CIVIL
RIGHTS - NON-CITIZENS
IMMIGRATION ISSUES IN THE UNITED STATES
Part II:
A Response to
Samuel
Huntington's "The Hispanic Challenge"
3/3/04
A. INTRODUCTION
In Part
I, I covered the topic of illegal immigration, focusing in
particular on the fiscal impact and impact on crime of (illegal)
immigration (among other things). Part
I-A has an Afterword, where the real world example of the
California strawberry industry is covered, largely using extracts from
Eric Schlosser's excellent book "Reefer
Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black
Market".
This part is in some sense a
follow-up to Part I, but it is largely a response to Samuel
Huntington's essay in Foreign Policy magazine titled "The
Hispanic Challenge" (link via Dan
Drezner).
I recommend Huntington's essay to everyone seriously interested
in understanding immigration issues, in part because I have found his
past work interesting (I will abbreviate all references to him in the succeeding paragraphs with "SH").
I have previously quoted
from his "The Clash of Civilizations..." and favorably
commented on its main thesis (which is not the same as
saying I agree with everything in that book). I also have his Clash book
listed as one
my recommended books.
There are thought-provoking points that SH makes in
his "Hispanic Challenge" essay - and I will highlight a few of them that I found most
pertinent. Nevertheless, I believe his essay is incomplete
and sometimes deeply flawed in its emphasis or thesis, and misses a big
reason for the illegal immigration problem. In the following, I
will explore select
portions of his essay and provide appropriate comments/critiques.
My responses are grouped under the following
headers.
B. Race, Religion, Diversity
C. Language
D. Demand for Illegal Mexican
Immigrants
E. Contiguity and Assimilation
F. Allegiance to America
G. Youth "Bulge" (impact
on crime and welfare) and Work Ethic
H. Conclusions
[NOTE: I
am NOT listing extracts from SH's essay in the same sequence that he has them in his essay.
I am listing them grouped under topics and issues of my choosing.
However, I have tried my best to not make his quotes appear out of context.]
B. RACE, RELIGION, DIVERSITY
HUNTINGTON:
With World War II and the
assimilation of large numbers of southern and eastern European
immigrants and their offspring into U.S. society, ethnicity
virtually disappeared as a defining component of national identity.
So did race, following the achievements of the civil rights movement
and the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. Americans now see
and endorse their country as multiethnic and multiracial. As a
result, American identity is now defined in terms of culture and
creed...
I can take an educated guess at what SH means when he says that race virtually disappeared as
a defining component of national identity after the Civil Rights
movement of mid-to-late 90s, and that Americans subsequently saw their country as
multiethnic and multiracial. As a broad statement this may have a
kernel of truth to it,
but it must be pointed out that it is oversimplified and cloaks the nuance and
critical detail below the surface of that statement. The matter of
race, especially in the context of African-Americans is a topic
of vast complexity, that has been explored in a remarkable, scholarly
work that I have recently completed reading: Whitewashing
Race : The Myth of a Color-Blind Society by Michael
K. Brown, Martin Carnoy, Elliott Currie, Troy Duster, and David B.
Oppenheimer. This book is an
eRiposte recommended book, which I expect to cover in some detail
sometime in the coming months.
HUNTINGTON:
Most Americans see the creed
as the crucial element of their national identity. The creed, however,
was the product of the distinct Anglo-Protestant culture of the founding
settlers. Key elements of that culture include the English language;
Christianity; religious commitment; English concepts of the rule of law,
including the responsibility of rulers and the rights of individuals;
and dissenting Protestant values of individualism, the work ethic, and
the belief that humans have the ability and the duty to try to create a
heaven on earth, a “city on a hill.” Historically, millions of
immigrants were attracted to the United States because of this culture
and the economic opportunities and political liberties it made possible.
SH is largely correct here, but I wonder if his
inclusion of "Christianity" and "religious
commitment" is somewhat overemphasized. If anything, the
separation of Church and State is probably a more important part of
the Anglo-Protestant creed that has been a key factor in shaping the future of this
country. As Fareed Zakaria has laid out elegantly in his must-read
book The
Future of Freedom, the fact that true democracy in America was
preceded by what he calls "constitutional liberalism" (a way
of life focusing on individual liberties, rule of law, separation of
powers, separation of Church and State, independent judiciary (etc.), and a
quasi-free-market economic model built with an emphasis on the middle
class) likely played a key role in creating a free, stable and
economically powerful America.
Most of the other factors identified by Huntington were indeed
important in the evolution of a wealthy and libertarian America. Huntington
could probably have emphasized the importance that Americans gave to
property rights more explicitly, since this has been one of the more
fundamental reasons for the success of American capitalism as both
Zakaria and Hernando de Soto - in the remarkable,
must-read book "The Mystery of Capital"- have pointed
out. But, I will assume this is implicit in SH's recognition of the
role of "rights of individuals".
HUNTINGTON:
In the final decades of the 20th century,
however, the United States' Anglo-Protestant culture and the creed
that it produced came under assault by the popularity in
intellectual and political circles of the doctrines of
multiculturalism and diversity; the rise of group identities based
on race, ethnicity, and gender over national identity; the impact of
transnational cultural diasporas; the expanding number of immigrants
with dual nationalities and dual loyalties; and the growing salience
for U.S. intellectual, business, and political elites of
cosmopolitan and transnational identities.
(a) SH says the "creed...came under assault
by the popularity in intellectual and political circles of the
doctrines of multiculturalism and diversity". At the same
time he earlier applauds the fact that Americans view their country as
being "multiethnic and multiracial". Multiculturalism and
diversity are an integral part of multiethnicity and multiracialism.
It is unrealistic to expect the latter to be non-existent when the
former exists and is celebrated.
(b) SH also laments "the
rise of group identities based on race, ethnicity, and gender over
national identity". I don't
particularly see any evidence for the rise of "gender"
identity over national identity in his essay. However, with respect to
race and ethnicity, SH does provide some evidence in the context of
migrants (legal or illegal) from Latin America, especially Mexico. Group identity has pros and
cons (I'll explore the pros subsequently) but I agree with SH that
citizens of the United States, regardless of their country of origin, simply
cannot be *first* claiming allegiance to other countries (over the
U.S.), including their country of origin (more on this later). The aspect that would have
been more interesting to explore is whether naturalized American
citizens originally hailing from Mexico feel the same as permanent
residents or temporary workers (legal or illegal). SH also brings up the issue of "the
expanding number of immigrants with dual nationalities and dual
loyalties". This is clearly a
serious issue worthy of further debate because dual citizenship raises
legitimate questions of allegiance.
