ALIEN NATION
"On the seventh day the Lord rested, but before that he did, he squatted over the side of England and what came out of him... was Ireland. No offense son." -- Bill the Butcher
Karl Marx said the worker has no country, but he was wrong. A country's government can be very useful in supplying essential goods and services not forthcoming by other means. Workers need this sort of help more than the wealthy. Our question is how to regard the needs of workers with U.S. citizenship vis-a-vis those without.
The populist tradition, subject of my incessant bloviation on this site, is not helpful in this endeavor. I must admit that U.S. populism -- my favorite, the old-fashioned 19th century kind -- is shot through with nativism, religious prejudice, and racism. Andy Jackson, who murdered Native Americans with abandon, was an early populist hero. So too was slave-owner and slave-diddler Thomas Jefferson. On immigration, we need some populist revisionism, perhaps under the leadership of the Afro-Jewish Peoples Party. (Our slogan: El pueblo contra los poderosos!)
With just the tiniest bit of hindsight, the foolishness of this view should be apparent. Today's workers are yesterday's immigrants. YOU are yesterday's immigrant. Tomorrow's Americans are today's immigrants. Doubtless tomorrow's naturalized Honduran-Americans will be griping about the influx of Indonesians. (Their food is smelly! Too much fish oil!)
Are there legitimate gripes about immigrants? No. Let's tick them off.
Immigrants take jobs from Americans. No. The Federal Reserve takes jobs from Americans, out of irrational fears of inflation. There were plenty of immigrants in the late 1990s, and a record performance in employment at the same time. More often than not, the vagaries of monetary policy, motivated by inordinate fear of inflation, prevent the economy from reaching its potential.
Immigrants push down wages by competing for scarce jobs. No. Jobs expand when there are more applicants, just as they do when pure-blooded (sic) American babies are born. The extent of documented wage pressure is a) very limited and b) confined to a relatively low-paying jobs.
The misperception here derives from churning in the labor market. Jobs are created and destroyed at a rapid and uneven pace, thanks in part to technological change and to out-sourcing. The net change in jobs, positive or negative, is much less than the gross change, meaning more jobs are destroyed and created in a year than the overall net change in the total. Our export industries are hammered by failure to address the exchange rate of the over-valued dollar, out of inordinate fear of inflation. Sound familiar?
To be sure, both factors greatly disrupt the finances and careers of many individuals, and something ought to be done -- and can be done -- about such economic violence. With no immigrants there would still be that volatility. Anti-immigrant demagogues are fronting for the Fed and the parasites of high finance.
Immigrants compete for jobs formerly protected by unionization. No. Today the most vibrant, growing part of the labor movement is immigrant-based. If you are a nurse, for instance, are you better off because the Los Angeles home health care workers joined the SEIU en masse, or not? I would say better off.
Destruction of unions, especially from trends starting with the Reagan era, opens the way to "de-skilling" of jobs, a crash in labor standards, and the introduction of undocumented workers. Stronger unions can only put upward pressure on wages, not the reverse. Opposition to unionization is justified by . . . wait for it . . . inordinate fear of inflation. Getting deja vu yet?
Immigrants are a drain on public services, especially schools, health care, and law enforcement. No, no, and no. Let's take these one at a time.
The immigrant population is disproportionately young. Not-elderly people, especially children, use less health care, not more. Children of course must be educated, and that costs money, but what economists call the "accounting period" here is the key. Over the course of a lifetime, an educated, healthy child will contribute more to the economy than she takes away. Otherwise the nation would be better if there were no people in it. In general, the ability to nourish what Herr Hitler called "useless eaters" is a credit to the nation, not a burden.
A commenter cited statistics on the poor educational attainment of Hispanics, relative to whites. Nobody claims Asian immigrants have any such problem. Poverty would seem to be at issue here. Of course, we have poor American citizens too. I think we can address poverty, from either source. Most importantly, we can make work pay and make work legal.
The onus on illegals actually worsens the problem they are supposed to create. Illegals consume public services but may not pay their full share of taxes. Or their employers may not pay the taxes due on their workers. The tax thing is serious, but it is not limited to illegals. About $350 billion annually in just Federal taxes (well over the current Federal budget deficit) are not paid voluntarily and on time. We need more law and order in this realm. Part of the solution is legalizing illegals, bringing them and their employers under the tender loving care of the IRS.
