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March 30, 2006
Wise Words From An Immigrant
A fourth-generation Mexican-American living in Texas conveyed to Jonah Goldberg her thoughts on the growing illegal immigration crisis:
To me, it's not about legal versus illegal immigration. It's about do they have any intention of embracing America as their own new country. If not, then they must be roundly escorted the hell out. Or kept out with big fences. The spirit of our immigrant past demands it.As an aside, I married a Mexican National many years ago. We married right after he received amnesty from Reagan's admin back in the 80's. He'd been working here illegally for about 10 years. He dreamed of buying a house and living here until he died. He taught himself English by watching the news every night. And a more proud man you never met when he was made legal. He still keeps a picture of Reagan up on his wall and proudly calls himself an American (and a Republican, too!) He cried at Reagan's funeral. He still speaks beautiful Spanish, although he's fluent in English; he owns his own company and pays his taxes and sends money to his ailing mother in Mexico. So is he what we want to keep out or encourage to come in? I think this country will always welcome immigrants like him. He's the difference between a pilgrim and a univited guest.
Emphases mine. I think she nails it: the real problem is the illegals' increasing lack of willingness to embrace US culture, which breeds the counter-belief in long time citizens that illegals consider the US to be a cash cow that exists only for their service. It's nice that the gentlemen in the story above honors Ronald Reagan, but that's not the point--for an older generation the hero would have been FDR. I am dead certain that a vast majority of US citizens hold legal immigrants in the highest regard; it's the fact of illegal entry (bad enough) combined with the growing rejection of US culture (even worse) by immigrants that has set legal citizens' teeth on edge.
More: Peggy Noonan has additional thoughts on the topic of unassimilated illegals using the US for its easily-tapped wealth (via Tapscott):
We fought a war to free slaves. We sent millions of white men to battle and destroyed a portion of our nation to free millions of black men. What kind of nation does this? We went to Europe, fought, died and won, and then taxed ourselves to save our enemies with the Marshall Plan. What kind of nation does this? Soviet communism stalked the world and we were the ones who steeled ourselves and taxed ourselves to stop it. Again: What kind of nation does this?Only a very great one. [...]
Do we, today, act as if this is such a special place? No, not always, not even often. American exceptionalism is so yesterday. We don't want to be impolite. We don't want to offend. We don't want to seem narrow. In the age of globalism, honest patriotism seems like a faux pas.
And yet what is true of people is probably true of nations: if you don't have a well-grounded respect for yourself, you won't long sustain a well-grounded respect for others.
Because we do not communicate to our immigrants, legal and illegal, that they have joined something special, some of them, understandably, get the impression they've joined not a great enterprise but a big box store. A big box store on the highway where you can get anything cheap. It's a good place. But it has no legends, no meaning, and it imparts no spirit.
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Comments
the growing rejection of US culture
Such as? (aside from the flag-waving) The assimilation argument doesn't strike me as a strong one: most indices suggest hispanics assimilating apace, and my experience does too (unhappy experience living in a Section 9 hispanic ghetto. Worst year ever).
Why I ask: I'm as deeply opposed to opening the floodgates of southern immigration (rather: opposed to how open they already are), but the assimilation argument seems like a red herring.
Posted by: jpe at March 30, 2006 10:58 AM
I dunno, I guess we need to nail down what we mean by assimilation. My sense is that it is based more on an emotional or cultural allegiance, rather than simply functioning day-to-day in a manner undistinguishable from legal citizens. If an immigrant (legal or not) has been here 5 or 10 years, and still hasn't bothered to learn English, I'd say that person is not very well assimilated. Granted, there have been a lot of Italian immigrants back east who also never learned English, but their children didn't walk out of classrooms and hoist the Italian flag.
By the way, I can't accept your assertion that "flag-waving" is not an important indicator of cultural identification--witness the silly attempts to amend our Constitution to ban flag burning. Flags are deeply emotional to a lot of people--a high school principle is in trouble here in Houston because he ran the Mexican flag up next to the US and Texas flags. I think the widespread display of the Mexican flag by the demonstrators, especially in the context of all the reconquista blather, is a pretty important indicator that assimilation is not occurring.
Posted by: Jeff at March 30, 2006 02:05 PM