C. LANGUAGE
(last updated 3/22/04)
HUNTINGTON:
Americans have tended to
generalize about immigrants without distinguishing among them and have
focused on the economic costs and benefits of immigration, ignoring its
social and cultural consequences. As a result, they have overlooked the
unique characteristics and problems posed by contemporary Hispanic
immigration. The extent and nature of this immigration differ
fundamentally from those of previous immigration, and the assimilation
successes of the past are unlikely to be duplicated with the
contemporary flood of immigrants from Latin America. This reality poses
a fundamental question: Will the United States remain a country with a
single national language and a core Anglo-Protestant culture? By
ignoring this question, Americans acquiesce to their eventual
transformation into two peoples with two cultures (Anglo and Hispanic)
and two languages (English and Spanish).
SH raises a valid question here: "Will
the United States remain a country with a single national language and a
core Anglo-Protestant culture?". Being of
Indian origin, let me share some perspective on the importance of
language.
As this
website points out:
India
has 18 officially spoken recognized languages. However,
English continues to be an accepted means of communication.
Note that English is NOT one of those 18
languages. Another point to note is that an estimated
40% of Indians in 1991 spoke Hindi. If you randomly search the web
for other sites talking about India and languages you will also see that
in addition to these officially recognized languages, there are numerous
unofficial languages, not to mention probably hundreds to thousands or
more dialects. Indian states were mostly drawn up based on the
prevalence of a particular language (and thus culture).
All in all, this
is a picture that gives the impression of Indian states being
linguistically sequestered or isolated. That impression, however, is
only partly correct. While it may be literally true, the reality is that India is a vibrant,
though-imperfect, democracy gradually becoming more capitalistic since
the 1990s. English, while not one of the officially recognized
languages, is perhaps the most important mode of communication between
people from different states, between people and the Government, between
State/Central/Foreign Governments and in general commerce. India's
recent successes in
taking jobs away from Western countries stems largely from its
English-educated middle and upper classes (not to mention the relatively
high quality of its English-based education system overall). The message I want to
convey here is that a country that appears, at face value, to be dominated
by languages other than English (especially by Hindi), is actually
giving people in countries where English is the native (or most
important language) a run for their money. I won't go into the
historical reasons for the importance English has played in India as an
associate language (some of you can surely guess) but the net result is
that people conversant with two (often more) languages can do very well
for their country as a whole. India will probably continue to have an
advantage over China for some years, in attracting business from
English-speaking countries, but time will tell whether India is
successful in attracting (services-related) business from
non-English speaking countries. The operating language is English now,
but worldwide demographic shifts will determine whether English remains
the most important language in the future.
So, returning to the question posed by SH, the real
question should not be whether America will remain a country with a
single national language, but rather whether the growth of dual or
multiple languages will necessarily compromise national identity and America's
combination of constitutional liberalism and democracy. In
principle, I don't see an overt connection between language and Americanism, but if
the emergence of Spanish as a second, semi-official language is
only a symptom of a deeper structural issue, then the
future of the America will need to be assessed (and this does not mean
the future will necessarily tilt the way SH thinks it will). I explore this
further in Section F below.
SH also examines the statements of supporters of bilingualism
(largely meaning English and Spanish) in the U.S.
HUNTINGTON:
Mexican immigration is fundamentally different.
These differences combine to make the assimilation of Mexicans into U.S.
culture and society much more difficult than it was for previous
immigrants. Particularly striking in contrast to previous immigrants is
the failure of third- and fourth-generation people of Mexican origin to
approximate U.S. norms in education, economic status, and intermarriage
rates.
The size, persistence, and concentration of Hispanic immigration tends
to perpetuate the use of Spanish through successive generations. The
evidence on English acquisition and Spanish retention among immigrants
is limited and ambiguous.
...
Although second- and third-generation Mexican Americans and other
Hispanics acquire competence in English, they also appear to deviate
from the usual pattern by maintaining their competence in Spanish.
Second- or third-generation Mexican Americans who were brought up
speaking only English have learned Spanish as adults and are encouraging
their children to become fluent in it. Spanish-language competence,
University of New Mexico professor F. Chris Garcia has stated, is “the
one thing every Hispanic takes pride in, wants to protect and
promote.”
HUNTINGTON:
A persuasive case can be made that, in a shrinking world, all Americans
should know at least one important foreign language—Chinese, Japanese,
Hindi, Russian, Arabic, Urdu, French, German, or Spanish—so as to
understand a foreign culture and communicate with its people. It is
quite different to argue that Americans should know a non-English
language in order to communicate with their fellow citizens. Yet that is
what the Spanish-language advocates have in mind. Strengthened by the
growth of Hispanic numbers and influence, Hispanic leaders are actively
seeking to transform the United States into a bilingual society...
Hispanic organizations play
a central role in inducing the U.S. Congress to authorize cultural
maintenance programs in bilingual education; as a result, children are
slow to join mainstream classes. The continuing huge inflow of migrants
makes it increasingly possible for Spanish speakers in New York, Miami,
and Los Angeles to live normal lives without knowing English. Sixty-five
percent of the children in bilingual education in New York are Spanish
speakers and hence have little incentive or need to use English in
school.
Dual-language programs, which go one step beyond bilingual education,
have become increasingly popular. In these programs, students are taught
in both English and Spanish on an alternating basis with a view to
making English-speakers fluent in Spanish and Spanish-speakers fluent in
English, thus making Spanish the equal of English and transforming the
United States into a two-language country. Then U.S. Secretary of
Education Richard Riley explicitly endorsed these programs in his March
2000 speech, “Excelencia para Todos—Excellence for all.” Civil
rights organizations, church leaders (particularly Catholic ones), and
many politicians (Republican as well as Democrat) support the impetus
toward bilingualism.
Perhaps equally important, business groups seeking to corner the
Hispanic market support bilingualism as well. Indeed, the orientation of
U.S. businesses to Hispanic customers means they increasingly need
bilingual employees; therefore, bilingualism is affecting earnings...
In the debates over language policy, the late California Republican
Senator S.I. Hayakawa once highlighted the unique role of Hispanics in
opposing English. “Why is it that no Filipinos, no Koreans object to
making English the official language? No Japanese have done so. And
certainly not the Vietnamese, who are so damn happy to be here. They're
learning English as fast as they can and winning spelling bees all
across the country. But the Hispanics alone have maintained there is a
problem. There [has been] considerable movement to make Spanish the
second official language.”...
Personally, it seems to me that SH's main
concern is with forced bilingualism but I could be wrong. I
have a hard time believing that second (or subsequent generation)
Mexican-Americans would have little interest in learning English per
se, especially because they go to schools where English is largely the
medium of instruction. I also wonder if businesses are really seeking forced
bilingualism, rather than those who happen to be bilingual. But before
I address bilingualism, let me state the following. I have no objection to Mexican immigrants
wanting their children to learn, and become fluent in, Spanish (in
addition to English). I think it is worth applauding. I also
think that if business imperatives dictate the need to hire employees
who know Spanish and English, so be it. If State Governments fund
optional classes for students in their schools to allow them to learn
Spanish, that is also reasonable and acceptable, given the potential
advantages such classes may offer to its students later in life.
