Immigration

Although the Census Bureau should be reasonably adept with demographic projections, it wouldn't surprise me if the Martinez thing was straight line projection. You're still looking at a mother-huge wave.

I rate assimilation by the original cultural identity becoming secondary (not lost, but secondary) to an American cultural identity. With a language barrier that doesn't get broken down combined with the insular communities common to all these waves, you're seeing a stronger sense of "Hispanic". I can't tell you how many Mexican flags I saw in Indianapolis. I'm not talking East LA here...Indianapolis. You didn't see parades of Russians or Vietnamese or Poles, waving the flags of their former countries. The elementary school my kids attended in Indy (again, we're talking suburban Indianapolis, not El Paso) was scrambling to find bi-lingual teachers because the hispanic kids were not being forced to learn English at home and had no interest learning it at school. That's also different from previous immigration waves.

Prime Junta said:

That depends on what you mean by assimilation. If you mean linguistic assimilation, you're very likely right -- but what's so terrible about being bilingual anyway? However, I see no reason to believe that the Hispanics won't assimilate culturally -- that is, become an accepted, productive, and constructive part of the American polity.

As to the projection, without checking it I would venture a guess that it's a straight-line trend extension based on current rates. That never works in demographics, as it fails to take into account the drop in fertility caused by socio-economic improvement and female literacy. Fertility rates always fall after the second generation.

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The problem with bilingual is that too many AREN'T bilingual. They only speak Spanish and make little to no attempt to learn English. What's worse is that in many schools, they just teach them in Spanish because it is easier. Obviously that is not all Hispanics, but enough that it is posing a problem.

I personally don't care what language a person speaks, but if we end up with a society where the higher socio-economic class speaks one language (English) and the lower speaks another (Spanish), it will causes a LOT of problems going forward stemming from a reduced mobility because the classes.

I can't put it any better than a guy quoted in an article about 'bilingual' education in the souther part of Texas (the Valley). He was a bus boy, but had made an effort to learn English. His children were being taught in Spanish at the school, with little to no education in English. He took it upon himself to teach them English, even going so far as not allowing them to speak Spanish at home. Why?

"They teach them in Spanish in school and they will grow up to be dishwashers and maids. I teach them English so they will grow up to be doctors and lawyers."

The simple fact is that if you don't speak English in this country, your options are going to be very, very limited. You aren't going to go to college and 95% of all non labor intensive jobs you will be excluded from.

blatantninja said:

The simple fact is that if you don't speak English in this country, your options are going to be very, very limited. You aren't going to go to college and 95% of all non labor intensive jobs you will be excluded from.

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I agree with the point, but I'm amazed how much the country is bending over to cater to Spanish speakers. Would it be a big stretch to see colleges start teaching in Spanish as well? Perhaps we'll see the advent of "traditionally Hispanic colleges"?

dteowner said:

I agree with the point, but I'm amazed how much the country is bending over to cater to Spanish speakers. Would it be a big stretch to see colleges start teaching in Spanish as well? Perhaps we'll see the advent of "traditionally Hispanic colleges"?

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I'm not amazed that businesses or governments are bending over. Businesses see profits, governments see responsibility. However, regardless of how many of either do, you'll have to be bilingual to get jobs in either (of any medium to high level).

Now, if they do start having colleges that teach completely in Spanish, you could eventually see a shift.

«Funny» to hear the same kind of langage debate we have here in Quebec since decades, in the USA.

Except here it's english the «invading» langage versus french.

dteowner said:

.... Would it be a big stretch to see colleges start teaching in Spanish as well? Perhaps we'll see the advent of "traditionally Hispanic colleges"?

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Well, we have quite a few 'traditionally black' colleges that came into existence because African-Americans couldn't access mainstream universities--there's one not far from me (Langston University) in a small town that's still predominantly African American. In the South, that was probably a matter of simple physical protection and survival at the time the town was founded. Now it's more or less a lifestyle choice, and probably also somewhat of an economic one.

Still, like the all-male or all-female Ivy League colleges, the makeup of the student body has changed and the campus now has:

students from all 50 states and several foreign countries representing the most diverse student body at an Oklahoma college

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Same thing could happen for Hispanics, but I can't see 'traditionally Hispanic' higher education as a choice based as much on physical survival, or a necessity forced into being by a predominantly racist overculture because the playing field for minorities in the post-millennium is demonstrably different than in the 1800's, and that to me makes it primarily a question of lifestyle and culture; and in that trend I would worry about a 'separate but equal' dichotomy or apartheid between Hispanics and non-Hispanics. That would really cause some major internal problems.

dteowner said:

I agree with the point, but I'm amazed how much the country is bending over to cater to Spanish speakers. Would it be a big stretch to see colleges start teaching in Spanish as well? Perhaps we'll see the advent of "traditionally Hispanic colleges"?

