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Pluto
Joined: 19 Dec 2006
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 Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 7:14 pm Post subject: Keep the Immigrants, Deport the Multiculturalists |
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Keep the Immigrants, Deport the Multiculturalists
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Keep the Immigrants, Deport the Multiculturalists
By JASON L. RILEY
May 15, 2008; Page A17
So, whatever happened to immigration as a presidential campaign issue?
In the early caucus and primary states � Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina � the media assured us that immigration was foremost on the minds of voters. You couldn't watch a Republican debate without the issue dominating a good chunk of the discussion. And when Hillary Clinton appeared to endorse a proposal in New York state to give driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, it was considered a major stumble, and the senator spent weeks trying to clarify her remarks.
[Keep the Immigrants, Deport the Multiculturalists]
Corbis
Immigrants arriving in the United States, May 27, 1920.
The public, we were told, was fed up with illegal immigrants, especially those coming from Latin America. These foreign nationals were stealing jobs, depressing wages, filling our jails and prisons, refusing to learn English, and not assimilating like past immigrant groups. The conventional wisdom was that any presidential candidate who stood a chance of being elected would have to take a hard-line stance on illegal aliens.
Yet somehow the issue seems to have faded, if not disappeared entirely. The presumptive Republican nominee, John McCain, isn't a fire-breathing "seal the border" restrictionist. Rather, he's the candidate most closely associated with a comprehensive immigration reform proposal that would have given most undocumented immigrants a shot at becoming legal residents if they met certain requirements. As for the Democrats, when's the last time you saw the term "illegal immigrant" appear in a story about Mrs. Clinton and Barack Obama?
So what happened?
Well, I have a theory, and it is that Americans are basically pro-immigrant but ambivalent about it. This ambivalence is reflected in polls, which of course provide different results based on how questions are asked. For example, last year a CBS News poll asked, "Should illegal immigrants be prosecuted and deported or shouldn't they?" And 69% of respondents favored deportation. When the same interviewers asked the same respondents what should happen to illegal immigrants who have lived and worked in the U.S. for at least two years, and then offered a specific alternative to deportation, only 33% favored deportation; 62% said they should be given a chance to keep their jobs and eventually apply for legal status.
When a separate Gallup poll asked a similar question but offered four alternatives, just 13% favored deportation, and 78% said illegal immigrants should be allowed to keep their jobs and apply for citizenship.
In other words, for all the loud talk we've heard in recent months, via cable news, talk radio and the blogosphere, the American public seems not to have lost confidence in the melting pot. And rightly so, because there's plenty of evidence that assimilation is proceeding apace. True, it doesn't always seem that way, but we all know that perceptions can sometimes be illusions.
The media offers up a steady diet of data about current immigration from Mexico, and much of it consists of "averages" regarding English-language skills, income, home-ownership rates, education and so forth. But while digesting these figures, it's important to keep in mind that Latino immigration is ongoing. These averages are snapshots of a moving stream and therefore of little use in measuring assimilation. To properly gauge assimilation, we need to find out how immigrants in the U.S. are faring over time. Only longitudinal studies that track individuals can provide that information.
Just looking at averages can give you a very distorted view of who's learning English or dropping out of school or climbing out of poverty. How so? Because overall statistics that average in large numbers of newcomers can obscure the progress made by pre-existing immigrants.
Dowell Myers, a demographer at the University of Southern California, calls it the "Peter Pan Fallacy." "Many of us assume, unwittingly, that immigrants are like Peter Pan," says Mr. Myers, "forever frozen in their status as newcomers, never aging, never advancing economically, and never assimilating." In this na�ve view, he says, "the mounting numbers of foreign-born residents imply that our nation is becoming dominated by growing numbers of people who perpetually resemble newcomers."
The reality, however, is that the longitudinal studies show real socio-economic progress by Latinos. Progress is slower in some areas, such as the education level of adult immigrants, and faster in others, such as income and homeownership rates. But there is no doubt that both assimilation and upward mobility are occurring over time.
With respect to linguistic assimilation, which is one of the more important measures because it amounts to a job skill that can increase earnings, the historical pattern is as follows: The first generation learns enough English to get by but prefers the mother tongue. The children of immigrants born here grow up in homes where they understand the mother tongue to some extent and may speak it, but they prefer English. When those children become adults, they establish homes where English is the dominant language.
There's every indication that Latinos are following this pattern. According to 2005 Census data, just one-third of Latino immigrants in the country for less than a decade speak English well. But that proportion climbs to 75% for those here 30 years or more. There may be more bilingualism today among their children, but there's no evidence that Spanish is the dominant language in the second generation. The 2000 Census found that 91% of the children of immigrants, and 97% of the grandchildren, spoke English well.
If American culture is under assault today, it's not from immigrants who aren't assimilating but from liberal elites who reject the concept of assimilation. For multiculturalists, and particularly those in the academy, assimilation is a dirty word. A values-neutral belief system is embraced by some to avoid having to judge one culture as superior or inferior to another. Others reject the assimilationist paradigm outright on the grounds that the U.S. hasn't always lived up to its ideals. America slaughtered Indians and enslaved blacks, goes the argument, and this wicked history means we have no right to impose a value system on others.
But social conservatives who want to seal the border in response to these left-wing elites are directing their wrath at the wrong people. The problem isn't the immigrants. The problem is the militant multiculturalists who want to turn America into some loose federation of ethnic and racial groups. The political right should continue to push back against bilingual education advocates, anti-American Chicano Studies professors, Spanish-language ballots, ethnically gerrymandered voting districts, La Raza's big-government agenda and all the rest. But these problems weren't created by the women burping our babies and changing linen at our hotels, or by the men picking lettuce in Yuma and building homes in Iowa City.