However,
I do draw the line at bilingual education at taxpayer expense. I
can see no reason to expend general taxpayer funds to schools focusing
on bilingual education, regardless of its potential benefits to the
students in the long-term. Such a form of education, in my view, is a
luxury, not a necessity. If it is very important for students living
in a certain locality to learn Spanish, they are free to take
second-language Spanish classes in their schools. But, asking of
teachers that they teach regular subjects in English *and* Spanish is
as unacceptable as my expecting bilingual education in other
language combinations. Moreover, what special value does education
conducted in Spanish ADD that education in English does not?
Has it made Spanish-speaking countries of the world the most
economically or culturally dominant or powerful? No. Is Spanish the #1
spoken language in the world? No. [Chinese (Mandarin) would easily
beat Spanish, but I don't hear a clamor to make American schools
bilingual with English and Mandarin.] Let me
add some more perspective from India. There has always been tension between
the southern and northern states in India about using Hindi as an
official language for Government business. The South, especially the
state of Tamil Nadu (native language Tamil), has always objected
vehemently to Hindi (the most common language in North India) being forced down its throat.
Luckily, English came along
as an unlikely, neutral savior. Given the propensity for
English-proficient countries to dominate the world economy, India's
focus on educating its middle and upper classes in English has paid
off handsomely. Indeed, most well-recognized schools in India
have been teaching subjects in English for a long time now, rather
than using the State's language. It has not prevented Indians from not
knowing their local language as a result. The ability to converse with
friends and family in the native tongue, coupled with optional native
language classes and English education, has enabled Indians to be bi-
or multi-lingual without the need for bilingual education. The
lessons I draw from India are the
following.
(i) Government sponsored bilingual education is largely a waste of
taxpayer funds.
(ii) Citizens can become bilingual in the U.S. (i.e., learn a language
other than English) through interactions with their community and the
use of second-language classes. In this context, less dispersed (i.e.,
concentrated) Mexican-American communities can actually help in making their
children bilingual.
(iii) Those who wish to improve their employment chances by becoming
bilingual should do so on their own, without the need to depend on the
Government to invest in measures with dubious or irrelevant returns to
the country as a whole. Let me re-emphasize my
point by calling out (again) a specific portion of SH's essay:
HUNTINGTON:
A persuasive case can be
made that, in a shrinking world, all Americans should know at least
one important foreign language—Chinese, Japanese, Hindi, Russian,
Arabic, Urdu, French, German, or Spanish—so as to understand a
foreign culture and communicate with its people. It is quite
different to argue that Americans should know a non-English language
in order to communicate with their fellow citizens. Yet that is what
the Spanish-language advocates have in mind.
While I find nothing
wrong with the wishes of some Mexican-American leaders that their
community's children become
proficient in Spanish, it would be a fallacy if anyone insisted that bilingual
education is required for children to become comfortably conversant in
more than one language - especially considering the close-knit
communities that Mexican-Americans live in. Governments in the
U.S. should not fall for this rhetoric in an attempt to win votes. A
unified front irrespective of political party affiliations will convey
this message to any Mexican-American/Hispanic leaders who
advocate such policies. The combination of English-based education,
optional Spanish classes and parents/adults who speak Spanish to the
children in their communities, should more than suffice - to achieve
what these leaders want. To ask for anything more is inconsistent
with experience - even in developing countries like India.
[NOTE: Dan
Drezner has a link to a David
Brooks (whom I don't particularly enjoy reading) column, where
Brooks states:
In their book, "Remaking the
American Mainstream," Richard Alba of SUNY-Albany and Victor Nee
of Cornell point out that though there are some border neighborhoods
where immigrants are slow to learn English, Mexicans nationwide know
they must learn it to get ahead. By the third generation, 60 percent
of Mexican-American children speak only English at home.
I have no idea if Brooks is accurately
representing Alba and Nee, but if he is, his point is worth
noting. One (of numerous) reasons I express some skepticism at Brooks'
writing is his following paragraph:
Nor is it true that Mexican
immigrants are scuttling along the bottom of the economic ladder. An
analysis of 2000 census data by the USC urban planner Dowell Myers
suggests that Latinos are quite adept at climbing out of poverty.
Sixty-eight percent of those who have been in this country 30 years
own their own homes.
Owning a home is one possible metric for evaluating
someone's economic status in life, but by itself it is a misleading
metric (not just because it says nothing about debt to income ratios).
It is well-known that Hispanics' median incomes are second lowest in
the U.S., just barely
above that of African-Americans. This is not to say that
Mexican-Americans are not capable of doing better; a careful study of
the experience of Mexican-Americans in America, at the hands of
mainstream America, will likely reveal more about challenges they face
in their attempts to succeed economically. More on this in Section E.
To give Brooks some credit, he does say this towards the end of his
op-ed piece:
Huntington is right that
Mexican-Americans lag at school. But that's in part because we've
failed them. Our integration machinery is broken.
UPDATE 3/3/04: Brooks proves I was too hasty
to give him credit. His latest
op-ed is filled with such nonsense that I wouldn't know where to
start to point out all of it. Here's an example:
[Edwards] suggests that if
we could take money from the rich and special interests, there'd be
more for the underprivileged.
This kind of talk is descended from Marxist theory,
which holds that we live in the thrall of economic conditions. What
the poor primarily need is more money, the theory goes.
The core assumption is that economic forces determine culture and
shape behavior.
...
Conservatives, on the other hand, believe that liberals have it
backward. In reality, culture shapes economics. A person's behavior
determines his or her economic destiny...We've now had a 40-year
experiment to determine which side is right, and while both
arguments have merit, it's clear the conservatives have a more
accurate view of poverty.
I wonder if I should laugh or cry at this
claptrap.
As I point out in Section G below,
conservatives like Brooks love to keep pointing out how the rich need
higher income through tax cuts (their "behavior"
is insufficient to shape their "economic destiny", you see)
-- to be motivated enough and work hard and create more wealth (as this
economic theory says "What the rich primarily need is more
money"). On the other hand, these "conservatives"
believe that the poor are perhaps so "culturally" or
"behaviorally" challenged that increasing their income
or equivalently reducing their taxes proportionately (say through reductions
in payroll taxes) would do little for their motivation to work hard!
Not to mention Brooks' delusions about who was receiving welfare in
the last "40 years".]
D. DEMAND FOR
(POORLY PAID) ILLEGAL MEXICAN IMMIGRANTS - a widely underemphasized problem
HUNTINGTON:
The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act
contained provisions to legalize the status of existing illegal
immigrants and to reduce future illegal immigration through employer
sanctions and other means. The former goal was achieved: Some 3.1
million illegal immigrants, about 90 percent of them from Mexico,
became legal “green card” residents of the United States. But
the latter goal remains elusive. Estimates of the total number of
illegal immigrants in the United States rose from 4 million in 1995
to 6 million in 1998, to 7 million in 2000, and to between 8 and 10
million by 2003. Mexicans accounted for 58 percent of the total
illegal population in the United States in 1990; by 2000, an
estimated 4.8 million illegal Mexicans made up 69 percent of that
population.
