Thursday, October 18, 2007

Aztlan North   [John Derbyshire]

I can't agree, Kathryn. Legal or illegal, this is asking for trouble.

Don't take my word for it. Read Chapter 9 of Sam Huntington's Who Are We? Almost any page should give you pause to reconsider your insouciance. Page 232, for instance:

Overwhelming majorities (66 percent to 85 percent) of Mexican immigrants and Hispanics have emphasized the need for their children to be fluent in Spanish. These attitudes contrast with those of other immigrant groups. "There appears," as one study concluded, "to be a cultural difference between the Asian and Hispanic parents with respect to having their children maintain their native language." In part, this difference is undoubtedly a result of the size of Hispanic communities, which creates incentives for fluency in the ancestral language. Although second- and third-generation Mexican-Americans and other Hispanics acquire competence in English, they also appear to deviate from the usual pattern in maintaining their competence in Spanish. ... Spanish-language competence, Professor F. Chris Garcia of the University of New Mexico has said, is "the one thing every Hispanic takes pride in, wants to protect and promote."

Or p. 247:

If this trend continues, it could produce a consolidation of the Mexican-dominant areas into an autonomous, culturally and linguistically distinct, economically self-reliant bloc within the United States. Given "the unique coincidence of Hispanic ethnicity with specific regional territoriality and with an ideology of multiculturalism," Graham Fuller warns, "we may be building toward the one thing that will choke the melting pot: an ethnic area and grouping so concentrated that it will not wish, or need, to undergo assimilation into the mainstream of American multi-ethnic English-speaking life."

Or p. 256:

The continuation of high levels of Mexican and Hispanic immigration plus the low rates of assimilation of these immigrants into American society and culture could eventually change America into a country of two languages, two cultures, and two peoples. This will not only transform America. It will also have deep consequences for Hispanics, who will be in America but not of it.

You can happy-talk all you like, Kathryn, but sixty-six percent? If we must have mass immigration, can we please return to the fine old American tradition of taking people from (A) lots of different places, none of which are (B1) contiguous to our territory and (B2) make historical claims—propagated, for instance, in their school textbooks—on that territory?

10/18 01:56 PMShare