Keep the immigrants. Deport the Columbia faculty. |
Finally, an immigration policy with a bit of sense.  |
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jvalmer
Joined: 06 Jun 2003
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| Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 11:20 pm Post subject: |
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I think you'll find that the vast majority of immigrants into the US and Canada agree to assimlation. Of course they want their kids and grandkids to be award and maybe even speak some of their mother tongue. But in the end, most of these people don't expect special rights. Of course, if these priviledges are constantly offered they aren't going to refuse.
If you want a multi-cultural society, check out countries like Malaysia and see the racial tension that are just under surface. The groups don't really interact, they just tolerate each other even into the 3rd, 4th or 5th generations. |
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bookemdanno
Joined: 30 Apr 2008
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| Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 1:23 am Post subject: |
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Hear, hear. I concur, Pluto.
Mahalo for the excellent article. Far Leftists are elitists in sheep's clothing whose main concern is their own reputation for bucking the system. It's an almost juvenile mindset, really, except that it's couched in sophistry. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 8:40 am Post subject: |
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| bookemdanno wrote: |
Mahalo for the excellent article. Far Leftists are elitists in sheep's clothing whose main concern is their own reputation for bucking the system. |
Agree, agree.
The humiliating outcomes of marxist thought left the Left without a direction. They dissent for the sake of dissent, now. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 5:21 pm Post subject: |
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| I see xenophobia still has its supporters. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 6:09 pm Post subject: |
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| I certainly hold little esteem for what this article calls 'multiculturalism.' But my sense is that it is on its way out. Academia is the last hold out. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 7:23 pm Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| I see xenophobia still has its supporters. |
Opposing multiculturalism = xenophobia? |
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Pluto
Joined: 19 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 7:56 pm Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| I see xenophobia still has its supporters. |
Do you even read the Wall Street Journal? The WSJ has been pushing for a more liberal, as in freer, immigration policy; this has been much to the ire of conservative radio. The article even suggests that immigrants to the US are extremely happy to assimilate much to the chagrin of the multicult.
Basically the punchline is the multicult see America and they see shame. Immigrants look to America and they see a whole new world of wonderful opportunity in the Beautiful Country. |
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Zolt
Joined: 18 May 2006
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| Posted: Tue May 20, 2008 11:17 pm Post subject: |
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Multiculturalism is not some kind of grand social project dreamed up by academics. It's just two cultures learning to coexist side by side without shooting each other. It's born out of necessity, not some kind of wacko liberalism.
As practically every country today has either existing minorities or significant migratory influx (in most cases both), the 21st century is either going to be multicultural or very, very violent.
Anyway, I really don't get why this subject should be so controversial on a board dedicated to people whose work is precisely to represent their own language and culture in a foreign country. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Wed May 21, 2008 6:21 am Post subject: |
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| Multiculturalism is not some kind of grand social project dreamed up by academics. |
There is a difference between "M" and "m" ulticulturalism. One is a set of government policies that was born in Canada and the other is reality.
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It's just two cultures learning to coexist side by side without shooting each other. I |
That would be bi-culturalism, if two.
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| It's born out of necessity, not some kind of wacko liberalism. |
It was born out of Pierre Trudeau wanting to neuter the dominant Scottish-British culture of Canada so that the French might feel more welcome. The Canadian identity was deconstructed. Now, Canadians (white, English speaking Canadians) walk around in a daze saying things like "Canada doesnt' have her own culture", yet not really figuring out why. Multiculturalism met up with "deconstructionsim" and cultural relativism in academia and became a big crazy beast. It has no joined global warming as the big 'group-think' on the left of our day.
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As practically every country today has either existing minorities or significant migratory influx (in most cases both), the 21st century is either going to be multicultural or very, very violent.
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You need to separate "M" from "m" here. Violence happens when groups are favored and given different rights. That is "M" precisely. Look to Malaysia for an example of how you are wrong. You don't treat people as belonging to a group. You treat them as individuals.
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Anyway, I really don't get why this subject should be so controversial on a board dedicated to people whose work is precisely to represent their own language and culture in a foreign country. |
It is controversial because nearly every Western nation gave Multiculturalism a try and screwed it up. |
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Zolt
Joined: 18 May 2006
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| Posted: Wed May 21, 2008 11:49 pm Post subject: |
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No, don't tell me this had to turn into yet another thread about canada!
By the way, I lived in Malaysia, and found it a great place - so I don't take well to you insulting that country without knowing the first thing about it. It's way more relaxed and easier to live in than south korea for one.
About the big M: I usually start my sentences with a capital, so take it however you like. I'll give you a big C instead for China. They decided long ago mutliculturalism wasn't their thing and decided to paint a nice, thick layer of Han culture over all those places like Tibet. The results ain't really more successful than a lot of western countries, and a lot less attractive. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 12:10 am Post subject: |
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| Zolt wrote: |
About the big M: I usually start my sentences with a capital, so take it however you like. I'll give you a big C instead for China. They decided long ago mutliculturalism wasn't their thing and decided to paint a nice, thick layer of Han culture over all those places like Tibet. The results ain't really more successful than a lot of western countries, and a lot less attractive. |
China's a little more complicated than that. Except for a few minorities, namely Tibetans and the Uighers, the Han Chinese treat minorities quite well. There are upwards of 70 minorities, but the only minorities the West are familiar with seem to be Tibetans and maybe the Uighers. Assimilation is the game, although the government has done nothing to suppress minority languages so much as it has done things to promote putonghua. |
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