This is where I believe SH unfortunately
under-emphasizes the most significant aspect of the problem. Let me
repeat the key portion: "...The
1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act contained provisions...to
reduce future illegal immigration through employer sanctions...But
[this] goal remains elusive...".
As I
said in Part I,
A fact often
ignored by critics of illegal immigrants is that illegal immigrants
come to this country because there is history of people - usually
corporations (including agribusinesses) - hiring them. I am
willing to bet that the supply of illegal immigrants into the U.S.
would abate significantly (of course it won't disappear entirely) if
they were not really needed and used. Expressed in
another way, it is a matter of supply and demand. There will be
little in the way of supply if real demand did not exist.
Clearly, if one believes that illegal immigration has to be stopped,
merely penalizing those who enter the country illegally will not
solve the problem - penalizing those who hire them all the time
(mostly businesses/companies) is also a must. This is not simply
a matter of punishing companies/businesses for committing an illegal
act. Rather, it has more to do with the fact that such companies
boost their profit margins by paying illegal immigrants
egregiously low salaries with limited or no benefits, thereby
forcing the state or local governments to bear much of the costs of
living (including education) of the immigrants and their families.
...
When companies employ, but refuse to pay decent wages to,
illegal immigrants, this is a multiple-whammy to legal residents and
citizens.
(i) They have less jobs available as a result.
(ii) Companies are able to depress wages overall, reducing the
bargaining power of legal employees - thereby gradually lowering the
latter's quality of life.
(iii) By paying illegal immigrants poor wages, they create a poor
quality of life for illegal immigrants. This has cascading effects.
Local/State Governments may be forced to pay for the welfare or
education (usually the latter dominates) of the immigrants' families
using taxpayer funds that are disproportionately from legal
residents/citizens. In cases where the illegal immigrants'
localities are subject to high crime driven by sheer poverty, the
State Government is also forced to use taxpayer money
(disproportionately from legal residents/citizens) to build more
prisons.
All of the above just because some corporate executives or business
owners can reap in the big bucks and because the consumer may see
somewhat lower costs (assuming the consumer still has his or her
job). Get the picture?
In my opinion, SH does great
injustice to the debate on illegal immigration from Mexico by paying
little attention to the demand side of the problem. If
businesses do not hire illegal immigrants, there is not only less
incentive for them to come here, there is also far less incentive to
argue on their behalf saying that they hold jobs and have contributed to
the American economy. I am all for legal immigration based on sound
policy, but when administrations (such as the current one) or
lawmakers (including some Democrats) are
concerned largely with the ability of their corporate contributors to
lower the wages they pay to their workers and enrich their own wallets
as a result, there is little fairness in today's illegal immigration
debate - a debate that often uses exaggerated claims relating to crime and welfare
associated with illegal immigrants to shift the focus away from the most
important reason for the problem.
UPDATE (3/3/04): Dan
Drezner (whom I incidentally sent a note to with a link to this
page) has his own response
to SH in The New Republic (link via his
website). Drezner says:
Indeed, Huntington is correct to
point out that Mexican immigrants are poorer and less well educated
than either native-born Americans or other immigrant groups. But
that's an economic argument that is irrelevant to Huntington's core
thesis, which takes as its focus questions of culture and identity.
On those fronts, his argument has some significant flaws.
...
Huntington is right about at least one general point: America's
current immigration situation is far from perfect. Illegal
immigration remains an unsolved problem. The official U.S.
immigration policy of prioritizing family reunification over
educational attainment makes little economic sense, and is worthy of
further debate. Huntington is correct to highlight the educational
deficit of Mexican immigrants as a first step to addressing the
problem.
Drezner is correct in that SH barely addresses the
economic aspects of immigration. However, Drezner, by therefore largely
ignoring economic considerations in his response, fails to ask whether
the trends in economic progress for past immigrants to the U.S. from
Europe and for more recent Mexican immigrants to the U.S. (in the past
2-3 decades, for instance) are comparable/similar. After all, if
Mexicans are indeed coming to the US to achieve the American dream,
one must ask how they have been doing so far compared to American
citizens, from an income/wealth standpoint. As I pointed out above,
the median
income of Hispanics (not sure how Mexican-Americans are placed
within the Hispanic category) has been barely above that of
African-Americans and well below that of Whites and Asians for a few
decades now. It would therefore be interesting to find out how the
incomes of early European immigrants evolved in comparison to American
citizens in the corresponding period. I think that will provide a much
better predictor of the future of Mexican-Americans in the U.S. (as a
whole) than mere comparisons of factors that are far less
important.
Additionally, Drezner only briefly hints at the challenge of illegal
immigration saying it "remains an unsolved problem". He
ignores the fact that illegal immigration is fueled by demand from
American companies for low-wage workers - and all the consequences
that follow from it (that I have discussed above). Matthew
Yglesias in his
own post I think makes the same ommission. As I wrote in the
comments section to Drezner's blog post, clearly, there is no
fundamental reason why Mexican immigrants cannot be economically
successful. But, their capability is one thing and the conduciveness
of their environment (in the US) in helping them build their wealth
successfully is another thing. There is so much in that context that I
fear all these takedowns of Huntington have missed. Huntington's
points on culture and identity are the easiest to critique; his lack
of attention to the root cause of illegal immigration and the
economic/fiscal issues surrounding that are in my opinion the most
significant problems with his essay.
E. CONTIGUITY AND
ASSIMILATION
HUNTINGTON:
The United States is now confronted by a massive
influx of people from a poor, contiguous country with more than one
third the population of the United States...
This situation is unique for the United States and the world. No other
First World country has such an extensive land frontier with a Third
World country. The significance of the long Mexican-U.S. border is
enhanced by the economic differences between the two countries. “The
income gap between the United States and Mexico,” Stanford University
historian David Kennedy has pointed out, “is the largest between any
two contiguous countries in the world.” Contiguity enables Mexican
immigrants to remain in intimate contact with their families, friends,
and home localities in Mexico as no other immigrants have been able to
do [eRiposte emphasis].
...
Contiguity, however, obviously encourages immigration.
SH's argument to be cautious about Mexican
immigration is worth noting (especially for policy-makers). At the
same time, there is one aspect of his statement about contiguity that
should be explored a little further. If contiguity helps contact with
family, it might be reasonable to expect that this could also have a
beneficial impact in making it easier for immigrants to deal with the
challenges of living in a different country. To understand this
better let us consider
the results shown in my Part I article, on the
relationship between immigrants and imprisonment rates in the U.S.
What did we learn there?
