In a recent CNN article, Ruben Navarrette Jr. of the San Diego Union-Tribune argues that the immigration debate resurrects old nativist arguments and fears: In Navarrette's own words:
Secondly, continued immigration does not mean Americans will be "working a lot harder to keep up." In actuality, it means a surge in workers who will be put to the front of the line because of Affirmation Action and can be hired for cheap because of what they are used to, to the chagrin of their employers who often do no actual work at all. For everyone else, "keeping up" is evidently slang for "accept less for the same work" or "accept being treated more like a slave by the ruling class". In other words, mass immigration is a trick to screw over the working class, just like camouflaging the results as "working a lot harder to keep up" is a trick to pardon it.
But there is an even bigger burden to consider. Immigrants who are poor and underpaid require accommodations - housing, healthcare, food stamps, and so on. If they do not speak English, they will also require services and accommodations, too. And the burden to finance this falls on the back of the American taxpayer. Further, the influx of unskilled and uneducated does not even necessarily translate into a larger workforce. Migration waves can also consist of those who - shocker, I know - were previously unemployed and are moving to where they need only marry to collect free benefits. Further down the line, an influx in immigration means less opportunities for our children, because the children of these migrants will also be competing for a piece of the pie and, thanks to Affirmative Action, be prioritized when it comes time to apply to colleges and be interviewed for jobs because there are quotas put in place specifically to increase the acceptance and hire of next-generation migrants in society. Again, this doesn't sound like "working a lot harder to keep up". This sounds like "being treated as a second-class citizen".
"[Anti-immigration] rhetoric is all about fear -- that those who thrive in the dominant culture are losing their primacy, that the mainstream is being polluted by foreigners, and that our children are going to live in a world where they're going to have to work a lot harder to keep up."Notice how Navarrette cheats the anti-immigration position by downplaying the changes at stake; first, he writes that the "dominant culture" fears "losing its primacy"...but what the people from the dominant culture should be fearing, due to mass immigration from Latin America, is not "losing its primacy", but becoming strangers in their own country. This goes back to differences between the host and migrant population, but also to the reality that a minority culture can prevail and not be replaced only if the majority culture allows this; at present, where the U.S. government has the country bending over backwards to appease the Hispanic minority, it is unclear if the same will happen in 2040 when, as the U.S. Census Buro predicts, there is a total changing of the guards.
Secondly, continued immigration does not mean Americans will be "working a lot harder to keep up." In actuality, it means a surge in workers who will be put to the front of the line because of Affirmation Action and can be hired for cheap because of what they are used to, to the chagrin of their employers who often do no actual work at all. For everyone else, "keeping up" is evidently slang for "accept less for the same work" or "accept being treated more like a slave by the ruling class". In other words, mass immigration is a trick to screw over the working class, just like camouflaging the results as "working a lot harder to keep up" is a trick to pardon it.But there is an even bigger burden to consider. Immigrants who are poor and underpaid require accommodations - housing, healthcare, food stamps, and so on. If they do not speak English, they will also require services and accommodations, too. And the burden to finance this falls on the back of the American taxpayer. Further, the influx of unskilled and uneducated does not even necessarily translate into a larger workforce. Migration waves can also consist of those who - shocker, I know - were previously unemployed and are moving to where they need only marry to collect free benefits. Further down the line, an influx in immigration means less opportunities for our children, because the children of these migrants will also be competing for a piece of the pie and, thanks to Affirmative Action, be prioritized when it comes time to apply to colleges and be interviewed for jobs because there are quotas put in place specifically to increase the acceptance and hire of next-generation migrants in society. Again, this doesn't sound like "working a lot harder to keep up". This sounds like "being treated as a second-class citizen".
