Immigration Realism
Ross Douhat has a thoughtful piece on immigration issues in The New York Times:
3. Culture is very real, and cultural inheritances tend to be enduring. Present-day America attests to that fact: We pride ourselves (justifiably) on our success assimilating immigrants, but centuries after their arrival various immigrant folkways still define our country's regions and their mores. The Scandinavian diaspora across the upper Midwest still looks a great deal like Scandinavia -- hardworking, gender egalitarian, with high levels of civic trust, higher-than-average educations and incomes, etc. The cavaliers, servants, and slaves migration to Tidewater Virginia obviously still shapes the Deep South's entrenched hierarchies of race and class. The Scots-Irish migration to Appalachia and its environs is still heavily responsible for America's sky-high-by-Western-standards murder rate. And of course the wider world is full of similarly striking case studies.What this implies is that accepting immigrants from a particular country or culture or region involves accepting that your own nation, or part of your own nation, will become at least a little more like their country of origin.
...5. Punctuated immigration encourages assimilation; constant immigration limits it. Salam's essay makes this point well:
In Replenished Ethnicity, Stanford sociologist Tomás Jiménez argues that one of the main differences between the Mexican-origin population in the U.S. and the white-ethnic descendants of immigrants who arrived in the early 1900s is that because mass European immigration ended more than 80 years ago, Italian Americans do not generally find themselves in social worlds dominated by recent Italian immigrants. The result is that Italian-American identity is largely symbolic and optional, and Italian Americans are perceived as indistinguishable from other white Anglos.
This is not the case with Muslim immigration in Europe.
And a comment on Douhat's piece:
schbrg, dallas, texas
Dear Mr. Douthat, thank you for writing this essay. It is the clearest, most concise writing I have seen on immigration and its intended, and above all, unintended consequences.I am a naturalized American citizen whose first language is Spanish, although I speak English better than Spanish now.
When I came to the United States at the age of 9, I was the only Spanish speaker and was surrounded by only English speakers. The condition in Dallas schools now is almost the opposite, and English proficiency suffers among its Hispanic students.
At a time when the phrase "melting pot" is considered racist by many social justice warriors, I am afraid that what is happening in the United States is the growth of parallel societies based on English proficiency, education, and of course, income. But the melting is much more attenuated.
via @SteveStuWill
Here is a point nobody ever considers:
English proficiency suffers among Hispanics for the same reason Spanish proficiency is fucking abysmal, they're uneducated. It isn't about a cultural MECHA resistance to learn and adopt English---which is the point conservatives seem obsessed with.
My father was an anal retentive twat who forced me to learn Spanish (grateful about it now) and what I consistently see is that the immigrants coming into this country from Mexico and Central America can somewhat read but barely proficiently write Spanish. This translates into a lack of wanting to learn yet a second language when they haven't even mastered the first.
Now once they have kids the Spanish gets even choppier, poorer, broken with zero ability to write it. The reason these kids aren't learning Englush well either though is more of a lack of a push for an education than desire to keep cultural traditions.
This fucking writer also took Tomas Jimenez' book out of context. He forgot to include the part where Mexican Americans and Mexicans hate each other's guts. But that isn't talked about much is it? All Hispanics are cumbaya with each other when in reality we segregate and antagonize each other as a rule.
Ppen at January 16, 2016 6:39 AM
" is more of a lack of a push for an education than desire to keep cultural traditions."
Except that the push or non-push of education sometimes is a cultural tradition in itself. For example Jewish it is a cultural tradition to push education, Amish in many respects pushes the other way. Arguments could be made that reading/studying = Acting White is an example of a non-push in other cultures.
Joe J at January 16, 2016 9:38 AM
Or, reading/studying is now often considered "acting like a girl," since things are different from just a few decades ago, when girls weren't just supposed to be modest about their academic accomplishments; they were supposed to practically pretend those accomplishments didn't exist - or to act dumb in general if they were to attract boys at all. Whereas today, many (not most, I hope) boys, in their free time, wallow in little other than violent video games and football, since they crave areas of life where girls mostly just don't go (which used to be the case with graduate schools and, often, college).
Miss Manners had a good 1993 column on "playing dumb" (it's the second letter):
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1993-07-07/entertainment/9307070304_1_dogs-behavior-gentleman-courting
Her bottom line: When two people, dating or not, play a game (crosswords, chess, etc.), getting openly upset over the other person's superior talents is for babies. It's actually FUN for mature people when both sides play a game and do their best. What's NOT a good idea is for two people to keep playing the same type of game when only one person ever wins due to being twice as talented - what would be the point?
lenona at January 16, 2016 10:14 AM
Wait: the scots-irish are to blame for our high murder rate? Damn, I never realized Detroit and Chicago and New Orleans were so full of pasty-white redheaded violent people.
momof4 at January 16, 2016 12:58 PM
My take on immigration comes from a different angle: I don't know why we would be letting a bunch of new people into the country when there aren't enough jobs to go around for the people who are already here. Let's get unemployment and underemployment under control, and THEN talk about who else want to let in.
Pirate Jo at January 16, 2016 1:09 PM
Wait: the scots-irish are to blame for our high murder rate? Damn, I never realized Detroit and Chicago and New Orleans were so full of pasty-white redheaded violent people.
Posted by: momof4 at January 16, 2016 12:58 PM
You are correct here. The author of the piece decided to go PC, and not call attention to the fact that when you take out the black on black murders in the big cities, the US is, on average, no more violent than any other European country.
Britain is a more violent country than the others, and the Borderers, (Scots Irish) in an almost constant state of warfare for the last four hundred years or more, makes for quite a violent culture.
On the plus side, these people, like Jim Webb, are the backbone of our military and also encourage and tolerate strong independent women.
For more on this subject, I suggest : Albion's Seed. A truly great book.
Once you read it, you might begin to understand why Muslims are fine, as long as they aren't culturally from Arab Persian, North African culture. (I don't want Chirstians from those cultures either because it's the culture that poisons the religion)
Isab at January 17, 2016 6:24 AM
Isab is right Momof4. We are a bit more rough than your typical knobby kneed English. But it doesn't make us that dangerous. Personally I see no issue with going to a local pub and tying one on. But I also so no issue with you dying when you fall asleep on the railroad tracks or accidentally break into someone's home. You took your life into your own hands in the pub, but it is your life to do with as you please.
Ben at January 17, 2016 7:10 AM
"The Scots-Irish migration to Appalachia and its environs is still heavily responsible for America's sky-high-by-Western-standards murder rate. "
Sorry, but I stopped reading here. This is a preposterous and very old sentiment (Northerners good, Southerners bad, no Irish need apply, I get it), which he offers without any supporting evidence. I guess all those murders in Chicago are being committed by Kentucky dirt-farmers who sneak into Illinois at night and then high-tail it back before daylight. To me, it invalidates any other thoughts that Douhat has on the subject.
Oh, and Ross? Have you been to Virginia lately? It's mostly full of suburban Washingtonians now.
Cousin Dave at January 19, 2016 2:22 PM
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