Linda Chavez, writing in today’s Wall Street Journal, explains that Hispanics assimilate quite thoroughly into American society and the American economy. Here’s her concluding paragraph, which makes an especially interesting point:
Finally, consider that ultimate indicator of assimilation,
intermarriage. One in four Hispanics marries a non-Hispanic white
spouse, but nearly one-third of all U.S.-born Hispanics who are married
have non-Hispanic spouses; and the percentage is slightly higher among
college-educated Hispanic women (35%). There is a curious, and
provocative fact buried in all this. The Population Reference Bureau
notes in its 2005 study of intermarriage that, because most children of
intermarriages are reported as Hispanic on Census data, "Hispanic
intermarriage may have been a factor in the phenomenal growth of the
U.S. Hispanic population in recent years, and it has important
implications for future growth and characteristics of the Hispanic
population." In other words, the widely cited prediction that by
mid-century Hispanics will represent fully one third of the U.S.
population fails to take into account that increasing numbers of these
so-called Hispanics will have only one grandparent or great-grandparent
of Hispanic heritage. At which point Hispanic ethnicity will mean
little more than German, Italian or Irish ethnicity does today.
Her entire article is worth reading (but, unfortunately, a paid subscription to the WSJ is required to do so). This article inspired me to send the following letter to the editors of that newspaper:
It’s inspiring to read
Linda Chavez’s report on how well Hispanics assimilate into America’s
society and economy ("The Great Assimilation Machine," June 5). This
achievement is especially remarkable given that the employment in
America of several million Hispanics – the "illegals" – is formally
prohibited. Imagine how much higher still their earnings and their
rates of employment, homeownership, and education would be if no
employer had to fear prosecution for the "crime" of hiring any willing
worker.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
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{ 20 comments }
I cant remember ever calling a business or govt. agency and being asked to press 2 to hear a message in German, Italian or Irish.
Is speaking the majority language considered a part os assimilation?
That is the point, at the turn of the century there were many enclaves where non-english was spoken. I just found out that Teddy Roosevelt grew up speaking Dutch in his family, as all the New York City Dutch still spoke Dutch 200 + years after New Amsterdam was ceded to the British etc… More important is the transition from spanish speaking to bilingual to english speaking predominant in three generations. I mean we have everyone around the world learning english, do we really think that someone in this country will not learn english..
Imagine how much higher still their earnings and their rates of employment, homeownership, and education would be if no employer had to fear prosecution for the "crime" of hiring any willing worker.
"Imagine how much higher still their earnings and their rates of employment, homeownership, and education would be if no pre-school had to fear prosecution for the "crime" of hiring any willing pedophile."
Cafeteria lawfulness has its' downsides Professor. That said I apologize for my clearly over the top analogy. Still we are a nation of laws are we not? I respect your formidible opinion that our labor and immigration laws are deeply flawed but the answer is to fix those laws not diminsh respect for those laws by putting them in quotations as if they were arbitrary rather than merely not to your personal tastes.
Robert,
The problem with that analogy seems to be that the government can pass an act and make illegals into legals. Whereas, no act can change pedophiles into non-pedophiles. I believe this entry covered it nicely: http://cafehayek.com/2007/05/malum_in_se_mal.html
Sorry, let me try that again. http://tinyurl.com/2kdbv5
One of the things we've learned from the Nuremberg trial is that we shouldn't always respect legislation for the sake that it's legislation…
Aha! hummbumm you hit the nail on the head. How much better would this country be without the stinking Dutch! If only we could have done without "bully" Teddy (Dutch) Roosevelt and his West Wing building, San Juan Hill Chargin, I believe everything I read in "The Jungle" self. I won't even get started with his no good Dutch (ptooh) cousin Franklin and his no good stinking cousin/Dutch wife Eleanor! Those windmill-liking, wooden shoe-wearing, Hans Brinkler-loving, people have caused us enough trouble. How about that first shipment of slaves to Jamestown–the Dutch! Splitting the bill on a date with a girl so she owes you nothing–the Dutch! Window taxes–the Dutch! Martin Tromp–the Dutch! Dick Van Dyke–the Dutch! While we are at it, how bout for those on the left Ronald "Dutch" Reagan. Whoh! my blood boils at the thought of those evil, below sea-level dwelling Hollanders–with their beady eyes, buckled hats, and folded over leather boots. Thank God the Duke of York had 10,000 men, for without him we would be even more infested by the vile Dutch. Please note: this was in jest and I am channeling Michael Caine's character in Austin Powers 3: Goldmember–although I have undoubtedly probably run afoul of Ducth (and probably European) hate speech law.