What about crime? Is this wave of immigrants any more susceptible to the temptations of criminality than any in the past? Should we have deported the Italians because of the Mafia, or the Jews because Arnold Rothstein fixed the World Series? I would certainly deport any illegals convicted of crimes, in a New York minute. That's an easy call.
The broader law enforcement issue is to strike reasonable goals for immigration and paths to citizenship and enforce them seriously, focusing on employers. I would abolish guest worker and H1B visa programs used by employers to beat down pay scales. I would enforce labor law, reducing the incentive to exploit labor outside the protections of fair labor standards. I would help state and local governments prevent employers from absconding after taking advantage of public subsidies.
I would not object to a national identity card. For all practical purposes, you have no right to conceal your identity to begin with. Lack of a card just confounds an array of basic law enforcement tasks.
Another commenter raised the matter of remittances immigrant workers send to their families. This is trivial. It pales besides the humongous U.S. trade deficit. If you're worried about money leaving the country, stop buying imports! Or get the US Gov to stop running budget deficits, which requires massive borrowing from foreigners.
Given the lopsided age distribution of the population that is commonly held (erroneously, but that's another story) to spell economic disaster in the future, we would benefit from more prime-age workers and their children. To recap my three-point plan for Social Security: a) more sex; b) more immigrants; c) more sex with immigrants. As Austin Powers would say, I lift my lava lamp beside that groovy golden door, Baby.
I like Max's version of the 'A,B,C's.
As Max knows the immigration numbers in the Social Security Reports are pure fantasy. To take them seriously you have to believe that in the face of future labor shortages that immigration peaked in 2004 and will drop in both nominal and real terms going forward. The How and the Why of this remains unexplained. Mainly because it is inexplicable to start with.
http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TR/TR06/V_demographic.html#wp178759
December 18, 2006 4:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have thought that the only reason some illegals resort to crime here is that we have criminalized their search for good jobs that allow them to support their families. By declaring their efforts illegal, we prevent them from trusting legal sources of work that they would otherwise prefer, and we make them distrustful of legal authorities.
That makes it seem safer to operate in the varius off-the-books economies which are by definition themselves illegal.
The recent raids on workers at the meatpacking plants are an example. Those raids got people who were providing value to our economy (and ham products for our tables.) They were working people providing good value for their efforts, not criminals breaking into homes and stealing. They should be provided a clear path away from the criminal underclass.
Instead, all the proposed legislation closes off reasonable choices they could make to become legal citizens and forces them into the legal shadows, then declares war on them. Even at that, though, the life here is likely to be more lucrative and productive than where they came from. The Mexican and Latin American immigrants, in particular, are taking the several hundred year tradition of leaving unproductive farms to move to the cities where they can get jobs in the money economy. Their problem is that all the cities with jobs are in the U.S. and Canada where a different language is spoken and their traditional cultures are not dominant. But why did the Irish move to England and the U.S.? They left their own cultures, language, and farms and moved to the city.
The total population increase in the world since about 1950 has all moved to cities for exactly the same set of reasons. Trying to stop this wave of people who want only a better life is both inpossible and self-defeating. A Taoist would say that the course of action being attempted by the anti-immigration people violates "The Way" and they'd be correct.
It's time to stop demonizing and criminalizing economic immigration and instead set up government policies that makes the inevitable movement of people off unproductive rural land into the money economies easier and more productive. Anything else is a waste of lives and effort.
December 18, 2006 5:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Leaving aside, for the moment, the irrational EOTWAWKI nativists and the politically irrelevant claims of the poor who are losing jobs to immigrant competition, what are "anti-immigration" people complaining about?
Is it that certain localities are being hit with the costs of immigration but seeing little in the way of benefits?
I'm puzzled. What's the controversy about?
December 18, 2006 6:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Republicans think they have a lock on the racist vote (they don't but that's irrelevant). Ergo, immmigants with the wrong skin color will find it tougher and tougher to vote for a party that hates them. But then that makes the republicans (who can do the math about demographics, and the math tells them that white anglos are too busy blogging to have sex (just a joke) and are losing the numbers battle), yep, that makes the republicans very very nervous. minority party and all that.
they've talked to nancy pelosi and she told them how NOT FUN it is...
that's the immigration "problem"
December 18, 2006 6:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Some day, and probably not far in the future, anyone who wants to live in our country can do so, if they can find work to pay them enough to live on. Is our country harmed by the fact that you and I can move to Alabama or New Hampshire anytime we want to, again if we can find work to pay us enough to live on? No. So, why do we believe that our country will be harmed if Mexicans can move to California or Illinois anytime they want to, if they can find work to pay them enough to live on?