We learnt that research shows that Mexican immigrants, while having a
nearly 2X imprisonment rate compared to American citizens overall,
have actually
had (in past studies) an incarceration rate almost identical to that
of American citizens when age
and gender are taken into account. In other words, the
disproportionate presence of youth in the Mexican immigrant population
partly explains their higher imprisonment rate relative to that of American
citizens as a whole. What we also learnt was that Cuban immigrants have a
disproportionately high imprisonment rate that cannot be
explained even if age and gender are taken into account. Given that SH
gives Cuban-Americans in Miami relatively positive mention (relatively, with respect to Mexican immigrants), one has to
ask why immigrants of Cuban origin are imprisoned at rates that are
~3X that of Americans and Mexican immigrants of the same age and
gender. Could it have something to do with the fact that Mexican
immigrants have greater ties to family (through contiguity with and
access to Mexico) and therefore actually feel
less stressed or isolated in a relatively foreign land? I don't know,
but this is a possibility that should be considered more carefully.
HUNTINGTON:
The U.S. Founding Fathers
considered the dispersion of immigrants essential to their assimilation.
That has been the pattern historically and continues to be the pattern
for most contemporary non-Hispanic immigrants. Hispanics, however, have
tended to concentrate regionally: Mexicans in Southern California,
Cubans in Miami, Dominicans and Puerto Ricans (the last of whom are not
technically immigrants) in New York. The more concentrated immigrants
become, the slower and less complete is their assimilation.
SH's point about assimilation may have some
validity but he may be confusing cause and effect. Even in
Mexican-Americans are not broadly assimilated in American society,
this does not necessarily mean that they don't want to be assimilated.
Their demographics could easily be the result of factors not entirely
within their control. For instance, let us say his assertion has a
kernel of truth to it. Now, without detailed statistics on the
detailed distribution of
Mexican immigrants we are talking about generalities here - so let us
assume that his statements refer mostly to the lower income segment (assimilation
is obviously a function of income and wealth). In this case, a more thorough examination of the
reasons why lower-income Mexican immigrants might prefer regional
concentration to broad assimilation or distribution should be
conducted first. Clearly, social
and cultural comfort zones play a role in this (which may actually
have some benefits in providing a social support structure), but more
importantly, I suspect a study of the African-American experience in
America (especially why low income Blacks often - but certainly not always - tend
to be concentrated near inner cities) may provide some clues. Given
the history of racism, prejudice and disinvestment Blacks have
suffered in America, as explained in detail in the superb "Whitewashing
Race : The Myth of a Color-Blind Society" by Michael
K. Brown et al., it would not
surprise me if partly similar experiences at the hands of
mainstream America could have resulted in low-income Hispanic immigrants' relative isolation
(and other demographics, including general achievement) compared to other
ethnic groups. I will of course concede that my comment is
speculative, but it does not mean it is implausible and I would
certainly be interested in systematic research on this
topic.
(SH's point that "There
is no Americano dream. There is only the American dream created by an
Anglo-Protestant society." seems over the top to the point
of sounding ridiculous.)
UPDATE: Matthew Yglesias says:
I continue to find this idea of
Huntington's to be quite absurd. My granfather was born into one of
these hated immigrant communities where everyone spoke Spanish, and
now look at me. Or look at the neighborhood.
Now I live in a neighborhood where immigrants from El Salvador and
their descendents are in the plurality, and it's very clear that most
people are at least semi-integrated into the surrounding Anglo- and
Afro-American cultures and that the trend will continue the longer
people live in the country. My roommate's parents came to this country
from Mexico, he went to Harvard, he's now working for a Southwestern
US Senator and trying to improve his Spanish skills so that his boss
can do a better job of reaching out to his many Latino constituents,
thus better integrating them into American political life.
It appears to me that Matthew is trying to frame
SH's claim on lack of assimilation as one based on anecdotal evidence.
Alas, Matthew offers only anecdotal evidence in response. So, going
back to what I was saying above, even if it is true that low-income
Mexican-Americans have assimilated less than other immigrant
communities (and I don't have any statistical evidence yet to say it
is not), this is not necessarily a bad thing at this point in time (as
I have explained). What is more important is to understand the root
cause of this (assuming it is true) and see if something can be done
to increase the integration of Mexican-Americans without making life
more difficult for them as a result. Via
Matthew Yglesias, here's
Gregory Rodriguez writing in the Los Angeles Times:
As do many other contemporary
scholars, Huntington overemphasizes both the influence of
multiculturalism on immigrants and the coercive nature of
assimilation. His theory suggests that Mexican Americans living in a
majority-Hispanic region will have neither the desire nor the need
to assimilate. He assumes that the presence of large numbers of
Anglos is the sine qua non of assimilation. But places like south
Texas have had majority-Hispanic populations for years, and
separatism — political, cultural or economic — is nowhere to be
found. Last week, Laredo, Texas, which has been overwhelmingly
Hispanic since its founding in 1755, culminated its annual George
Washington's birthday celebration, the largest in the nation. Lt.
Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of allied occupation forces in
Iraq, grew up in nearby Starr County, which is 98% Mexican American.
ANOTHER UPDATE (3/3/04):
Dan
Drezner provides
a useful reference to evaluate SH's claims on the education
levels/assimilation of Mexican immigrants, pointing out that German
immigrants were viewed similarly by people like Benjamin Franklin
and Arthur Schlesinger, and they ended up being wrong. Drezner also
makes a reasonable case against SH's thesis in the context of
language and population/distribution/contiguity. One specific point
of Drezner is worth noting:
In addition to these flaws, the
argument contains a final oddity: It undercuts Huntington's
contentions about identity from Clash of Civilizations. That
book argued that religion was the most important indicator for
cultural identity, followed by language. Hispanics are certainly not
outliers from the American mainstream in terms of religious
affiliation, and to date they are no different from other immigrant
groups in terms of language assimilation. Huntington concluded in
his 1996 book that "the cultural distance between Mexico and
the United States is far less than that between Turkey and
Europe." Furthermore, he acknowledged in Clash that if
any culture is changing in the Western Hemisphere, it is the one
south of the Rio Grande: "Mexico has attempted to redefine
itself from a Latin American to a North American identity and Chile
and other states may follow," he wrote. "In the end, Latin
American civilization could merge into and become one subvariant of
a three-pronged Western civilization."
F.
ALLEGIANCE TO AMERICA We now come to a
part of SH's essay where he raises the issue of allegiance. I will first quote
significant portions of SH's essay to underscore the issue.
HUNTINGTON:
No other immigrant group in U.S. history has
asserted or could assert a historical claim to U.S. territory.
Mexicans and Mexican Americans can and do make that claim. Almost
all of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, and Utah was
part of Mexico until Mexico lost them as a result of the Texan War
of Independence in 1835-1836 and the Mexican-American War of
1846-1848. Mexico is the only country that the United States has
invaded, occupied its capital—placing the Marines in the “halls
of Montezuma”—and then annexed half its territory. Mexicans do
not forget these events. Quite understandably, they feel that they
have special rights in these territories. “Unlike other
immigrants,” Boston College political scientist Peter Skerry
notes, “Mexicans arrive here from a neighboring nation that has
suffered military defeat at the hands of the United States; and they
settle predominantly in a region that was once part of their
homeland…. Mexican Americans enjoy a sense of being on their own
turf that is not shared by other immigrants.”