Navarrette goes on to explain that the German, Irish and Italian immigrants of yesteryear were just as feared as today's batch of immigrants. Surely, he finds it ironic that today's "nativist" Americans are the descendants of those who were once disliked or thought to be unassimilable. He writes:
"[Anti-immigration sentiment] conjures up the alarm bells that Benjamin Franklin set off about German immigrants in the late 18th century, who he insisted could never adopt the culture of the English, but would "swarm into our Settlements, and by herding together establish their Language and Manners to the Exclusion of ours." ... it helped welcome the 20th century when Massachusetts Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge warned that immigrants (read: the Irish) were diluting "the quality of (U.S.) citizenship" and others complained that Italian immigrants were uneducated, low skilled, apt to send all their money to their home country and prone to criminal activity."But Navarrette is wrong; likening immigration of the past to immigration in the present is comparing apples to oranges. Worse, it is falsifying the story of our families and ancestry which is both manipulative and dishonest (assuming, of course, Navarrette knows what he is doing). Here is what Navarrette has wrong about the past:
- who was welcome and why: yes, Irish, German and Italian immigrants were among the settlers who arrived in the early U.S. seeking citizenship. But what Navarrette is forgetting is that the overwhelming majority were non-Catholic Christians and nearly all were either from northern Europe or Christian in general. This balance was the result of deliberate policy to preserve culture and spiritual identity within the majority population. Those who fell outside of the norm were limited in number so that their influence would be as well. Pressure to assimilate was strong, which went hand-in-hand with the vision of one nation of a united people and, eventually, having it stretch from "Cal-i-forn-ia to the New York Island". Today, the goals of those with power are quite different. Globalization, multiculturalism, recent NAFTA proceedings and talks of a Canadian-American-Mexican highway suggest a goal to destroy national sovereignty and mix up people together in a way that will blend them and drive down living standards in the U.S. so that unification has no affect on the whole. Not surprisingly, suspicion of this destruction (and its outcome) leaves many Americans fearful of further Hispanic/Latino immigration, especially because they believe the elite do not have their interests or prosperity in mind.
- mental attitude: in the 18th and 19th centuries, many people came to the U.S. and wanted to leave their home country and overseas identity behind. They came not just for the chance to start over economically, but to start over in totality - not as relocated Europeans or European-Americans, but as Americans. They were mentally prepared to leave their identities behind...is this true of today's immigrants from Latin America?
- proximity: back then, immigrants came from an ocean away. There was thus little preventing them from preparing mentally to become Americans.
- communication and technology: immigrants to the U.S. in the 18th and
19th centuries did not have the luxury to remain in contact with friends
and family an ocean away, aside from writing letters. Accordingly, immigrants
were less likely to remain attached to their old lives and ways.
- pressures due to popular opinion: starting at school, immigrants in the 18th and 19th centuries were under great pressure to assimilate, and no American applying that pressure was made to feel guilty for it. As a result, making sure one's children learned English and not their parent's tongue was an imperative. Within two to three generations, the other language was lost. By contrast, you have the lib-left element in America encouraging immigrants to use their native language and retain their identity.
- the law: the use of foreign languages was discouraged in the early United States and, in some cases, prohibited. That is most certainly not the case today. One legacy of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 is that the government is no longer preserving the demographics of the country and, with the spirit of that transition being what guides society, we cannot simply assume that the government would institute change, because there is too much pressure and incentive not to.
- proximity (part II): that the territorial integrity of the U.S. would be compromised due to an influx of immigrants from Europe was unlikely. A border between the U.S. and a country an ocean away will always be discernible; on the other hand, what can be said about the land border between Mexico and the U.S when there is a movement for the U.S. government to expand its reach throughout the Americas and, through La Raza, Aztland and the Chicano movements, a movement for the Mexican people to populate and conquer the American Southwest? In the future, as the number of Hispanics in the U.S. increase, it is likely that the territorial integrity of the United States will be challenged - either because of the aforementioned (1, the 2) or otherwise.
- irredentism/revanchism: this is, from a red, white and blue nationalist standpoint, probably the most ugly difference between immigration today and in the days of yore. Today, some educators and people of power are allowed to use their positions to encourage mass migration to break apart the United States based on their anti-American revenge narratives. Why the United States would go to war with the Confederacy over succession and continental unity in 1861 only to now turn a blind eye to mass migration contributing to increasing Mexican pressure to tear the Union up is baffling. Still, it makes sense if we understand that the migration flood is a valve the U.S. government may itself be using to make Mexico indistinguishable and part of the same constellation as the U.S. eventually. In any case, this is all very, very different from growing the U.S. population with Irish immigration.
- overcrowding/limited opportunities: in the 18th and 19th centuries, both of these problems were not an issue. When people felt they needed more elbow room and new opportunity, they moved west. Furthermore, the population was extremely small back then compared to the population today, and overpopulation, resource scarcity and job competition were non-issues. Instead, there were shortages to address: the U.S. needed muscle for the railroads, mines and factories. Plus, during the U.S. Civil War, the government found its own use for all of its immigrants: as fodder that was never heard from again. Surely, Navarrette never bothered to factor this into his analysis.
- immigrant-only opportunities:again, thanks to Affirmative Action, immigrants and children of immigrants are given preference over children from the current majority culture when it comes time to pursue higher education or employment. If this policy had been in effect during the 18th and 19th century, the citizens of the U.S. probably would have rioted against the government and burned down Washington.