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Finland is a bilingual country: we have a Swedish-speaking minority of about 4% of the population. That means we have Swedish-speaking schools and universities. Finnish-speakers have to take Swedish-language courses at school and vice versa.

On the whole, it works fine. Most Swedish-speakers also speak Finnish more or less fluently, and most Finnish-speakers know at least the basics of Swedish. Any Swedish-speaker who wants to work as something other than a farmer or fisherman in one of the Swedish-majority areas will learn Finnish as a matter of course.

Bi- or multilingual countries are more common than monolingual ones. There's nothing to be afraid of if the USA becomes one more of those. Sure, there will likely always be some Hispanics who won't speak English, but the great majority of them will -- even if as a second language. But from that to having the Anglo-Saxon Protestant American culture eclipsed is a very, very, very long way -- and a way that's highly unlikely to ever be traversed, let alone in the lifetimes of any of our lifetimes, or the lifetimes of our children or grandchildren.

Prime Junta said:

Finland is a bilingual country: we have a Swedish-speaking minority of about 4% of the population. That means we have Swedish-speaking schools and universities. Finnish-speakers have to take Swedish-language courses at school and vice versa.

On the whole, it works fine. Most Swedish-speakers also speak Finnish more or less fluently, and most Finnish-speakers know at least the basics of Swedish. Any Swedish-speaker who wants to work as something other than a farmer or fisherman in one of the Swedish-majority areas will learn Finnish as a matter of course.

Bi- or multilingual countries are more common than monolingual ones. There's nothing to be afraid of if the USA becomes one more of those. Sure, there will likely always be some Hispanics who won't speak English, but the great majority of them will -- even if as a second language. But from that to having the Anglo-Saxon Protestant American culture eclipsed is a very, very, very long way -- and a way that's highly unlikely to ever be traversed, let alone in the lifetimes of any of our lifetimes, or the lifetimes of our children or grandchildren.

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Prima, unfortunately, as it stands now, the great majority aren't learning English and generally have shown little intention of doing it.

I'm fine with bilingual, so long as it's actually bilingual.

blatantninja said:

Prima, unfortunately, as it stands now, the great majority aren't learning English and generally have shown little intention of doing it.

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@blatantninja, that's not true.

First-generation immigrants do have trouble with English -- all of the non-Anglo immigrant groups did -- but second- and third-generation Hispanics are learning English. Specifically, 9% of second-generation Hispanics are Spanish-dominant, as are only 2% of third-generation Hispanics. (The rest are English-dominant or bilingual.)

What's more, the trend towards adopting English is positive -- the numbers look better in 2000 than in 1980.

Source: [ http://www.apsanet.org/imgtest/PerspectivesMar07Citrin_etal.pdf ]

I'm fine with bilingual, so long as it's actually bilingual.

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Well then, you've nothing to worry about -- only the first-generationers are predominantly Spanish-dominant. They'll assimilate just fine, given a generation or two, even with the influx.

Prime Junta said:

@blatantninja, that's not true.

First-generation immigrants do have trouble with English -- all of the non-Anglo immigrant groups did -- but second- and third-generation Hispanics are learning English. Specifically, 9% of second-generation Hispanics are Spanish-dominant, as are only 2% of third-generation Hispanics. (The rest are English-dominant or bilingual.)

What's more, the trend towards adopting English is positive -- the numbers look better in 2000 than in 1980.

Source: [ http://www.apsanet.org/imgtest/PerspectivesMar07Citrin_etal.pdf ]



Well then, you've nothing to worry about -- only the first-generationers are predominantly Spanish-dominant. They'll assimilate just fine, given a generation or two, even with the influx.

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My personal experience living in Dallas was quite different than that.

As is my personal experience in Indy.

If your theory were true, PJ, elementary and secondary schools would not be seeking bi-lingual teachers because the 2nd gen kids would be learning English.

@BN- why in the world did you leave the promised land? I loved Fort Worth for the 6 months I was there.

