages, which is understandable given the small population and pressure to escape from the crowded, economically difficult conditions of Europe 200 years ago.
<If you tell people that you're just straight American, and that you don't feel like you have any real connection to any other country, they look at you like you've just admitted to being a Nazi.>
Are you sure about that? I didn't know it was quite so clear-cut. But I doubt that applies to the English-Americans. How about Jewish-Americans? I have mentioned before a funny Oprah Winfrey programme with about 8 female hyphenated-Americans, who were so pleased about their individual cultures, but they all looked like clones to me [albeit of different genetics] - same big hair, accents, mannerisms, style of speech [vocabulary and content], make-up etc.
Mqurice |
