Oh yes, obvious. We should be paying closer to $15.00 an hour, of course!!

"sub-minimum"

Don't look at me, the Judds waited at the dock to bash in the heads of the Dukaki when they came here to undercut our wages.

"Before we had mass illegal immigration in this country, hotel beds were made, office floors were cleaned, restaurant dishes were washed and crops were picked — by Americans," who migrated to America, illegally, legally, by any means possible and always will - cause we're the only game in town when it comes to trying to get ahead in life and live free trying!

The idea that native-born Americans did most of those jobs is ludicrous.

Just in my family alone if you go back a few generations all you get when you reach the first generation to make it here is maids and construction workers. Heck, one ggf, from Scotland met one ggm, from Ireland, in a rooming house in NYC circa 1900, where he lived while working construction and where she worked as a maid.

Did they get here legally? Beats me. Probably since it was so much easier to immigrate before the nativists starting causing havoc with immigration law in the 20s. I don't really care however whether they were legal or illegal.

One of my long-time teachers, a man who made it to the top of the profession as an historian, had an Irish immigrant mother who spent the 30s and 40s on her knees scrubbing floors overnight at, iirc, the NY World building. And she wasn't surrounded by native-born Americans while she did it.

As for the minimum wage -- hey why don't we just raise it to 100,0000 a yr. Eeedjits.

What is it about liberals so totally not understanding incentives?

I remember reading (I think it was Bruce Bartlett before he jumped ship) that Virginia cut their car taxes and a bunch of new autos were sold. Liberals in the state legislature then demanded the reinstitution of the car tax because of all the "lost" revenue. There are fourth-graders who could tell you what is wrong with this.

I clicked through to see if there was any context to put that paragraph back into. Nope.

The problem with the current state of imigration is not that we need them or don't need them... the problem is that when you have a single monlithic imigrant group that makes up 10 or 20 percent of the population, then they don't integrate and then all sorts of whacky buffonery ensues (like creating an angry underclass). Poles, Scots, Italians, etc. never made up but a small percent of the then-current population and thus were forced to integrate. That's the crux... it's not that people don't like imigrants, it's that they fear the etherial 'j,non se quoi' of American culture will be lost.

it's not that people don't like imigrants, it's that they fear the etherial 'j,non se quoi' of American culture will be lost.

Yeah, that's exactly what the Know-Nothings said.

Second verse, same as the first, a little bit louder and a little bit worse.

Poles, Scots, Italians, etc. were never a large percentage of the national population, but they were often a large minority, or even a majority, of the locales where they mostly settled.

They weren't under much more pressure to integrate than today's immigrants are. The key in both cases is that if they want to move up in the world, then they have to fit in better with the dominant culture.

To claim that Mexican Latinos won't or don't become Americans is to claim that they want to stay at society's lowest levels forever.

Timothy

Observing your exchange with Lebeaux, I want to congratuate you on your wit. Lebeaux, I'm sure thought he was addressing a pertinent issue, in a reasoned manner but, the very idea that the size of the migration could vary the effect of assimilation really is silly. Thank you Lebeaux but puhleeze.."Know Nothings" knew something, heh heh, good catch Timothy.

One question though..did large African-American immigration effect a change in culture in Detroit, different than that which would have occurred, if it had been smaller?

OK, two questions, After WWII did the relative size of Jewish immigration to what was then called Palestine effect a change in whether Jews assimilated with the Arab culture to a greater or lesser extent?

Of course I don't want to imply that there is any merit in Lebeaux's statement. Second verse, louder etc..

Jim of Chicago

"that native-born Americans did most of those jobs is ludicrous"

My parents and their parents were native born and they did those jobs. I never thought of them as ludicrous. My anecdotal evidence is as irrelvant as yours. I'm glad though that you are able to cleanse yourself of the taint of the native born. (Why did your great-grand parents come to such a decrepit society, anyway?)

Noam Chomsky

You apparently decided to answer Lebeaux's statement and you did an excellent job.

Poles, and Italians did assimilate and they have had a positive effect on American Culture. And if there had been more of them they would have had a greater effect, No? In other words American culture was different after such immigration, and it would have been still more different if Italian, Polish immigration had been larger and faster.