@bn, @dte -- we're talking about the overall demographic trend here. It certainly doesn't rule out pockets where assimilation is slower. (Hell, those 9% of Spanish-dominant second-generationers have to be *somewhere* -- and that somewhere is almost certainly just such a pocket, since they wouldn't be able to function in an English-dominant microenvironment.)

If you actually live in one of those pockets, your experience will be atypical -- and, of course, the media loves to pick up on those outliers and make a big song and dance out of them.

It seems strange that diverse locations like Dallas and Indianapolis would be pockets. That doesn't even begin to scratch California, where the support network for Spanish-only would be significantly better. Perhaps one of our CA residents would give us a "man on the ground" report. I'm beginning to doubt your stats, PJ, although I don't have any numbers to counter with.

PJ is exactly right. I have lived in Asian dominated part of London for over 15 years and I have to tell you that, while parents might not speak English at all, their kids almost invariably do. Hindi, Urdu, Tamil (ect.) speaking teachers are necessary at the early stages of educational process to smooth transition between native languages and English but, later on, Asian kids do very nicely (on average) in purely English speaking schools.

dteowner said:

It seems strange that diverse locations like Dallas and Indianapolis would be pockets. That doesn't even begin to scratch California, where the support network for Spanish-only would be significantly better. Perhaps one of our CA residents would give us a "man on the ground" report. I'm beginning to doubt your stats, PJ, although I don't have any numbers to counter with.

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You're entitled to do that, but I'm sure you understand that when reasonably well-researched stats are available I'd rather trust them than anecdotal evidence from individuals.

One significant thing is that, as you said, the current immigration wave is pretty big. Since the first-gen immigrants will have trouble with the language, you'll see a lot more Spanish-dominant people around, which will give you the impression that they're not assimilating.

But I still wager that if you went around asking them, you'd find that most second-plus generationers will be able to talk to you in fluent English.

dteowner said:

@BN- why in the world did you leave the promised land? I loved Fort Worth for the 6 months I was there.

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I love Texas, and will always be a Texan! However, I work in the investment industry and while there are a lot of good investment jobs in Texas, the kind I am interested in generally required prior experience that was very hard to come by in Texas. Nearly everyone I met that had the jobs I wanted had spent significant time cutting their teeth in NYC. So, after I finished the Chartered Financial Analyst program, I decided to move to NYC.

I figure my wife and I will be here 5-10 years. We're two years into it and I'm finally getting somewhere job wise!

Prime Junta said:

It was a metaphor for the traditional role of women -- dominated by their husbands, confined to the kitchen.



The first part of your sentence makes no sense -- sure, some patriotic couples might have one for Mom, one for Dad, and one for the Reich, but you won't have enough of them to make a demographic impact without something as rigid and all-encompassing as the Nazi ideology.

The second one does, but only to a limited degree: it has been shown that tax rebates and other incentives do affect fertility. France is near the top end of fertility rates in Europe, and not surprisingly it also spends near the top end on babies -- and has possibly the best universal health care system anywhere. However, even so, the fertility rate is at 1.98 -- below replacement level.

That gives a pretty good idea of how high the fertility rate can go in a society with more or less equal sexes. The USA has a rate of 2.05 -- and a fair part of the difference is accounted for by first-generation Hispanic immigrants, with lower female literacy rates and consequently higher fertility.

In other words, what you're proposing is if not actually impossible, very, very difficult to achieve without resorting to totalitarian forms of social control -- or totalitarian ideologies.



Yah, the good ol' days. Yankee doodle dandy and all that commotion.

By the way, where do you feel is the intrinsic value in making people at home as opposed to importing them from abroad? From where I'm at, the latter looks like a win-win scenario -- the importing country keeps its demographic pyramid healthy, while the exporting one relieves population pressure and acquires both money (through remittances) and valuable skills (through diffusion and return immigration).

The Hispanic people you're importing will assimilate over a couple of generations, just like all your previous generations of immigrants have, and they will enrich your culture with theirs, just like all the previous generations. You won't be overwhelmed by them, because their fertility rates will drop quickly as their socioeconomic position rises -- even though becoming bilingual would certainly enrich your more than impoverish you.