Some day you and I and Jose can each chose to live anywhere we wish. Citizenship will be nothing more than a license to vote.
Hoppy in Sacramento
December 18, 2006 9:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are all wrong.
Immigration should be halted immediately --the freeze should continue for 10 years -- and immigration allowed after that only at low levels (100,000 per year or less) in order to admit people with high capital (monetary or intellectual).
This country cannot continue as a Republic if it is overpopulated with people in the manner of India or China. Those countries have authoritarian governments because the disruptions characteristic of free societies have too high a cost in overpopulated countries living on the margin of survival.
In my opinion, Max Sawicky is being deeply dishonest. Compare the cost in resources of the American standard of living and tell me how our country can handle an increase in population.
How long can our wide open spaces -- our National Forests and Parks -- our wilderness areas -- survive as our population grows and grows?
In my opinion, immigration advocates like Sawicky are traitors to this country and should be stripped of their citizenship and exiled. Certainly, US citizens should turn on the immigration movement with fury and destroy it -- because it is destroying us.
December 18, 2006 10:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Exile is much too good for Max. He should be chained in front of a monitor displaying a continuous tape of Larry Kudlow interviewing Alan Reynolds for -- well, as O'Brien would say -- "forever."
December 18, 2006 11:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
You just fear change. Don't sweat it. There is not going to be a massive population increase, though the U.S. is still a rather unpopulated land.
We can expect that in about a generation the North American continent will be an economic and travel free trade area much like the European Union is today. Many in the EU were treating Spain, Portugal and Southern Italy much like you want to treat Mexico. It's a funny thing - Italy now has a declining population and Spain and Portugal are vacation paradises and retirement areas for much of Northern Europe.
Oh, and India is actually a democracy. A bit messy, but a real democracy. China is still reacting to two centuries of Imperialist attack by western nations and has to work like Hell to avoid being ungovernable at all, but the increase in their economy together with their successful population reduction policies will cause it to become a democracy within a generation or two, much as the dictatorships of Taiwan and South Korea have done.
The only way immigrants might "destroy" America is to make it a minority white nation - and if that is your definition of destroying America, you are too late. People like my daughter-in-law from Thailand are coming here, as she did in 1999, and she got her citizenship last March and her Masters degree in Accounting sunday night. She now is taking her younger cousin around Austin, San Antonio, and Houston the rest of this month and then he will start his year-long English program in January.
The graduation program of the School of Business at the University of Texas at Arlington Sunday night would horrify you. Asian faces and Black faces (both American and African) outnumbered white faces, especially the MBAs. Asians were predominant in Accounting and the computer and mathematical disciplines. But that is the future of America. A large number of those Asian faces come attached to Texas accents. Last March the immigration person told the new citizens that at this time, 30% of the people living in Texas were born outside the United States.
As long as that future is based on an American middle class, American will grow and improve. It is the American Conservative Republicans of the Bush, Limbaugh, and Grover Norquist stripe who are attempting to destroy the middle class and create a domestic aristocracy who are working to destroy America, not immigrants.
It is Bush, Cheney, DeLay, Gingrich and the massive conservative machine built up by about a dozen wealthy families like Coors, Perry and Mellon-Scaife who are traitors to America. You can tell because they do not want to live by the law, and they are destroying America as a nation under law. If there was ever a case made for a 100% inheritance tax, this last 12 years of conservative domination of the Congress and the Bush administration have certainly proven it to be valid and important to America as a democracy under the Rule of Law.
December 19, 2006 5:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
"I know your works. You are neither cold nor hot. So because you are lukewarm, I will spew you out of my mouth. You can build your filthy world without me. I took the father. Now I'll take the son. You tell young Vallon I'm gonna paint Paradise Square with his blood. Two coats. I'll festoon my bedchamber with his guts."
December 19, 2006 7:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Kinky!
December 19, 2006 7:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
"If only I had the guns, Mr. Tweed, I'd shoot each and every one of them before they set foot on American soil."
