LEGAL, SAFE, AND FREQUENT

The Key To Immigration Is Assimilation, Not Separatism (SEAN HIGGINS, 8/26/03, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY)

IBD: How exactly is immigration changing California?

[Victor Davis] Hanson: It used to be done in a way that was legal and measured, and allowed the natural process of assimilation to work pretty well.

But since about 1975, the number of the people who are coming has grown. And we, the host country, have given up on assimilation and allowed separatism to occur in our schools. The result is that we are creating an amoral apartheid society. [...]

IBD: Is assimilation in fact occurring?

Hanson: It is. I make that clear in my book. There is a powerful engine for that in popular culture, whether it is the Williams sisters or Tiger Woods or Jennifer Lopez. People of all different races are intermarrying. They have the same taste in television and in movies.

But the schools are promoting a multicultural separatist ideology — whether it's bilingual education or separate graduation ceremonies. We are in a race between the powers of assimilation and the powers of separatism.

That is the issue at the heart of it. We just need people to come in from Mexico in a little smaller numbers and through a legal process, so we can assimilate them legally.

IBD: Many free-market economists say the benefits of mass immigration outweigh the costs. What do you think?

Hanson: One thing I've noticed is that each side tries to produce statistics that refute the other. It's hard to adjudicate which body of evidence is correct.

My feeling is that the contribution of unskilled labor to the overall GDP of the U.S. is rather small. But it's very important to localized sectors like restaurants, building and agriculture within the Southwest.

It's a sad commentary on California when you have a 9% unemployment rate in many counties and the employers are saying nobody will work and they have to bring in people from Mexico. [...]

IBD: So this is primarily a matter of changing the political process?

Hanson: It has to start with a dialogue. Those on the open borders-corporate-libertarian side have precluded debate by demonizing people as nativist, protectionist or Neanderthal. They work hand in glove with the racial left, which demonizes people as racist. Between the two, they have precluded almost all debate on it.

IBD: Do we need stuff like English-only laws?

Hanson: We've never needed them before. We just need to revert back to what we used to do: encourage them to learn English.

The point here is that the problems with immigration are mainly our fault: our abandonment of the teaching of our own culture in schools; a welfare system that makes possible the refusal of the native poor to work undesirable jobs; and declining fertility rates that require importation of workers.

MORE:
Latinos are Looking Up (Zev Chafets, 8/26/03. Jewish World Review)

Latinos aren't wealthy - most families earn less than $40,000 a year - but they are staunchly optimistic. Sixty percent think the economy will be better in a year. Almost 75% believe their children's lives will be better than their own.

The majority put assimilation ahead of diversity - 51.2% hope for greater assimilation. Less than 40% support "keeping [their] own culture, even if it means staying somewhat separate from the rest of American society."

Neither are Latinos inclined to see themselves as victims. Asked about the main barrier to success in the U.S., a large plurality listed language.

Almost 70% could think of no instance in the past year in which they suffered ethnic or racial discrimination. Just 3.7% regard bias as the most important problem they face.

Fully 85.5% say that affirmative action should be based more on need than on race. Among potential Democratic primary voters, the Rev. Al Sharpton got just 1.8%.

Politically, a majority of Latinos call themselves conservative or moderate, and this is evident in their social and economic views. Fifty-six percent favor government vouchers for private or church schools. A similar number support tax cuts for individuals and businesses. Less than 7% want to raise taxes to increase government spending. Although twice as many Latinos identify with the Democratic Party as with the GOP, these are unmistakably Republican positions. [...]

Seen through the prism of this poll, Hispanics appear to be less a group of disaffected minority voters than a fairly typical community of Catholic immigrants. A generation ago, the Republicans converted working-class Italian-, Polish- and Irish-Americans into Reagan Democrats. This year, they will be trying to repeat the act, in Spanish.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 26, 2003 10:17 AM