Have you ever been to San Fran? I’ve never seen such a Chinese city, but it they are Chinese-AMERICANS - their families have been here since the Gold Rush and construction of the transcontinental railroad. I’d never seen Chinese policemen before, and they worked just about every job you’d see Anglos work anywhere else. Not a trace of an accent, no traditional garb - completely assimilated.
Where did the interned Japanese-Americans come from, or the Mexicans targeted by Eisenhower’s “Operation Wetback”? The Cubans fleeing Castro arrived here in NJ prior to 1965.
Maybe not all continents and colors, but certainly not limited to Europe - and those groups weren’t the public burden today’s immigrants often become.
True, but immigration was strongly focused on Europe. Until the 1965 Hart-Cellar Act America was effectively a White European country (around 88% White; 10% Black; 2% those others you mention).
The Chinese assimilated because there were so few of them and because the existing population defended its culture and didn’t celebrate diversity.
The myth we are been sold is that America was always the multicultural flophouse it is today. That is untrue.