And so they created the NRA.
December 19, 2006 7:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Seems like some people think of our founding principles as a meaningless sop to the dispossessed; they assume the true character of our nation is ethnic (and class-based), not political.
Unfortunately, the Declaration and the Constitution encourage all ethnicities and exclude none.So America's population will be what it will be, and it may not be very English/White in the future. This does not do any damage to our political aspiratons, rather, it exemplifies them, it puts them into practice.
December 19, 2006 8:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Regulators!
December 19, 2006 8:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
ILLEGAL immigration.
Illegal immigration which gives defacto preference to Central Americans to the immigrant spaces desired by people from many other countries in in world. It's a preference they get because they have geographic luck. (You can't argue that many Africans don't have more need--just ask Spain.) Many other economic refugess are forced to make up stories about political persecution in order to avoid a stint in the immigration brig followed by deportation.
Extra added agitprop value: homeland security. Every run over the border is a slap in the face on that issue. At least the dubai ports deal would have involved someone pretending to try to enforce the idea of borders.
Mr. Sawicky's given some very nice bullet points here about the benefits of immigration. I agree nearly 100% with them. I live in a nabe in the Bronx with perhaps 50 immigrant nationalities in a few square miles. I love it, am all for it. So does someone like Guiliani. All very nice, but not addressing the source of the fire.
By avoiding the illegal question, Mr. Sawicki is arguing against a strawman, a minority of racist zenophobes like Buchanan that have always been with us. And their numbers will always increase when there is an influx of immigrants from a single area and culture within a short time span. "No Irish need apply" came from there being far too many of them. Legal immigration policy that shows preference for multi-cultural and multi-class (the gamut from farm laborers to doctors and philosophers) is the way to avoid the culture shock that enables a "racist" backlash. It's been developed learning from experiences of the past. You can't have Mexico flooding into the Southwestern U.S. and expect smiley face welcome signs. You need more Thais in the mix like RickB's sister-in-law here.
December 19, 2006 9:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Very nice essay, Mr. Sawicki. All-american, inspiring, etc., at least in my view. I myself am all for immmigration, I love it, it's the history of this country. No sarcasm intended--you probably couldn't find a much bigger booster of immigration than me.
But as I said here, what about ILLEGAL immigration?
What do you have to say to those Haitians or Filippinos not lucky enough to have the border that the Mexicans do? Many countries in the E.U. are also dealing with the problem of influx of economic refugees from single geographical areas and could use some input on the matter. Would rather hear your thoughts on that kind of thing and this kind of thing as I believe you are capable of offering interesting input on these matters and what they might mean for the future:
December 19, 2006 9:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Rick, I really endorse the spirit of what you are saying, but I think the backstory to the economic conditions of Mexicans needs to be stated. After Cardenas nationalized Mexico's oil and railroads (1938) the U.S. "retaliated" with The Green Revolution (1943). The benefits of crop improvement are obvious (in Mexico it was focused on maiz and wheat) but it was the economic component in the program that has proved disasterous for Mexicans. Simply put, growing these improved strains required large capital investment and bank credit to pay for machinery, pesticides and chemical fertilizers. Not surprisingly, the program was developed at the Rockefellow Foundation and the farm credit was supplied by Wall Street.
There were a group of dissenting Mexican economists who were very unpopular at the time the program was introduced in Mexico. Who could oppose improved crops? But their concern was the impact the program would have on the Mexican economy. Taking the domestic economy on its face, these economists predicted that due to the high capital investment required for "agribusiness" the product that Mexico produced on its farms would be too expensive for domestic consumption and would have to be marketed on the international commodities exchanges in order to be profitable. What they saw was a day in the future when Mexicans couldn't afford the beans grown in Mexico. That day arrived somewhere around 1970, following a long decline of local subsistance agriculture that was located within the confines or the domestic economy.
As noble as Cardenas' land reform program (Ejido) was, the beneficiaries were not given credit (or even land title, for that matter) and infrastructure problems (transportation and capital) guaranteed failure. That's why poor Mexican farmers failed. Conversely, the benefactors of The Green Revolution were large landowners (who were formerly "land rich but money poor") succeeded with capital and credit and became a powerful conservative economic force in Mexico (largely evolving into the PAN party, I might add.)
