The Latino Daddy Gap
Well, I'm in good company -- in a bad way. Like me, Heather MacDonald has been accused of being racist...for telling the truth:
Unless the life chances of children raised by single mothers suddenly improve, the explosive growth of the U.S. Hispanic population over the next couple of decades does not bode well for American social stability. Hispanic immigrants bring near-Third World levels of fertility to America, coupled with what were once thought to be First World levels of illegitimacy. (In fact, family breakdown is higher in many Hispanic countries than here.) Nearly half of the children born to Hispanic mothers in the U.S. are born out of wedlock, a proportion that has been increasing rapidly with no signs of slowing down. Given what psychologists and sociologists now know about the much higher likelihood of social pathology among those who grow up in single-mother households, the Hispanic baby boom is certain to produce more juvenile delinquents, more school failure, more welfare use, and more teen pregnancy in the future....But it's the fertility surge among unwed Hispanics that should worry policymakers. Hispanic women have the highest unmarried birthrate in the country--over three times that of whites and Asians, and nearly one and a half times that of black women, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Every 1,000 unmarried Hispanic women bore 92 children in 2003 (the latest year for which data exist), compared with 28 children for every 1,000 unmarried white women, 22 for every 1,000 unmarried Asian women, and 66 for every 1,000 unmarried black women. Forty-five percent of all Hispanic births occur outside of marriage, compared with 24 percent of white births and 15 percent of Asian births. Only the percentage of black out-of-wedlock births--68 percent--exceeds the Hispanic rate. But the black population is not going to triple over the next few decades.
If, like me, you understand that children need daddies, this is a problem, whatever the color of the unwed mother -- whether she's some privileged upperclass WASP or a recent immigrant.
Linda Chavez, however, deems Heather's work "tirades against Hispanics," first calling her facts into question, and then, her tone. Unapproved! Unapproved!
Heather isn't having any of that (scroll down):
Linda Chavez all but declares that my writings on immigration are driven by ethnic hatred. This kind of charge will be familiar to anyone who has taken a public position against affirmative action and found himself called a racist. As a debating tactic, it is low and -- not to put too fine a point on it -- disgusting. It is meant to bully and intimidate. What should be a spirited debate about facts and the effects of policy becomes an assault on character and motive....She doesn't like my skepticism towards Michael Gerson's claim that Hispanic culture is "focused on education." Here are some other targets that Chavez had better start going after:
UCLA's Chicano Studies Research Center and Faculty Center, which in 2006 sponsored a conference on Hispanic student failure. Conference participants presented research that slightly more than 50 percent of Latino students finish high school and 10 percent graduate from college, based on the 2000 federal census. University of California at Davis education professor Patricia Gandara blamed an "absence of a culture" of college attendance for the low college-graduation rates.
The Brookings Institution. Their 2006 report, "A Fifth of America," noted that 45 percent of Hispanic students are dropping out of suburban high schools.
The California Research Bureau, which reported in 2006 that the Latino graduation rate in California was just over 45 percent and in the Los Angeles Unified School District, 40 percent. The Bureau noted that a planned high-school exit exam, fiercely opposed by immigrant advocates, would likely depress Hispanic graduation rates to 30 percent. That controversial exam, by the way, would require students to answer just over 50 percent of questions testing 8th-grade-level math and 9th-grade level English. Academic skills among Latino students who do graduate in California are abysmal: Only 22 percent have completed the minimal coursework required for admission to the University of California, noted the Bureau. It is that persistent underachievement among Hispanics (as well, of course, as among blacks) that creates constant pressure for affirmative action in colleges and beyond.
Harvard economist Roland Fryer, who reported in the Winter 2006 issue of Education Next that the stigma against academic achievement is higher among Hispanic students than among blacks.
...If Chavez can make an argument for a Latino passion for educational achievement with a straight face, let's see her try.
By being a cheerleader for the happy fiction about far too many Latinos instead of the sad and disturbing facts, it's Chavez who's actually doing Latinos a disservice. Pretending there's no problem doesn't make the problem go away. Quite the contrary.
As Heather writes in her latest City Journal piece, Hispanics are a fast-growing population in this country who are seriously lagging educationally. Heather reviews the book, The Latino Education Crisis: The Consequences of Failed Social Policies, by Patricia Gandara and Frances Contreras. She calls it an "unflinching portrait of Hispanics' educational problems" -- one that "reaches a scary conclusion about those problems' costs":
The book's analysis is all the more surprising given that its authors are liberals committed to bilingual education, affirmative action, and the usual slate of left-wing social programs. Yet Gandara and Contreras, education professors at UCLA and the University of Washington, respectively, are more honest than many conservative open-borders advocates in acknowledging the bad news about Hispanic assimilation.Hispanics are underachieving academically at an alarming rate, the authors report. Though second- and third-generation Hispanics make some progress over their first-generation parents, that progress starts from an extremely low base and stalls out at high school completion. High school drop-out rates--around 50 percent--remain steady across generations. Latinos' grades and test scores are at the bottom of the bell curve. The very low share of college degrees earned by Latinos has not changed for more than two decades. Currently only one in ten Latinos has a college degree.