Relative malleability of Americana is the issue of interest in Lebeaux's statement. If Americana is intractable and unchanging or changeable only it positive ways, then the rate and volume of immigration is of no concern. Unfortunately it's not and thus immigration is of concern.

If secular, atheist France were to dump 10 million immigrants loudly proclaiming their desire to live in libertine America, would not a rational person say that the American culture is threatened in a negative way. If you say that in order to get ahead in America they must change their attitude, then I say you haven't been paying attention to your own culture.

If secular, atheist France were to dump 10 million immigrants [into] America, would not a rational person say that the American culture is threatened in a negative way.

I would not, since a mere ten million people would be only about 4% of America's current adult population.
They could certainly change the culture of most cities or some states...

But internal migration does that all the time, anyhow. "Californiation", right ?
Or look at how the national culture has changed with the rise of the population in the South, West, and "Bible Belt".

If you say that in order to get ahead in America they must change their attitude, then I say you haven't been paying attention to your own culture.

Yes ?

Please list some examples of people who hold statewide office, anywhere, while speaking primarily a language other than English, and advocating that American citizens should hold alliegence to a foreign government.
Or, list some people who have built large businesses in America while promoting a European work ethic.

h-man, you seem to be worried that too many people will emigrate to America, and dilute the "American culture" thereby.
While that theoretically could happen, it hasn't happened before, (in the sense that the past changes have led to the current culture, which is good enough for you to want to defend), and as a practical matter, it can't happen now.

Congress would never set legal immigration quotas high enough to allow that to occur, and illegals can't emigrate here quickly enough to do the trick.
Even if illegal immigration were to reach two million a year, a roughly 30% rise from current estimates, that would still be less than 1% of the current adult population.

Further, roughly half of those immigrants are from Mexico, with another 20% coming from Central America, mostly via Mexico.
Those people are largely religious, and the vast majority of them are hard-working; they came, after all, for the jobs.
I don't see how they could harm "American" culture, and indeed they're more likely to improve it.

The only sticking point would be if they somehow used their American citizenship, when earned, to vote into office people who enact policies that would somehow benefit Mexico at the expense of American interests.
However, again, that hasn't happened in the past, so simply claiming that it would happen in the future is unconvincing. A rather detailed explanation of how and why it would happen would be necessary for that point to be seriously considered.

Noam:
"To claim that Mexican Latinos won't or don't become Americans is to claim that they want to stay at society's lowest levels forever."

I didn't, and wouldn't, claim that. People in Quebec never wanted to be part of an underclass, but have they become true-blue-dinky-die? Or are they a cantakerous, often angry societal sub-group that blames l'Anglais for everything from blizzards to bigfoot?

lebeaux:

Quebecers aren't immigrants. They arrived first. Cantankerous they may sometimes be, but a "sub-group" they are not.

h-man:
"...the very idea that the size of the migration could vary the effect of assimilation really is silly."

Yes, oh quite obviously, that's why modern Russians still speak Swedish and not slavic, and why they still call their country Kievskaya Russ... because the numbers of slavs meant nothing. How silly of me.

H's point is spot on. Seculars would be a threat. Mexicans aren't. Thus, the reason folks like h opppose them is simply racism.

Timothy:
"Yeah, that's exactly what the Know-Nothings said."

I'm certainly not against immigration. I may be wrong, I may be daft, but I feel that numbers matter and when they approach 20% then I believe assimilation breaks down. I also believe African-Americans would have had an easier time assimilating if they had only been 6% and not 16% of the population. That and the whole slavery thing was kind of a hinderance to assimilation too.

Peter B:
"Quebecers aren't immigrants. They arrived first."

Thank you for making my case. If numbers don't matter then why don't those damn immigrant Anglo-Canadians all sing 'Frere Jaque' five times a day while facing toward Paris?

lebeaux:

The number of immigrants does matter, but as I wrote to h-man, (see above), America is not and will not receive the number of immigrants that would push us past your tipping point.

I believe that to be true despite the fact that illegal immigration will accelerate over the next twenty years, as labor shortages in the American economy push the real wage that major employers are willing to pay well past the $ 8 that Michael Dukakis wants us to pay.

So we'll have a chance to see who is right, since we're going to run the experiment, despite the cautions and screams of protest from those who fear losing the American 'j,non se quoi'.