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Hmm, not too surprised the Reich and Hitler was brought up, especially considering how many people(especially outside the U.S.) seem to equate GWB with Hitler. Granted I'm no fan of GWB either, but I don't think if a president actually came out and made a patriotic speech and said that the population of the country was stagnating or dying off because people weren't having kids any more and asked married people to start having kids again or have an extra kid or two if they already had some, and then talked about an incentive plan like tax breaks, it would be akin to the start of a fourth reich or something. What if Hillary Clinton or Obama made a speech like this instead of GWB? Would you view it any differently? I imagine most people, especially outside the U.S.(who in general tend to lean more to the left)would view it more favorably.
I recall a patriotic speech by JFK where he called on Americans to be patriotic in so many words by saying "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country". I didn't see too many people calling him Hitler or Nazi-like for asking Americans to help their country instead of waiting around for their country to help them.
And in case I was unclear, I was not advocating raising the birthrates to the point that we wouldn't need legal immigration any more. We should always have a certain amount of legal immigration coming in from diverse races and nationalities.
Just saying it seems strange that there has been little if any effort to point out that birthrates are too low in this country and perhaps that is part of the reason politicians see the need to keep increasing legal immigration while allowing illegal immigration to increasingly flood out of control in recent decades.
Polls show that a majority of Americans don't want legal immigration increased and want illegal immigration stopped. Many of those same people might not even realize there is a problem with birthrates being too low(hence the need for them to be educated about that somehow), and if birthrates went up a bit, then perhaps politicians would not be advocating large increases to legal immigration and allowing illegal immigration to continue to flood out of control.

Speaking of assimilation, and how easily that will happen, and how long it will be until traditional American culture is eclipsed, this article may give you some idea of some of what is going on in California and other parts of the U.S.
An article from the New York times mentions how a hispanic woman was interviewed and asked about an American cultural icon Roy Rogers, and her reply was ''Roy Rogers? He doesn't mean anything,'' said Rosalina Sondoval-Marin, who was having a beer in the El Chubasco bar on historic Route 66. ''There's a revolution going on and it don't include no Roy Rogers or Bob Hope.''
That doesn't sound like assimilation and acceptance of traditional American culture to me, it sounds like a hispanic woman who doesn't like American culture and wants Spanish/hispanic culture to take over.
Another article I read awhile back in the Los Angeles Times(its in the LA Times archives now, and to get the full article you have to pay for it, otherwise you can only see the first few paragraphs)talks about how quickly hispanics are taking over and focuses on one town and mentions one woman's experience there back in 1993.
Here is the link to where the article is in the LA Times archive
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes...+live+with+a+change+they+know+is+here+to+stay.
And here is the link to where you can see the part of the article I am referring to
http://www.leavingcal.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=immigrant;action=display;num=1158715108

When Linda Granzella describes the Williams High School homecoming game of 1993, her words come out in an emotional rush. She is sitting in the office of her family's combination restaurant, motel and olive packing company, barely looking up as the tale bursts forth.
Granzella was in the bleachers, waiting for the Yellowjackets to take the field, when the high school band struck up the national anthem. The loudspeaker's disembodied voice asked everyone to stand.
What happened next "put me over the edge," she said. "Eighty percent of the stadium wouldn't stand. They were Hispanic children, and they didn't stand for the national anthem ," I asked them why. They said, 'This is not our country.' "
The indignant mother's response was visceral: She took her daughter out of Williams Elementary School and sent her 10 miles east to a public school in the county seat of Colusa.

These are just a few examples, there are many others. These are not isolated incidents.
I'll have to agree with the dte and ninja in echoing concerns about assimilation, as well as acceptance of traditional American culture. That isn't to say none are assimilating or accepting American culture, many do. Just pointing out some of the many instances where they are not.
Personally if I immigrated to some other country, I'd do my best to learn the language there and would try to get into the culture of that country, not disrespect it and try to actively change it to mirror American culture.
Its odd how many times I've heard people outside the U.S. tell U.S. citizens that they shouldn't be so concerned about illegal immigration and it isn't anything to be worried about. It makes me wonder why they think they know better whats going on inside the country, than people who actually live here. It would be like me telling a Swedish citizen that I knew better about what was going on in his own country than he did. Likely the Swedish citizen would get a bit annoyed and maybe even angry where I to do that, and I wouldn't blame him.

The Hulk said:

Hmm, not too surprised the Reich and Hitler was brought up, especially considering how many people(especially outside the U.S.) seem to equate GWB with Hitler. Granted I'm no fan of GWB either, but I don't think if a president actually came out and made a patriotic speech and said that the population of the country was stagnating or dying off because people weren't having kids any more and asked married people to start having kids again or have an extra kid or two if they already had some, and then talked about an incentive plan like tax breaks, it would be akin to the start of a fourth reich or something. What if Hillary Clinton or Obama made a speech like this instead of GWB? Would you view it any differently? I imagine most people, especially outside the U.S.(who in general tend to lean more to the left)would view it more favorably.