...
HUNTINGTON:
Massive Hispanic
immigration affects the United States in two significant ways:
Important portions of the country become predominantly Hispanic in
language and culture, and the nation as a whole becomes bilingual
and bicultural. The most important area where Hispanization is
proceeding rapidly is, of course, the Southwest. As historian
Kennedy argues, Mexican Americans in the Southwest will soon have
“sufficient coherence and critical mass in a defined region so
that, if they choose, they can preserve their distinctive culture
indefinitely. They could also eventually undertake to do what no
previous immigrant group could have dreamed of doing: challenge the
existing cultural, political, legal, commercial, and educational
systems to change fundamentally not only the language but also the
very institutions in which they do business.”
Anecdotal evidence of such challenges abounds. In 1994, Mexican
Americans vigorously demonstrated against California's Proposition
187—which limited welfare benefits to children of illegal
immigrants—by marching through the streets of Los Angeles waving
scores of Mexican flags and carrying U.S. flags upside down. In
1998, at a Mexico-United States soccer match in Los Angeles, Mexican
Americans booed the U.S. national anthem and assaulted U.S. players.
Such dramatic rejections of the United States and assertions of
Mexican identity are not limited to an extremist minority in the
Mexican-American community. Many Mexican immigrants and their
offspring simply do not appear to identify primarily with the United
States.
Empirical evidence confirms such appearances. A 1992 study of
children of immigrants in Southern California and South Florida
posed the following question: “How do you identify, that is, what
do you call yourself?” None of the children born in Mexico
answered “American,” compared with 1.9 percent to 9.3 percent of
those born elsewhere in Latin America or the Caribbean. The largest
percentage of Mexican-born children (41.2 percent) identified
themselves as “Hispanic,” and the second largest (36.2 percent)
chose “Mexican.” Among Mexican-American children born in the
United States, less than 4 percent responded “American,”
compared to 28.5 percent to 50 percent of those born in the United
States with parents from elsewhere in Latin America. Whether born in
Mexico or in the United States, Mexican children overwhelmingly did
not choose “American” as their primary identification.
Demographically, socially, and culturally, the reconquista (re-conquest)
of the Southwest United States by Mexican immigrants is well
underway. A meaningful move to reunite these territories with Mexico
seems unlikely, but Prof. Charles Truxillo of the University of New
Mexico predicts that by 2080 the southwestern states of the United
States and the northern states of Mexico will form La República del
Norte (The Republic of the North). Various writers have referred to
the southwestern United States plus northern Mexico as
“MexAmerica” or “Amexica” or “Mexifornia.” “We are all
Mexicans in this valley,” a former county commissioner of El Paso,
Texas, declared in 2001.
...
HUNTINGTON:
Since the 1980s, however, the Mexican
government has sought to expand the numbers, wealth, and political
power of the Mexican community in the U.S. Southwest and to
integrate that population with Mexico. “The Mexican nation extends
beyond the territory enclosed by its borders,” Mexican President
Ernesto Zedillo said in the 1990s. His successor, Vicente Fox,
called Mexican emigrants “heroes” and describes himself as
president of 123 million Mexicans, 100 million in Mexico and 23
million in the United States.
HUNTINGTON:
As their numbers increase, Mexican Americans feel increasingly
comfortable with their own culture and often contemptuous of
American culture. They demand recognition of their culture and the
historic Mexican identity of the U.S. Southwest. They call attention
to and celebrate their Hispanic and Mexican past...As the New York
Times reported in September 1999, Hispanic growth has been able to
“help ‘Latinize' many Hispanic people who are finding it easier
to affirm their heritage…. [T]hey find strength in numbers, as
younger generations grow up with more ethnic pride and as a Latin
influence starts permeating fields such as entertainment,
advertising, and politics.” One index foretells the future: In
1998, “José” replaced “Michael” as the most popular name
for newborn boys in both California and Texas...
The persistence of Mexican immigration into the United States
reduces the incentives for cultural assimilation. Mexican Americans
no longer think of themselves as members of a small minority who
must accommodate the dominant group and adopt its culture. As their
numbers increase, they become more committed to their own ethnic
identity and culture. Sustained numerical expansion promotes
cultural consolidation and leads Mexican Americans not to minimize
but to glory in the differences between their culture and U.S.
culture...
SH provides some anecdotal evidence of pro-Mexican
tilt in Mexican-Americans, but it is not clear to me as to how much
one can rely on that and limited polling of children to draw broad conclusions
about Mexican children or adults across the country. Additionally, one needs to separate
the views of illegal immigrants, legal immigrants who are not yet
citizens and naturalized citizens to see if there is a progressive
trend towards identification with America. One should also look at
successive generations of Mexican-Americans carefully to assess if
there is a gradual trend of Americanization. Last, but not least, it
is also unclear whether the tendency for the claimed pro-Mexico
posture could be the result of the treatment or experience of
Mexican-Americans here. There are important questions, but SH does not
address them substantively, thereby weakening the credibility of his
claims and leaving them unconvincing (to me at least).
Now, if SH's thesis
is true (and that's a big if), that some (or many) Mexican-Americans increasingly identify themselves with
Mexico rather than the United States, and additionally may even have
contempt for the American culture, then this should certainly be a cause
for concern for all Americans. On the one hand , it is
fully understandable than an ethnic community/minority in the U.S.
would want to celebrate the community's culture, roots, language and
customs. This should be welcomed, since people in foreign lands are
likely to be more comfortable adapting to their new homes if they have
the ability to strongly reconnect with where they were originally
from. In my case, being from India originally, I take great pride in
Indian philosophy, culture, art, music, values, etc., and the
occasions I get to celebrate or enjoy these. However, being in the
United States, and having been the recipient of this country's
friendship and opportunities, I feel a strong sense of allegiance to
it. This does not mean I feel no allegiance to India. I do, but even
though I am not yet an American citizen, the U.S. has been my home for
long and I identify more strongly with America. Would
I find it disappointing if legal residents or
naturalized citizens in America, hailing from other countries, feel a
stronger sense of allegiance to their home countries than to America?
Yes. Now, in the case of Mexican Americans, I understand that their history
vis-a-vis the United States adds a special dimension. Regardless, Mexican-Americans
who swear allegiance to Mexico rather than the U.S. run the risk of
forgetting the root of their own prosperity here - namely, the values
of America. If what SH is claiming is true - namely, that there
are some Mexican Americans in the U.S. who crave Mexican values so
much that they link themselves to Mexico rather than the U.S. and find
American culture inferior, then at the least it would be hypocritical
to benefit from the U.S. and root for another state while being an
American citizen. If some people swear allegiance to
Mexico because of some historic need to retake the American Southwest
from the U.S., then without a doubt this is anti-American behavior.
