they, too, are getting noticeably less WASPy...
Reading this partial comment reminded me of a heated discussion I had with a very waspy middle aged woman I ran into at work last weekend. She was actually quite overbearing and attempted to shut down the discussion whenever I disagreed with her.
It goes like this.
She lives in a small town. Most of the white neighbors are gone. Immigrant families are moving in. She's not happy. She ranted against her current neighbors. I asked why.
She doesn't like that the entire family is living there. I mention that it's a long tradition of large families living together and sharing resources. She was absolutely livid that the other relatives should not be there and that she was going to try and get them forced out.
Apparently they rent but the owner may or may not be someone from their background. I think it's kind of pointless though. I don't believe for an instant that her problem was actually with the number of people living there.
She kept insisting it was wrong due to zoning by-laws that stipulate that single dwelling homes allow
only the parents and children to live there. No other relatives. I attempted to point out the illogical approach to this and told her of the italian and greek families I grew up with in the upper beaches near the Danforth many years ago.
She wouldn't hear of this. I again pointed out that it was a reality. This was my reality at the time:
A very canadian family with the son, the parents, the granmother and uncle living upstairs as our next door neighbors.
Across the street was a french canadian family with the parents, many children and a aunt and uncle I think.
Further up the street were several greek families with parents, kids, and granparents all living together.
I think it's a race issue since her neighbors are from Pakistan and she's trying to use this bullshit story of zoning by-laws and number of family living together to cover it.
And this is what we get for the invention of the social construct we call the "nuclear family" which is pure nonsense and is just a tool to weaken families and thus communites. People divided are easier to conquer.