Randolph Bourne Quotes

There was no question of the racial superiority of northwestern Europeans or of the racial inferiority of southeastern Europeans. It was simply a question as to which of these two groups of aliens is, as a whole, best fitted by tradition, political background, customs, education, and habits of thought to adjust itself to American institutions and to American social and economic conditions--to become, in short, an adaptable, homogeneous and helpful element in American national life.

To realize democracy it is necessary to absolutely eliminate ... colour from all State and social policy, unless you would justify ... caste, wealth, rank, birth and education, as giving title to privileged treatment ...

It takes three-quarters of the world in these days to hold the Irish family, and is pleasant to know that some of the elder sons of the family are considered by their discriminating fellow citizens worthy to be entrusted with the liberties and fortunes of their adopted countries.

If freedom means the right to do pretty much as one pleases, so long as one does not interfere with others, the immigrant has found freedom, and the ruling element has been singularly liberal in its treatment of the invading hordes. But if freedom means a democratic cooperation in determining the ideals and purposes and industrial and social institutions of a country, then the immigrant has not been free, and Anglo- Saxon element is guilty of just what every dominant race is guilty of in every European country: the imposition of its own culture upon the minority peoples. The fact that this imposition has been so mild and, indeed, semi- conscious does not alter its quality.

Let the Anglo- Saxon ask himself where he would have been if these races had not come? Let those who feel the inferiority of the non- Anglo-Saxon immigrant contemplate that region of the States which has remained the most distinctively 'American,' the South. Let him ask himself whether he would really like to see the foreign hordes Americanized into such an Americanization. Let him ask himself how superior this native civilization is to the great 'alien' states of Wisconsin and Minnesota, where Scandinavians, Poles, and Germans have self- consciously labored to preserve their traditional culture, while being outwardly and satisfactorily American. Let him ask himself how much wis more wisdom, intelligence, industry and social leadership has come out of these alien states than out of all the truly American ones. The South, in fact, while this vast Northern development has gone on, still remains an English colony, stagnant and complacent, having progressed culturally scarcely beyond the early Victorian era. It is culturally sterile because it has had no advantage of cross-fertilization like the Northern states.

Where I live, there are a lot of businesses owned by Ethiopians and Eritreans. They're the new immigrants, the new Greeks - what my people did. The next generation of these people will probably be college graduates. That's how it works, right there in front of your eyes.

French-Canadians have no need to be afraid of the English ... instead, let us admire their energy and perseverance; let us imitate them. To be excellent French-Canadians we need to have, along with the qualities of our race, the best qualities of the English-Canadians.

Those who do not want to participate in the spirit of America should not settle in America.

[Referring to Italian immigrants:] What did they come here for? Why do not they go back [to Italy] and stay there?

Who came to this country first—the white man, didn’t he? That’s who made this country great.

Every day our nation grows a little darker from massive nonwhite immigration, high nonwhite birthrate and increasing racial miscegenation.

I see with joy the Irish emigrants landing at Boston, at New York, and say to myself, There they go—to school.

Purity of race does not exist. Europe is a continent of energetic mongrels.

Everything works harmoniously now. Even the small planters (Spanish) are giving in their adhesion to the present disposition of affairs, going so far, in some cases, as to send their own children to ask admittance into this school. I have now some half-dozen of the small planters who come to my night-school, where they recite on the same benches with the freedmen. This I consider progress

Immigrants to the United States usually arrive with a willingness to fit into their new country and reshape their identities accordingly.

Let us discard all this quibbling about this man and the other man---this race and that race--- and the other race being inferior, and therefore they must be placed in an inferior position, discarding our standard that we have left us. Let us discard all these things, and unite as one people throughout this land, until we shall once more stand up declaring that all men are created equal.

Immigration has always been a political one … the group coming in has never been good enough for the people who had come in earlier …

IMMIGRANTS, NOT AUSTRALIANS, MUST ADAPT. Take It Or Leave It. I am tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some individual or their culture…. We speak mainly ENGLISH, not Spanish, Lebanese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or any other language. Therefore, if you wish to become part of our society. Learn the language! …. If you aren't happy here then LEAVE. We didn't force you to come here. You asked to be here. So accept the country YOU accepted.

If we wish to say that no man shall come here who can not read and write, let us say so; but let us not say that no man shall come here who has a wife who can not read and write, unless he leave her behind…We want members of families. We do not believe that it is better to admit a man, no matter how well educated, to be separated from his family and to live here by himself. It is better neither for the country nor for him.

California must be all American or all Chinese. We are resolved that it shall be American, and are prepared to make it so.

I'm not a Democrat. I'm not a Republican, and I don't even consider myself an American. If you and I were Americans, there'd be no problem. Those Honkies that just got off the boat, they're already Americans; Polacks are already Americans; the Italian refugees are already Americans. Everything that came out of Europe, every blue-eyed thing, is already an American. And as long as you and I have been over here, we aren't Americans yet.

The Negro wants a revision of the concept of race and of racism. Discriminations in industry, labor unions, education, the Jim Crow pattern for the Army and Navy are based upon fascist racism …. There will have to be education on the subject of race. We shall have to learn that the doctrine of racism has no scientific foundations ...

I deem it best and, therefore, recommend a resolution memorializing the Congress of the United States to purchase territory, either domestic or foreign, and provide means to purchase the property of the negroes at reasonable prices, and to transport the negroes to the territory purchased by the United States. The United States to organize a government for them of the Negro race; to protect them from foreign invasion, to prevent white people from living among them in the territory; and to prevent negroes from migrating back to the United States.

Our country is a country where immigration is history and it is a country where immigration is destiny.

We have too many foreigners in France. Diversity is not working.