If, on the other hand, they swear allegiance to Mexico because they
feel unaccepted by mainstream Americans, then that is a serious social policy issue that Americans need to solve by working
with Mexican Americans. Regardless, SH neither provides convincing
evidence of a significant pro-Mexico tilt, not does he provide enough
analysis/context to fully evaluate what all the root causes
could be for such a tilt, if one indeed exists. UPDATE: Incidentally, Dan
Drezner has posted an update to his original
blog post linking to a Chronicle
of Higher Education article by David Glenn. In this article, Glenn
points out:
Mr. de la Garza, of Columbia, said
in an interview that Mr. Huntington's fear that Hispanic immigrants
would maintain strong loyalties to their countries of origin was not
grounded in empirical fact. Mr. de la Garza cited a 1998 study by
the Tomás Rivera Policy Institute, a nonprofit research
organization in Los Angeles, that, he said, demonstrated that
Hispanic residents of the United States have a relatively low level
of engagement with the politics of their home countries and are much
more oriented toward events in the United States.
James P. Smith, a senior economist at the RAND Corporation, said in
an interview that Mr. Huntington's analysis appeared not to
distinguish fully between the experiences of first-generation
immigrants and those of their children and grandchildren.
"It's not unique to him," Mr. Smith said. "He's using
the convention of the field, and I think the convention of the field
is methodologically flawed."
A more precise analysis would show that Hispanic immigrants have
actually made rapid progress from generation to generation, Mr.
Smith argued.
Additionally, via
Matthew Yglesias, here's Gregory
Rodriguez once again, in the Los Angeles Times:
The problem with Huntington's
theory is that it doesn't take into account the people whose actions
it presumes to predict. In the more than a century and a half of
Mexican American history, there has not been one serious, popularly
supported movement to wrest control of the Southwest away from the
U.S. or to isolate it from the rest of the nation. Nor have Mexican
Americans ever shown much interest in distancing themselves from the
mainstream by building parallel ethnic institutions.
For example, in Los Angeles, home to more Mexicans than any other
city in the U.S., there is not one ethnic Mexican hospital, college,
cemetery or broad-based charity. Ignoring Mexicans' history of
racial and cultural blending and the reams of survey data that show
Mexican Americans place great faith in U.S. institutions, Huntington
resorts to sketchy, anecdotal evidence to prove the existence of
Mexican American separatism. His examples of rowdy Mexican soccer
fans hurling abuse on American players and a quote from a lunatic
Chicano studies professor are also cited by Pat Buchanan in his book
"The Death of the West." It never occurred to either man
that this methodology is akin to gauging the sentiments of Anglo
Americans by quoting white supremacist David Duke and citing the
antics of Raider fans at the Oakland Coliseum.
Clearly, SH's claim appears extremely shaky to the
point of being ridiculous. I look forward to more data on this controversial
topic.
G.
YOUTH "BULGE" (impact on CRIME and WELFARE) and WORK
ETHIC
HUNTINGTON:
Mexican immigration increased steadily after
1965. About 640,000 Mexicans legally migrated to the United States in
the 1970s; 1,656,000 in the 1980s; and 2,249,000 in the 1990s. In
those three decades, Mexicans accounted for 14 percent, 23 percent,
and 25 percent of total legal immigration. These percentages do not
equal the rates of immigrants who came from Ireland between 1820 and
1860, or from Germany in the 1850s and 1860s. Yet they are high
compared to the highly dispersed sources of immigrants before World
War I, and compared to other contemporary immigrants. To them one must
also add the huge numbers of Mexicans who each year enter the United
States illegally.
...
Mexican immigrants
constituted 27.6 percent of the total foreign-born U.S. population in
2000. The next largest contingents, Chinese and Filipinos, amounted to
only 4.9 percent and 4.3 percent of the foreign-born population.
In the 1990s, Mexicans composed more than half of the new Latin
American immigrants to the United States and, by 2000, Hispanics
totaled about one half of all migrants entering the continental United
States...It is estimated Hispanics may constitute up to 25 percent of
the U.S. population by 2050. These changes are driven not just by
immigration but also by fertility. In 2002, fertility rates in the
United States were estimated at 1.8 for non-Hispanic whites, 2.1 for
blacks, and 3.0 for Hispanics. “This is the characteristic shape of
developing countries,” The Economist commented in 2002. “As the
bulge of Latinos enters peak child-bearing age in a decade or two, the
Latino share of America's population will soar.”
The youth "bulge" is a key factor that
both supporters of immigration (illegal or legal) and Government
policy makers need to consider carefully in reaching a balanced policy
position on immigration in general. As much as I have pointed out
(earlier) that Mexican immigrants are imprisoned at rates not
significantly different from that of American citizens of comparable
age and gender, I have also
noted that the greater proportion of youth in their population,
and their greater fertility rates (which imply a potential increase in
their proportion among Mexican-American youth in the future), are
facts that cannot be ignored in policy discussions. Note that I am not
against population growth per se, but hailing from India - a country
where unchecked population growth disproportionate with economic and
jobs growth has produced unimaginable poverty (not to mention the
overall fiscal, crime and environmental impacts) - it would be remiss
of me to not point out the risk of a growing (immigrated or otherwise)
population of youth if that population has a hard time finding jobs or
jobs with reasonable wages. (It certainly does not help when an
ideological Government that is against family planning is at the
helm.)
HUNTINGTON:
The impact of Mexican immigration on the United
States becomes evident when one imagines what would happen if Mexican
immigration abruptly stopped. The annual flow of legal immigrants would
drop by about 175,000, closer to the level recommended by the 1990s
Commission on Immigration Reform chaired by former U.S. Congresswoman
Barbara Jordan. Illegal entries would diminish dramatically. The wages
of low-income U.S. citizens would improve...
Bilingual education and the controversies it spawns would virtually
disappear, as would controversies over welfare and other benefits for
immigrants. The debate over whether immigrants pose an economic burden
on state and federal governments would be decisively resolved in the
negative. The average education and skills of the immigrants continuing
to arrive would reach their highest levels in U.S. history.
Talking of wages of low-income U.S. citizens, I am
in complete agreement. But SH's treatment of wages is rather
superficial and again ignores the real root cause - businesses who
depress wages by hiring illegal immigrants. I covered this at some length in Part
I, as well as in Section D above - where I also
noted that all the talk of illegal immigrants on welfare unfairly
biases the debate in one direction without holding those who leave
them at the mercy of welfare rolls accountable. There's nothing more I can add to
that. At the same time, in the context
of the burdens posed by Mexican immigrants on State and Federal
Governments, I should remind the reader that the chances
of immigrants having a net fiscal benefit (from a tax revenue
standpoint) to the United States is significantly tied to their
education level. If the U.S. does nothing significant to halt
illegal immigration, and States prevent the children of illegal
immigrants from getting access to public education, then the long-term
consequences could be the worst of all worlds. Illegal immigrants lead
to depressed wages and concomitant, higher taxpayer-funded welfare. Their children
would remain uneducated and become burdens on society. Unskilled youth would increase the
risk of crime rates, thereby increasing taxes needed to pay for prisons. All-in-all,
not a pretty cycle. Thus, the only way out of this cycle is to:
(i) Prevent illegal immigration by dramatically eliminating demand for
such workers.
