Obama: Unlike U.S., Japananese Not Racially Diverse, Don’t Experience Discrimination

“Part of what America is about is stitching together folks from different backgrounds and different faiths and different ethnicities. That’s what makes us special. (Applause) And, look, let’s face it, sometimes that’s hard. Sometimes that’s hard to do. But it’s worthwhile, it’s worth doing. If you go to — I was just traveling in Asia — you go to Japan, they don’t have problems with certain folks being discriminated against because mostly everybody is Japanese. (Laughter) You know?

But here, part of what’s wonderful about America is also what makes our democracy hard sometimes, because sometimes we get attached to our particular tribe, our particular race, our particular religion, and then we start treating other folks differently. And that, sometimes, has been a bottleneck to how we think about immigration. If you look at the history of immigration in this country, each successive wave, there have been periods where the folks who were already here suddenly say, well, I don’t want those folks. Even though the only people who have the right to say that are some Native Americans.” (Applause)