So in a sense, our contemporary illegal immigration situation is historical blowback, in which the US itself bears considerable responsibility.
Neoboho
December 19, 2006 9:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Much of the discussion here centers on immigration so I hope I am not off base by raising a concern about Max's history, the history of our 19th century populists.
Max, you state:
"I must admit that U.S. populism -- my favorite, the old-fashioned 19th century kind -- is shot through with nativism, religious prejudice, and racism."
Why MUST you admit this when it is not true. Tom Watson may have had the attributes you describe above. And he may have been a prototypical Georgian populists – and that may not even be true. But Georgia was not Kansas. And Georgia was not Minnesota. And Georgia was not South Dakota. Where did you get the idea that 19th century populism (your favorite kind) was shot through with nativism, religious prejudice, and racism? You must have been reading too much of the great god Hofstadter, a truly arm chair historian pronouncements of the populists were little more than the incantations of his own prejudices.
The charge of "nativism" is particularly absurd. Nativisim of the late 19th century was institutionalized in the form of the A.P.A. (the America Protection Association), and the historical record clearly demonstrates that this organization was found its strength in urban centers whereas the populists were largely agrarian. And where as the A.P.A had an anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant ideology, the populists had a very large immigrant contingency (especially in the Upper-Midwest where first and second generation immigrants where the heart and soul of the Farmers Alliance and the Peoples Party. I, myself, find it difficult to understand how one could claim that a group with a very large contingency of first and second generation immigrants could have nativistic (anti-immigrant) tendencies. Max please explain this to me.
Also, as you no doubt know, the populists movement of the late 19th century was made up of a coalition of reform minded partisans drawn from among Republicans and Prohibitionist and the Democrats. And at least here in the Upper-Midwest these Democrats included a significant number of CATHOLICS, many of whom were also first or second generation immigrants.
Of course, one prominent example is Ignatius Donnelly. Remember him. He was a major player in the Farmers Alliance and Peoples Party here in Minnesota, and on the national scene, he authored the preamble to the Omaha Platform. He was the son of Irish Catholic immigrant and was himself a nominal Catholic (his wife was Catholic and his children raised Catholic). Given the fact that Catholics were prominent not only among Middle-of-the-Road faction but also among the fusionists Popocrats, I find it difficult to understand how one could claim the populists of the late 19th century was shot through nativism (embedded in which were vitriolic anti-Catholic prejudices). Leaders of the Populists like Donnelly were vocal in there opposition to the A.P.A and its nativistic rant.
Max, could you explain how it was that the populists could have been shot through with anti-Catholic nativism when, in fact, Catholics were welcomed into the populist fold? Can you site some sources to support your claim? Where did your idea come from. Have you come under the spell of one, STERLING NEWBERRY, a good friend of yours, I believe. God, I hope not. His own over-the-top pronouncements about the early populists suggest that this not field of study where he has any expertise.
In full disclosure, I should state that I am exploring the progressive political traditions of the Upper-Midwest (North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota) from the 1870’s through the 1930’s and have been working on a township based social and political history and demographic study of the Farmers Alliance and Peoples Party of Wright County in the 1890’s and in my studies of primary and secondary sources (whether at this local level, or regional and the national level), I have found nothing that would support the claim that 19th century populism was through with nativism, religious prejudice, and racism. Perhaps you have sources of which I am not aware that would prove me wrong. If so, name them. I am not an expert of the history of nativisms its brethren, anti-Semitisms. But the one book that seems to stand out on this matter is THE POLITICS OF UNREASON: Right-Wing Extremism in America, 1790-1970 by a major study co-authored by Seymour Martin Lipset and Ear Raab. The book was published in 1970 and was funded in part by the Anti-Defamation League of the B'nai Bi'rth. The findings of Lipset and Raab regarding the populists of the late 19th century are largely in line with most of the reading and research I have done. Of course, their book is more than 30 years old, so there could be more recent scholarship that contradicts their conclusions. If so, I am not yet aware of it.
Stephen from Minneapolis (who is also active in DFL politics here in Minneosta).
PS: It seems that if we are to look to our past political traditions and a means to guide us in the future, we need to understand those traditions. My concern about is that while so many political pundits now talk about the populists (and the progressives), most are "no nothings" when it comes to any understanding of the nature and scope of these movements. (To put my concern another way, how can we make historical analogies if misunderstand the history?)