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You missed my point. The speeches aren't the problem -- there's nothing wrong with a politician exhorting people to have kids; nor is there anything wrong with the government providing incentives for people to have kids -- quite the contrary, I'm all for paid maternity/paternity leave, counseling and health care, child care, and even tax breaks.

My point was that if you believe that the speeches (not the incentives) will actually get people to do it you're looking at a whole new level of ideological commitment. Most people have kids for themselves; some have them because their religions prohibits contraception. You have to be very, very patriotic indeed to have a baby for the Fatherland -- that's the kind of patriotism that you'd associate with totalitarian, integrist ideologies, like Nazism or revolutionary Communism.

Just saying it seems strange that there has been little if any effort to point out that birthrates are too low in this country and perhaps that is part of the reason politicians see the need to keep increasing legal immigration while allowing illegal immigration to increasingly flood out of control in recent decades.
Polls show that a majority of Americans don't want legal immigration increased and want illegal immigration stopped. Many of those same people might not even realize there is a problem with birthrates being too low(hence the need for them to be educated about that somehow), and if birthrates went up a bit, then perhaps politicians would not be advocating large increases to legal immigration and allowing illegal immigration to continue to flood out of control.

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I've seen the low American (or, specifically, the low Anglo-Saxon Protestant) birthrate discussed a quite a lot, especially in right-wing media. But going from realizing that to actually having more babies is a whole different ball game. It's a bit like taxation, really -- (almost) everybody's in favor of taxes for other people.

Speaking of assimilation, and how easily that will happen, and how long it will be until traditional American culture is eclipsed, this article may give you some idea of some of what is going on in California and other parts of the U.S.
An article from the New York times mentions how a hispanic woman was interviewed and asked about an American cultural icon Roy Rogers, and her reply was ''Roy Rogers? He doesn't mean anything,'' said Rosalina Sondoval-Marin, who was having a beer in the El Chubasco bar on historic Route 66. ''There's a revolution going on and it don't include no Roy Rogers or Bob Hope.''
That doesn't sound like assimilation and acceptance of traditional American culture to me, it sounds like a hispanic woman who doesn't like American culture and wants Spanish/hispanic culture to take over.

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Are you serious? You're judging somebody's commitment to assimilation based on whether they know who Roy Rogers is/was? (I don't, FWIW.)

Don't you think that's just a bit... you know, irrelevant? Wouldn't it be more important to check out whether they're learning the language, how they would feel about their kids marrying outside their ethnic group, how they would feel working with or for, or hiring, people of other ethnic groups and so on?

Its odd how many times I've heard people outside the U.S. tell U.S. citizens that they shouldn't be so concerned about illegal immigration and it isn't anything to be worried about. It makes me wonder why they think they know better whats going on inside the country, than people who actually live here. It would be like me telling a Swedish citizen that I knew better about what was going on in his own country than he did. Likely the Swedish citizen would get a bit annoyed and maybe even angry where I to do that, and I wouldn't blame him.

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To be an expert on daily life in America, you certainly have to live in America. However, you don't have to live in America to understand, for example, demographic trends in America -- there is plenty of solid research and numbers available on the subject. So if your putative Swede has read up on those numbers, and understands enough about demographics to be able to interpret them, then, yes, he will understand immigration in America better than an American who hasn't done that homework, but has only seen daily Fox News snippets on Hispanics dissing American icons.

The same goes for an American reading up on immigration and demographics in Sweden, naturally.

In other words, living there doesn't exempt you from doing the homework.

Oh, and... getting upset at the smartass foreigner is certainly human, but that doesn't necessarily mean the foreigner is wrong or isn't entitled to an opinion.

But the fer'ner is such a smartass...

You didn't quote what I thought was the most damning part of Hulk's extensive post.

"What happened next "put me over the edge," she said. "Eighty percent of the stadium wouldn't stand. They were Hispanic children, and they didn't stand for the national anthem ," I asked them why. They said, 'This is not our country.' "

More anecdotal evidence, but the pile is getting awfully tall.

History is striking back? Afterall, Texas and california were part of mexico, not even 200 years ago.