Only employers of the first generation have to worry about the ""crime" of hiring any willing worker". The later generations have worse crime, welfare dependency and illegitimacy rates. Their education level plateaus well below the national average. Previous generations of immigrants had massive wars (not that I advocate this) and strong nativist sentiment forcing Americanization on them through the early public schools (I was taught in school that "the melting pot" was a bigoted concept, the immigrant who came up with it was lambasted by Teddy Roosevelt at the time for not realizing that no "new American" was being created because Americans already existed as they were and would not change) and a long lull in immigration to induce assimilations. Todays immigrants, rather behaving neighborly toward their new neighbors are engaging in ethnic cleansing through gang warfare in Los Angeles.
Your logic astounds me. Are you blaming the high teen pregnancy/gang participation/welfare of Hispanic immigrants on their race, attitude, lack of forceful assimilation, or what? You seem to be uncovering a problem that current policies will just perpetuate. Maybe if these teens had jobs/healthcare/the RIGHT to attend college, then we wouldn't have such a huge problem on OUR hands. It isn't immigrants' fault that our policies create a self perpetuating cycle of poverty. As far as speaking Spanish, it will only concern you when you go to the post office and can't understand how to mail a letter because it is in Spanish. When that happens, you have a right to complain. When was the last time anyone was severely disadvantaged in the US because they didn't speak English? Now imagine what immigrants have to go through 24/7.
Avatara,
Oh please – come down off the soapbox and quit preaching drivel about the poor, poor, pitiful, put-upon illegal immigrants. That crap don't sell.
None of the illegals in this country came here thinking they were on some noble quest to improve the world. They new exactly what they were doing, did it wilfully and – as with any other decision – have to pay the consequences for their actions.
I couldn't give a red hot flying flip what "immigrants have to go through 24/7" because they made the choice to do it. Now they (Along with Lulac, Maldef and the rest of the bigots) want to whine and bitch that they're not being given all they're "due". Again: Horse hockey. They're not "due" anything at all – and the "suffering" illegals experience in this country doesn't mean a hill of refried beans.
If any of the rest of us non-Hispanics make a bad decision we have to live with the consequences – and as Dr. Boudreaux preaches – we're FREE to make those decisions. The illegals made their decisions as well – freely – and now it's time to lay in that bed they made.
Get a grip – there's no sympathy for the "plight" of the illegal, just as there's no sympathy for any of the rest of us when we do something stupid.
Additionally, it's not "policy" that creates this mythical "perpetuating cycle of poverty". Do things legally and you have a chance to get out of poverty – do them a different way and you suffer for it. Tough.
Lastly, the entire concept that Hispanic teens DESERVE jobs, healthcare or the right to attend college is just another handout to a bunch of ne'er-do-wells. Do black teens have the right to play major league sports? Do white teens have the right to live in the suburbs? I thought not.
Hispanic teens have the right to work toward a better life, not the right to have one handed to them. Additionally, that "right" doesn't mean they have to work toward that mythical better life in the US.
Forget Hispanics, do you know who is much more dangerous than Hispanics? Well, only the people who threw the Hispanics out of half of the Spanish Netherlands–I am speaking again of the insidious, evil, cheese-making Dutch. William the Silent, he was more dangerous than Santa Anna and El Guapo put together. Thank God, those partiotic Jewish immigrants under Louis "Lepke" Buchalter did away with "Dutch" Shultz or there is no telling what Americana may have become–all wooden shoes and tulips no doubt. As Linda Chavez and hummbumm pointed out–the child of a Hispanic will likely speak English, but the proginy of the vile Dutch will keep speaking their tongue for up to 200 years.
Maybe I didn't frame my comments enough on our side of the equation. 10 million more workers necessarily makes the economy more productive. Not only that, but it improves the lives of these 10 million people. Attitudes are driving this policy that inhibits illegals from prospering in the country and contributing to economic growth. A lot of the problems that TGGP cited are caused by socioeconomic factors that are derived out of these policies. What do we stand to lose by allowing people to work? Actually, we stand to see a lot more gang violence, teen pregnancy, crime, etc. by forcing illegals onto the streets.
And their is a lot of sympathy for the plight of the illegal, just not from you and Bob Byrd.
Dutch hater!
Avatara, I'm an emotivist/Stirnerite egoist. I am not concerned with moral culpability (Greene & Cohen make it clear that determinism must replace naive free-will). I am concerned with reality and consequences. The fact is immigrants are forming a new underclass, the government attempted to do something about a previous underclass in the 60s and failed horribly. Government will continue to screw up. I have no confidence in its ability to set policies that will avert the situation. However, there is political support (among the grassroots, who may be ignorant but nevertheless have power through votes) for immigration restriction and precedent that governments are capable of it when leaders actually want to go through with it. That is why I see it as the only viable solution. I have prevented evidence in my previous post in the links. Rather than decrying how awful I am either present evidence that I am wrong or concede that my account of how things exist today (which has little to do with how you might wish things to be or how they "ought" to be).