December 19, 2006 10:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
OF COURSE immigrants take jobs from Americans. OF COURSE immigrants hold down wages by competing for jobs. I don't see how Max or anyone can argue otherwise. This is the most elementary Econ 101. If labor is plentiful it gets cheap. Then property is the highest value.
There are many other factors for labor and statistics are malleable, so you (or Max) can prove either case. But here is my view.
The US is "rather unpopulated" compared to what? This is obviously a matter of preference. Really the question is "What lifestyle do you choose and what population is sustainable at that lifestyle?" Right now, Americans are much more profligate than almost any other people in the world in consuming natural resources. For most of our history, that didn't matter too much, there was plenty of coal, water, farmland, and just pure elbow room for most of us. Immigration is not a problem in a world of infinite resources.
The reality is, every new immigrant is an eventual convert to the American way of life. They want air conditioning, automobiles (eventually SUVs or trucks) to drive 12,000 miles a year, disposible packaging, disposible electronics, even laptops, just like the rest of us.
For sustainability at a level I would personally like to live, the US population should be rather lower than it is now, and the world population should be much lower than it is now. I put my money where my mind is. I don't donate to the Cancer Fund or to my college, I donate to NPG. www.npg.org/notables.html
I know that Max and most of you have the humanistic position. Each immigrant is a total person, as worthy as I am. How can I deny their right? I know that every one of us humans is equally valuable, equally needy, and equally entitled to the good things in life. That argues for less, not more population, in the US but especially worldwide.
December 19, 2006 10:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
You raise great points about history, which oddly, because some focus on what were once known as "nasty papists" by some, got me thinking about future. Especially because I happened to be looking at a specific article in the New York Times regional section at the same time.
How would one make a populist movement including support of liberal or "progressive" types leaning aetheist fundie (there are examples recently on TPMCafe) if it also included large numbers of recent Central American immigrants with preferences like these:
"How tolerant are these supposed future "progressive populists" really willing to be?" is what I am thinking. Tolerant enough for a Nativity scene with Juan Diego in the town square at Christmas? It's really easy to say you're "for" immigration without assimilation if it's the other guy's assimilation requests you are thinking of. Immigrants of many types are known to be socially conservative. Who would be leaving this supposed populist coalition in anger first, radical secular liberals, or people to whom faith, religious ritual, and "moral values" are of maximum importance in their lives?
December 19, 2006 11:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Aside from the unfortunate but very human "ugly duckling" syndrome - if it doesn't look like me, it's a threat - the objections to illegal immigration may be misplaced.
Mexican immigration is a lesson in capitalism which needs cheap labor and resources and impoverished workers needing jobs. Illegals will generally work for less than their legal counterparts so they're hired, thereby satisfying one of the criteria of a well-functioning capitalistic system. If you object, you should object to this principle of capitalism, not the guy who's willling to take the job.
The cry for a global living wage - one way to eliminate impoverished workers - (even though it strikes terror in the heart of a capitalist) doesn't seem inconsistent to a global economy. Of course, globalization is a process mediated according to corporate interests, so we can doubt that a global living wage will ever be on that table.
December 19, 2006 11:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't believe any state in the union is harmed by the fact that all of us are free to move from state to state, take jobs whereever we chose to live, and get our educations where we please. Of course there are temporary damages, such as when industry fled the Northeast for the South, or when the southern poor migrated to the northern cities looking for work. But, in the long haul, the country benefitted by those shifts. The same will be true if we accept that the borders between us and Canada, between us and Mexico, are just lines on a map, as are state lines. In my opinion it is far better to work out how to allow freedom of movement across those borders than to insist that those who do move can be classified as "illegals", and mistreated as a result. But, I'm a liberal.
Hoppy in Sacramento
December 19, 2006 11:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
I appreciate the comment. I'm usually on the other side of this argument, so I may have overstated to concede a point and get to the main issue, which is the impact of undocumented workers on the working class. I have often argued with sociologist Chip Berlet, who has a book on right-wing populism with a more jaundiced view.
In any case, I do not think Watson was an isolated example. At different times he was the best and worst of Southern populism. Race made for segregated populist movements for the most part, with the African-American component less chronicled.
Nativism is always dumb on the part of nativists in America, since nobody is a native (or everybody is). It's not irrational for anybody to be nativist because nativism is irrational.