One hundred years ago, when the U.S. still required a large industrial and agricultural labor force, Hispanics' lagging educational performance would not have been such a problem. Our current information-based economy is unforgiving to the less-educated, however. When you couple U.S. demographics with the Hispanic education crisis, things look worrisome indeed. By 2025, one in four students nationally will be Latino; in many Southwest cities, Latinos are already about 70 percent of the school population. For the first time in history, the authors observe, the ethnic group with the lowest academic achievement will become the majority in significant parts of the country.
...Some readers may disagree with the book's policy recommendations--more benefits for illegal immigrants, more spending on social services and schools, more Section-8 housing vouchers, more bilingual education. Such programs have all been tried and have failed miserably. A more common-sensical solution is required. Certainly we should create more schools with an ethic of self discipline and hard work and continue doing everything we can to help Hispanic students succeed. But American immigration policy also needs to change. It should favor educated, skilled foreigners over low-skilled family members of existing immigrants. Law enforcement efforts against illegal immigration--targeting employers especially--must expand.
But however debatable some of the book's proposals, the evidence it presents for the "grave . . . economic and social consequences" of Hispanic educational failure is overwhelming. No matter who our next president is, The Latino Education Crisis should be required reading in the White House.
Oh yeah, Heather advises the authors about what to expect -- what I've experienced myself:
Gandara and Contreras had better get used to being called racists from open-borders supporters, as anyone who dares to point out Hispanic family breakdown can attest.
A note: I have to say, I haven't read the studies that either reference, but there seems to be plenty of evidence there's a problem.
My favorite stats on these issues for this week:
>>> Since 1980, the proportion of never-married mothers among college graduates has stabilized near 3 percent, while the proportion among high school graduates has risen from 3 percent to 10 percent, and the proportion among high school dropouts has doubled to nearly 15 percent. These figures are important because, as Hymowitz points out, "Virtually all—92 percent—of children whose families make over $75,000 are living with both parents. On the other end of the income scale, the situation is reversed: only about 20 percent of kids in families earning under $15,000 live with both parents."
Crid [cridcridatgmail] at October 9, 2008 2:31 AM
I have no stats or research or hard facts, just my observations. But, I live in a 95% minority poor neighborhood, and am married to a hispanic. College degrees among his aquaintances from growing up are rare. Both his sisters got their GED. One of them cares about her kids schooling, the other one actually bragged to me "My kids don't read!" when I bought them books for christmas instead of video games. In my neighborhood, the school is abysmal. My kids won't be going there. If we can't sell the house, they'll continue to go private, like they are now for PreK.
My husband looked around himself when he was in high school, and knew he had to escape. He joined the military, let them train him in biotechnology, and got his degree while in. He makes a good living now.
They do breed like rabbits. I have no issue with people having lots of kids (I'm pregnant with #4) but I do have issue with them having kids they can't support, with no dad, and not encouraging their education. We live here because we wanted to live below our means. The neighborhood has gone downhill.
The liberals are wrong, as usual, about the answer. It's not to give them more. It's to give them less. NO education for illegals or kids of illegals, no citizenship for their kids, no free healthcare or foodstamps or housing assistance. And really crack down on the people that hire them. Make it a business-ending fine, and no one will hire them. Then they won't come here. We do not need their labor. And when we find them, deport them.
momof3 at October 9, 2008 6:58 AM
Well, Mo3, you might get a large number of Americans on your side if we get a full-fledged depression.
When unemployment rates among citizens start going above 10%, people are going to demand that something be done about the 10 million illegals doing jobs that they feel entitled to (now that their cushy office jobs have ceased to exist).
It's gonna get ugly.
brian at October 9, 2008 7:05 AM
Who in the hell looked askance while they were coming in droves? Why didn't Bush get on his high horse and raise awareness of this gathering storm?
Rojak at October 9, 2008 8:10 AM
brian - It's gonna get ugly.
I would say that it is already ugly. Like momof3, I am married to an hispanic (Mexican). Her dad was born here but raised in mexico. Her mom born and raised in mexico. All are here legally. They are seriously pissed about all those that come here illegaly, and expect everything given to them (education, healthcare as examples).
Of the 10 or so friends my wife had in high school (Predominately Hispanic), 6 are single moms. Not a single one knows where the kids dads are, and all are on a form of publick assistance. My wife finally decided to stop being in contact with them as thier kids are spoiled, rude and undisciplined. They all now call her a sell out (because she married me - I'm white).
