JPod: Sure, many phrases are no longer connected to their origins. Few people saying “writing on the wall” are even aware that it’s a reference to the Book of Daniel, let alone trying to make a point about the king of Babylon.

But “nation of immigrants” is not that kind of phrase. It has an ideological purpose, to downgrade and delegitimize America before the beginning of mass immigration in 1848, or maybe even before 1880. It is, in a sense, the unofficial motto of multiculturalism. America is much more a “nation of settlers” and a “nation of slaves” that it is a nation of immigrants. As important as some immigrant groups have been in shaping the ongoing development of American culture (especially Germans, Italians, and Jews), the template was established by English and Scottish settlers, as well as by the reinterpretation of Anglo-Celtic culture by the African slaves. Immigrants may be the frosting — but the cake was baked long before they arrived.