My understanding is that the populists were predominantly agrarian and Protestant and prey to anti-Catholic sentiment and some delusions about Jews in finance. As you know, the urban Democratic machines were dominated by Catholics.
No I don't buy into Stirling's history of this (nor Hofstader). If you look you'll see I've been arguing with him about it in other threads. You sound like you're into the primary sources, unlike me, so I look forward to what you come up with. Prove what I said to be really really wrong, and nobody will be happier than me.
Max B. Sawicky
December 19, 2006 11:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Are you sure you're not a libertarian?
December 19, 2006 12:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with you, but I wouldn't worry too much about the dominance of the English Language. It is the most spoken second language in the world, and most Latin American nations start teaching English to everyone in Elementary school.
I have a friend who is a teacher in Peru, and they started teaching all science and math courses in English about ten years ago. Think about that! Their Engineers will speak English and their Lawyers will speak Spanish. What a great way to make Lawyers irrelevant!
Business schools all over the world teach graduate courses and many undergraduate ones in English. English is the language of aviation, and that's not going to change.
The hispanic immigrants I know here in Fort Worth almost all speak good English - their wives don't pick it up so soon, but the kids are bilingual from the second year of school - as was my father in Albuquerque. Only his family language was English and he learned Spanish from his neighbors. Since having a parent who speaks Spanish as a native language is the definition of Hispanic, I guess I am Hispanic in spite of all my German ancestors.
English is the language of the American middle class, so if the conservatives can be stopped from destroying the middle class [consider a 100% inheritance tax, and a return to a progressive income tax] America will remain an English-speaking nation.
December 19, 2006 2:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
AA, for the record, Mexico is part of North America. Ironically, it has illegal immigration problems with Central Americans who are even poorer than poor Mexicans. Just a minor point.
Remember the Alamo? Mexico welcomed immigration from the north, but those immigrants became illegal aliens once they declared taking Texas away from Mexico and declared it an independent republic. The grievance with Mexico by the Texan was significantly Mexico's abolishment of slavery. In California, a small group of drunken gringos kidnapped Colonel Vallejo and declared the California Republic independent from Mexico. On that pretext Captain Fremont brought in his troops to defend the drunks against Mexico's sovereignty. And it went on and on, culminating in the US invasion of Mexico, and resulted in the US thieving half of Mexico's geography under the rubric of manifest destiny. (That's the "from the halls of Montezuma" part of the US Marine's song).
Take a look at my neighborhood on this NASA photo here. The US/Mexican border is easy to see - the green farms is the US, and the brown farms are Mexico. That grey blotch in the middle is the sprawling metropolis of Mexicali, capital of Baja California Norte. The reason the green/brown line exists is that since the construction of the Hoover Dam on the Colorado river in 1930s the water treaty the US hammered out with Mexico has been violated by the US - the once rich and vital agricultural lands of the Mexicali Valley were essentially dried-up. Not only that, the largest wild desert wetlands in the world was dried up, with great impact to the Pacific Waterfowl Migratory route, and killing-off the population of Jaguars and a unique species of deer that lived in the Colorado Delta. The impact on the marine ecosystem of the northern gulf of California was also devastated, the smallest dolphin species, La Vaquita, and the giant sea trout (400lbs), the Totoaba, being now on the edge of extinction in these waters. The millions of tons of nutrients the Colorado once dumped into the gulf every year has ceased since the construction of the dams on the Colorado.
The US Southwest is culturally bound to Mexico. Political acts and gargantuan appetites of gringo consumers doesn't change that. Sitting in a bus station in Matamoros, next to an elderly gentleman, I asked him in my best Spanish: "Intiendo que Tejas es un parte de Mexico." (I understand that Texas is a part of Mexico.) He got all animated and answered "Oh, si...puro mexicano!" (Yes, pure Mexican). So it's a joke down here...things like that.
So, yes, immigration floods will continue - and they will increase when it makes sense for Mexicans to take the risk of immigration to feed their families. If, in the example I gave you, the US suddenly decided to honor its international water treaty with Mexico, Mexicali Valley agriculture would prosper, improving the economy creating jobs for people who would actually rather stay at home.
