We've lived in towns big and small, in FL, GA, CA, and NC. We have families all over the US. Relatives who are millionaires and relatives who live in trailer parks.

It goes w/o saying that our respective families have very different ideas of the American experience.

Besides our differing families, because this is a country of immigrants, every place I visit in the U.S. is a bit different. Even within NC we can't even agree on a single style of BBQ. At the state fair the other day, I had a Cuban egg-roll (the innards of a Cuban sandwich deep fried inside a Chinese egg-roll ... genius!)

I recently learned that literally within the Koreatown portion of L.A. has sprung up a Little Bangladesh. And you know what, those immigrants will only contribute to the great melting pot that is America.

So I'm really at a loss to describe a single American culture, much less one that is under threat from today's immigrants.

I'm reminded of this clip from Bridge of Spies:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qI3SngYvUg

That, that to me, is what unites us. Not some abstract ill-defined concept of "American Culture".

Culture includes more important things. Just one example is casual corruption, like having to pay off the police for phony offensives. That's common in the western hemisphere south of the U.S. and many other places on the globe.

Individual immigrants as fellow human beings are fantastic and welcome. Problems arise when you try to integrate too many people as a large block from disparate societies too fast.

I grew up in Miami. I lived through the Mariel boatlift. And I just don't think that's what this election was about. The democratic party has ignored blue collar workers for too long. That's what this was mostly about.

I'm Indian-American - my parents likely would not have ever been able to immigrate to America if the racist, pre-Hart-Cellar quota laws were still in effect.

Or to put it more personally, since I am taking it rather personally: why am I considered acceptable but my wife is not?