Finally, note that there is variation in immigrants. Many Asian and Jewish immigrants have arrived at the bottom and quickly outpaced their neighbors. This is not because The Man was stacking the deck in their favor and against others. Mexico has serious problems that it must solve and is attempting to foist off on the United States. The elites of the United States has an even poorer understanding of it than those of Mexico and should not be expected to rectify it, nor should the pre-existing problems that caused people to leave Mexico be attributed to those north of the Rio Grande.
"Dutch" Schultz was not dutch and neither was Reagan. I can't forgive the Dutch for the Roosevelts but currently they form a rather small portion of the population which is not growing all that quickly. We can deal with whatever problems are associated with the Dutch after we deal with others. And yes, I know you weren't serious.
Avatara, given the nature of the welfare state today and the heavily subsidized nature of many industries immigrants are predominant in, it is not necessarily a benefit to have more low-skilled workers. They are largely tax-eaters. The workforce that is is more demanded is skilled labor, hence the higher wages paid to it. I advocate reducing the crime, illegitimacy and welfare dependency problems by preventing low-skilled immigrants from getting in in the first place (replacing the current system with a Canadian style skill-based one and deporting existing illegals and possibly bribing some a la Sarkozy to return home), or adopting a Gulf State style true "guest worker" program, which is free from those social problems due to the families of immigrants staying home and the workers returning to their families rather than settling permanently.
compares in the Italians from 1900 to the Mexico immigrants in 2000. The Mexican immigrants can send money back to Mexico, communicate in live time with relatives, watch spanish language television, view Spanish language movies on DVD, and frequent businesses where all of the signs are in Spanish.
If large numbers of mexican immigrants were great for the economy, El Paso, Laredo, Brownsville, Nogales, etc would all be boom towns that rich white yuppies would want to move to.
When I see economics professors leaving rich, white and asian dominated northern virginia to teach at UT-El Paso, I will believe that immigration is a good thing.
TGGP: you are being thoughtless. We are filtering OUT the Hispanics we want by making immigration illegal. We end up with Hispanics willing to break laws. You can throw all your statistics out because they are based on a poor sample.
From time to time the tree of liberty must be refreshed with the genes of immigrants.
"Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion?"
– Benjamin Franklin, Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, etc., 1751
Pennsylvania had plenty of German speakers in the 1700's, then many German speakers began immigrating into the mid-west in the 1800's to the point where anti-German language instruction laws were passed, which lead to the defeat of the Republicans who passed them…
Then there was the "Golden Age of Yiddish Radio" form the 1930's to the 1950's. http://www.yiddishradioproject.org/ Yiddish radio stations could be found coast-to-coast, and in New York there were 23 Yiddish stations.
Even by the 1930's, many Lutheran churches in Minnesota still had all hymnals and Christian education materials in the Norwegian language and English-speaking services alternated with Norwegian.
Between 1900 and World War I over one million Americans spoke Norwegian as their primary language.
In 1910, 600,000 homes received at least one Norwegian newspaper.
Russ, illegal immigrants are not committing the crimes I cite in my statistics. They tend to be older than the peak age of criminality and afraid of being deported. It is the second and third generations where crime spikes. These generations are not selected at all, they are born here. If there were open borders and no selection at all we might expect a representative sampling of Mexicans and as a result crime rates found in Mexico. I don't want that. Not even Mexican immigrants want that (they are leaving Mexico after all, and now shifting from coastal megalopolises to areas that have had less immigration). Rather than asserting the data I present is flawed without presenting any of your own, give me a reason to think things will improve. As this post points out, you can't assume the government will do the right thing, because it's track record shows it will not. Governments have shown themselves capable of restricting immigration (building a barrier and declining to issue visas is not the most difficult thing in the world). They have not shown much competence in improving an underclass with the 60s showing the reverse to be the case.
Iceland and Japan have had barely any immigration for many decades. The United States had very little between 1924 and 1965. None of these countries had crops rotting in the fields for want of laborers as the agricultural lobby likes to claim.
Avatara:
You say "And their is a lot of sympathy for the plight of the illegal, just not from you and Bob Byrd." I say: BULL.
What in sam hill is "the plight of the illegal"? Plight? Oh please.
The only "plight" an illegal has is one they chose for themselves. Therefore, if one chooses one's actions freely then one only reaps the bounty of one sews.
Sympathy? For what?
Does anyone here have sympathy for the displaced Ford-UAW member because US auto manufacturing is not competitive? In this forum they're practically spit-roasted, with much glee, as an example of "free trade". Don't UAW-ites have a "plight" – they made a free choice to join the union and to earn artificially high wages at the expense of the general public.
I assert that neither group – the UAW nor the "illegal" – has a "plight". They're both getting the just desserts their actions require. For every action there is a reaction (this ain't physics, so the reactions aren't always equal and opposite).
Illegals get what they deserve and if they don't like it they're free to leave. UAW members are getting theirs, too, and if they don't like it they can get a job with a non-union auto manufacturing plant.
Ditch the phoney emotives and hold illegals to the same standards you hold everyone else.