(ii) Encourage legal immigration in a manner that does not depress
worker wages for Americans.
(iii) Penalize businesses hiring illegal immigrants with higher
corporate taxes. It would be irresponsible of
me if I did not mention that SH clearly points out that Cuban
immigrants led
to significant prosperity in Miami, Florida. SH points out that in
part this was because early immigrants from Cuba were relatively
well-off. I wonder if it is also in part because Cubans settled in
the U.S. realized they have to build their lives here
(successfully) since they don't really have the option of going back to their home
country. SH hints at this, but I think this is worth exploring
further, for this is a significant difference between the
Cuban-American community and the Mexican-American community, not to
mention the fact that immigrants from Mexico have apparently tended to be
poorer (per SH). Finally,
I find it disturbing that SH reproduces anecdotal comments from
"a successful Mexican-American businessman from Texas",
Lionel Sosa, that are clearly based more on prejudice than fact:
HUNTINGTON:
To be sure, as Harvard
University political scientist Jorge I. Domínguez has pointed out,
Mexican Americans are more favorably disposed toward democracy than
are Mexicans. Nonetheless, “ferocious differences” exist between
U.S. and Mexican cultural values, as Jorge Castañeda (who later
served as Mexico's foreign minister) observed in 1995.
Castañeda cited differences in social and economic equality, the
unpredictability of events, concepts of time epitomized in the mañana
syndrome, the ability to achieve results quickly, and attitudes
toward history, expressed in the “cliché that Mexicans are
obsessed with history, Americans with the future.” Sosa identifies
several Hispanic traits (very different from Anglo-Protestant ones)
that “hold us Latinos back”: mistrust of people outside the
family; lack of initiative, self-reliance, and ambition; little use
for education; and acceptance of poverty as a virtue necessary for
entrance into heaven. Author Robert Kaplan quotes Alex Villa, a
third-generation Mexican American in Tucson, Arizona, as saying that
he knows almost no one in the Mexican community of South Tucson who
believes in “education and hard work” as the way to material
prosperity and is thus willing to “buy into America.”
Sosa's comments may be based on his personal experience, but
I think SH erred in presenting them in his essay. The comments of Sosa
that I find most distressing are:
(i) "Lack of initiative,
self-reliance, and ambition": This is a
broad generalization that has little meaning without context.
"Self-reliance" can mean different things to different
people - so can "ambition". For instance, should a worker
with no job in Mexico be considered "un-ambitious" when he
takes a dangerous journey past the American border and works like a
dog for an American business, with little or no medical benefits?
(ii) "Little use for
education": Another broad generalization
which also has no meaning without context. Indeed, the Chronicle
of Higher Education article by David Glenn linked from Dan
Drezner's update has this snippet:
On Monday, critics of the article
attacked both its factual premises and its analytic framework. In a
letter to the editors of Foreign Policy, Andrés Jiménez,
director of the University of California's California Research
Policy Center, wrote that the article was "misinformed,
factually inaccurate, inflammatory, and potentially injurious to
public policy because of its potential for being used as a further
baseless rationalization for anti-immigrant and anti-Mexican
politics."
In an interview, Mr. Jiménez said that Mr. Huntington was wrong to
suggest that Hispanic families place a lower value on educational
achievement than do native-born Americans. He cited a January 2004
study by the Pew Hispanic Center, which found that Hispanic parents
are more likely to attend PTA meetings and to help their children
with homework than are white or African-American parents.
He also argued that Mr. Huntington was foolish to describe the
history of Hispanic families' educational and labor-force status
without acknowledging the history of formal and informal segregation
in the Southwest. As recently as the 1950s, he noted, the State of
Texas maintained separate schools for Hispanic students, which did
not continue past the sixth grade.
The last part is entirely consistent with the
point I made earlier in Section E - namely that,
parallels in experience that Mexican-Americans may share with
African-Americans might partly explain their current demographics.
This is a very important point that cannot be dismissed by superficial
claims about Mexican-Americans.
(iii) "Acceptance of poverty
as a virtue necessary for entrance into heaven":
This sentence alone suggests Sosa is off his rocker. Why
in the world would illegal immigrants risk their lives to come across
the border if they can stay "poor" in Mexico??
Unfortunately, SH goes further and quotes "Alex
Villa, a third-generation Mexican American in Tucson, Arizona"
who claims that "he
knows almost no one in the Mexican community of South Tucson who
believes in “education and hard work” as the way to material
prosperity"! Again, is it really fair to
claim that illegal immigrants who get worked like dogs by U.S.
companies, at super-low wages, somehow don't like "hard
work"? Could it be that the supporters of supply-side voodoo
(like the current administration and its long list of corporate
sponsors) who wail at how the taxation of *their* earned and unearned wealth
and benefits/perks can sap *their* motivation to work hard,
simultaneously believe that the best way to motivate (legal or illegal) immigrant
workers from Mexico to "work hard" is to pay them poor wages and little
or no benefits? I will probably have an easier time
believing that the Ken
Lays, Donald Cartys, and Jeffrey Barbakows of the world (not to
mention prominent politicians who have risen to their positions
of wealth and power largely through connections and bailouts) are the
ones who don't believe in "hard work".
Enough with the prejudice.
H. CONCLUSIONS
Samuel Huntington's essay makes some
thought-provoking points about the impact of Hispanic (particularly
Mexican) immigration to the United States. However, his overall thesis
is oversimplified and sometimes deeply flawed. He pays little
attention to the demand for such (poorly paid) immigrants (from
businesses), which is a big reason for
their increased flow into the U.S. Although he mentions the downward
wage pressure on Americans due to illegal immigrants, this superficial
note does injustice to the root cause of the problem - which is
businesses allowed to hire and underpay illegal workers with marginal
penalties. He covers language issues somewhat extensively and in the
context of bilingual education I happen to be in agreement that that
should be unnecessary. Nevertheless, his claims on culture,
assimilation and achievements are somewhat simplistic, failing to
address the possible root causes for the observed demographics and
giving short-shrift to the possible advantages of the structure of
Mexican-American communities. Finally, he makes the fatal
mistake of quoting random businessman who clearly have more prejudice
than facts in hand, in describing Mexican-Americans' work ethic or
ambitions. All-in-all, I give this essay a mixed rating, leaning
towards negative.
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