There is a common assumption that European countries would be homogenous if it weren't for immigrants arriving in recent decades. This assumption is both incorrect and dangerous. A rant:

If you think immigration is the only source of diversity in Europe, what do you make of Catholic/Protestant divisions (e.g. Northern Ireland)? Regional linguistic identity (e.g. Spain, Switzerland, etc.)? Indigenous minorities in Scandinavia? https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.2304/eerj.2008.7.1.23

Saying that Europe used to be homogenous is ahistorical. What about Jewish and Roma populations? What about the movement of, e.g., Algerian colonial subjects to France in the early 1900s? What about the coercive statebuilding process itself?

The European myth of homogeneity conveniently sets aside a history of genocide, war, and imperialism. And it has been used to portray #immigrants and #refugees as a threat and to justify unimaginable cruelty and violence. Let's not aid and abet xenophobia and racism. End of rant.