I agree with Lebeaux that a critical mass of "any" particular immigrant group can throw assimilation out of kilter, thus having adverse effects on what anyone on this thread would refer to as American Culture.

Noam Chomsky

I'm not particularly thrilled with our "culture" now, but I certainly feel that it can worsen with open borders. You prefer to not worry about such likelihood ("While that theoretically could happen.."Congress would never set legal immigration quotas high enough" doh..) while I think the zeigeist is headed to non-judgemental, libertine, perverted, socialistic, multi-cultural amegeddon, as represented by the Party of pinkos, punks, and perverts. Reckon I'm pessimistic and think that we are vunerable. Otherwise I agree with you.

OJ
Yes I judge people by their race and actions. I treat people fairly and certainly wouldn't attempt to hinder newcomers to this country and if they are citizens they have the same rights as me. I guess I'm supposed follow that up with a phony statement of "I'll will defend to death their right to b*tt f**k in the public square, but my heart is not in it thank you.

Living in an area with rought 75 percent Hispanic population, I can tell you there are hundreds of families where the grandparents are immigrants who may have only mastered a rudementary grasp, if that, of the English language, while the granddaughters are in 100 percent Valley Girl mode or the grandsons are all into X-treme skateboarding or video games. There's just too much about American culture for people to want to deliberately set themselves apart from it, or not attempt upward mobility to acquire a bigger piece of it.

An apprapos of the story below, I wonder in Michael Dukakis would look goofier dressed up as a chorizo sausage with with a sombrero and decked out in red, green and white at Miller Park than he did riding around in that tank.

My anecdotal $.02 with a 100% discount: A 24-yr old Mexican immigrant woman works in my office. Her parents "immigrated" when she was 6 [I think they were "amnestied" in the late 80's]. She's married, has 4 kids, is deeply religious and surely works harder than me. She speaks 2 languages fluently, attends Toastmaster's weekly to improve her ENGLISH and communication skills. She holds a Life and Health Insurance Agent license and just passed her NASD Series 7 General securities exam [an achievemnt that 2 of her American colleagues have yet to accomplish after multiple attempts].

She now makes "too much money" to get all the "free" assistance [healthcare, housing, headstart, etc.] she used to rely on. And she laments that one of the healthcare agencies where she worked early on used to chide and cajole her to kink the numbers so they could keep her on the dole roll. It frustrates her to see extended family members here pretending they're OWED all the "safety net" stuff and buying the "repressed Mexican" party line the Left loves so dearly.

I'm not glib enough to think it's that easy or likely, but we could sure use a few million more of her ilk even if we had to sort thru some chaff to get them.

Noam:
Yes... twenty years from now we'll remember this discusion and think to ourselves: "Que?"

lebeaux is wrong if he's implying we'll be speaking Spanish in twenty years. The English language is already the unifying agent for the Anglosphere, the blogosphere, and for aviation, and the scientific and diplomatic communities and it will only continue to bring us together no matter how hard the left tries to divide and conquer us by forcing multi-culti on us.

The English langauge as spoken by Americans was changed drastically by Irish influences. Why wouldn't the same occur from Latino influences? But if you prefer we can ammend my previous statement and say: in twenty years we'll look back at this discussion, shrug, re-adjust our sombreros and carry on.

Irish influences?

"What are these people of different color doing on our ancestral lands? We have been here for thousands of years and now these people who can't even speak our language have crossed illegally into our lands and are demanding their rights to take our resources. Whey, we even have our own bibles written in our language which we use as a teaching tool for our children; and, our literacy rates are higher than these illegals. But, these whites refuse to learn our language."

Cherokee

OK,
Don't know where your quote is from, but it dosn't sound wrong. The Cherokees were one of the "Civilzed Tribes". Didn't help. The "Trail of Tears" and all that. I doubt the new wave of immigration is going to result in the rest of the country being exiled to Oklahoma, but the quote is interesting.

erp:
There was a series on history channel a while back called 'a history of english', and the host went on for episodes about the profound influence of Irish on both the American and Australian versions of English. If I remember correctly, one of the chief Irish influences is the flat 'a' sound that makes Amercian-english so easy on the ears compared to the grunting that passes for speech in England proper.

Thanks for that explanation. I thought we were speaking Gaelic and I didn't notice it.