Just like the black community, unless those that are in the national spotlight step up and say, "We have a serious problem in our own community that we need to fix. Stop blaming everyone else for our problems and take some responsibility for your actions", we are going to continue to see race relation problems.
wolfboy69 at October 9, 2008 8:17 AM
Not a single one knows where the kids dads are, and all are on a form of publick assistance.
should read:
Not a single one knows where the kids dads are, and all are on a form of public assistance.
wolfboy69 at October 9, 2008 8:18 AM
I find it interesting that Linda Chavez holds herself out as a conservative, and she pretty much is, but as soon as Hispanic immigration is addressed, she becomes Michael Phelps at the pool's wall: whoosh & she's headed the other way.
BlogDog at October 9, 2008 9:17 AM
"And really crack down on the people that hire them. "
It is only a misdemeanor to knowingly hire illegal workers. That's Congress, not the immigration people who are to blame there. That has to start changing. Everyone immigration tries to crack down, the employers call their whores in ciongress, and it doesn't matter one bit which party that whore happens to belong to. And it doesn't a bit what that whore or the party say in public about the issue either.
But the weak economy is already haviong an effect on illegal migration. Remittances to Mexico are way down and apprehensions on the border and internally are way down, aside from the new policy of big heavily-publicized round-ups at laughterhouses and so on - but that's just another way of scapegoating the illegals and letting the employers go free.
The Chinese know how to deal with this kind of businessman.
Jim at October 9, 2008 10:00 AM
Here in Arizona, they will shut down your business if you hire illegals. And give you a huge fine. It started in January of this year. Every single person has to get their citizenship checked before getting hired. Doesn't change the fact that not a single kitchen person at my work is legal, but it has curtailed it a bit.
maureen at October 9, 2008 10:51 AM
"Remittances to Mexico are way down and apprehensions on the border and internally are way down, aside from the new policy of big heavily-publicized round-ups at laughterhouses and so on - but that's just another way of scapegoating the illegals and letting the employers go free."
Comedy clubs. Who knew?
--
phunctor
phunctor at October 9, 2008 1:30 PM
Conditions in those places are just awful, too... Inhumane and unhygienic... Sometimes tainted product makes it out into people's homes....
Crid at October 9, 2008 7:29 PM
When we first moved to South Pasadena in the mid-80s, the high school decided on a dress code. No tank tops for either sex. The families that complained weren't Asian, that's for sure. "How will my daughters feel like women?" was a question at the PTA from Latina moms. (I'm not making this stuff up--there's an ancient LAT story, buried in the archives about this meeting.)
Soft bigotry of low expectations, etc. And the American Apparel ads aren't helping.
Kate at October 9, 2008 10:01 PM
Conditions in those places are just awful, too... Inhumane and unhygienic... Sometimes tainted product makes it out into people's homes....
Strange but true: Lynndie England worked in a chicken slaughterhouse before joining the military, but quit because she couldn't stand the cruelty... to chickens.
Quizzical1 at October 10, 2008 6:40 AM
Well, I was speaking of the Laugh Factory, but sure....
Crid [cridcridatgmail] at October 10, 2008 11:46 AM
Its not hard to understand... culture is destiny. The beliefs of a people limit and define what they will become.
If America is going to survive as a great nation, we need to reassert the successful tradition of assimilation -- the immigrant leaves behind the language and ways of their old homeland and rises to the standards of our land.
A newcomer who insists on keeping their native language and culture is not an immigrant, he is a colonist, and as such he has no right to stay here. A nation cannot be forced to welcome an enemy with open arms.
There has never been a bigger academic fraud than multiculturalism, and it needs to be purged from all levels of government and education. There is nothing enlightened, kind, or tolerant about pretending the atavistic tribalism of multiculti is beneficial to any individual, the nation, or the world. It is time to lay down the law of Darwin to these newcomers -- adapt, move [back], or die.
I hope we don't have to go as far as the last option, but it is better than continuing the charade that mass immigration is working... destroying all that we have built due of a simpering fear of offending.
Close the borders, limit immigration to small amounts of immediate family reunification, and assimilate those who are here. When these goals have been reached, in three or four decades, we can reconsider opening the borders again.
Only a traitor or the ideologically blind still see mass immigration as a plus. Time to end it... now!
stevieray at October 10, 2008 10:53 PM
I'd like to preface my comment with three statements:
1) I'm all for Americans learning a second language.
2) I'm all for groups of recent immigrants using their own language in their own businesses ("Little Italy," "China Town," etc.)
30 I'm all for immigrants keeping their own language at home.
4) I'm a child of immigrant parents and I didn't speak English when I started kindergarten.
Part of being an immigrant is assimilating to the country you chose to live in, not just using it for its financial benefits to live as you otherwise would in your homeland.
Monica at October 13, 2008 11:28 AM
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