By the way, if you look at the NASA photo, at the desert around the farms of the Imperial Valley, it claims the lives of several workers every year. It's an extremely hostile environment and it can easily kill you. You only attempt to walk across it when you have no other options. Just around here, the average is 50 - 60 people per year perish of dehydration. Remarkably, there's a large contingent of those smiling faces you speak of who bitterly oppose the water stations that the Migras are putting out in the desert to help save some of these unfortunate people. I'll tell you, AA, when you get as close to la frontera as I am, it is really ugly.
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door. -Emma Lazarus
Neoboho
December 19, 2006 3:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
I meant English culture, which the dominates the European contribution.
December 19, 2006 4:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
December 19, 2006 4:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh? And in America, the difference is what?
The English speakers here carry the English and German culture which is characteristic of America. The reverse is also true. The individuals here who carry forward the surviving parts of the English and German cultures speak English. As do the Irish, Italian, and others who have joined us here.
Of course, I am unsure what part of the English culture that is represented by Rock and Roll, or the Blues.
Similarly, I find it extremely difficult here in Texas to find good Indian take-away. And the Anerican berr culture should be buried and the location forgotten. There is no good American mass produced beer, once you have tried German, English, or Thai beer (a German brewmaster went to Thailand about 150 years ago which is why they produce great beer there.)
What parts of English (American) culture do you want to take into the future with us? Please God let it not include the Pilsner crap that Americans mistakenly call beer!! Anyone who can stand Budweiser or its American competitors simply does not understand how beer and weak diswater differ. [Some microbreweries excepted, of course.] Or midwestern Illinois cooking with the over cooked vegatables and no spices!
December 19, 2006 4:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Absolutely sure! However, I haven't yet met anyone who fits my classification of a liberal in every respect. I think we all have both liberal and conservative viewpoints, depending on the subject.
Hoppy in Sacramento
December 19, 2006 5:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Despite a predominant English heritage courtesy my parents, I hold no brief for the mundane aspects of UK culture, such as beer (lame), cooking (worse), or British music like Elgar. Britten's OK, and I'll make an exception for English and Irish cheddar cheese, which destroys anything we attempt.
I meant, mainly, the legal code and governmental heritage around the time of the Revolution. Not to be forgotten is the Celtic foundation for our folk music, excepting your German/Texas polka version down there. The two strains of American folk music are hill music, from Scotland, and the blues/spiritual. R&R is mostly blues, but has bits of Celtic added into it by us white purveyors.
We may be a mixed slad in the neighborhoods, but we're definitely a melting pot re cultural products like popular music, movies and Broadway, with both Hollywood and Broadway graced by the genius of European or Russian Jews like Bernstein, Gershwin, and Berlin. African-Americans of course contributed at the high levels of Broadway and popular hits, from Scott Joplin and Fats Waller to Louis Armstrong.
I like to argue that our popular culture is so world-dominant because it reflects both European sophistication and the universal beauty of African musical and dance heritage, which is in everyone's bones.
December 19, 2006 6:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Max, I've gotten in discussions with N, Newman on this and he's ended up relying a bit heavily by his own admission on decency and faith. When I was a non-union construction worker, [I may be again soon] my wages kept flat or dropped. I was competing with immigrants and immigrant contractors who pay much less than I was willing to work for and some of them do pretty good work. I've asked various people before and never gotten an answer: What are the numbers for construction related jobs in large urban areas like NYC?
On related questions:
M-"Immigrants compete for jobs formerly protected by unionization. No"
To say that recent upsurges in Unionization are being led by immigrants is not to say that it was always so. You also ignore the export of manufacturing to cheaper climes and structural change in the US economy: the rise of Finance, Insurance and Real Estate FIRE.
None of this is to say that your points don't apply, or that the powers that be work against the interests of the people at large. None of this is an argument against your populism or your proposals, and I'm not trying to overstate the issues, but I'm wondering if in the interests of unity and solidarity you're understating them. That's a question however not a statement. And the best cure for illegal immigration remains stronger and more equitable economies in Mexico and Central America. NAFTA worked against that everywhere.
It gets more complex though. The future American Social Democracy, which is in its infancy, will owe a lot to the new generations of immigrants, legal and illegal, who've come here without entirely shedding their histories. The latinization of El Norte is one part of the internationalization of what has always been a provincial economic powerhouse. Most American still don't have passports, yet we're supposed to be the world's policeman, or at the very least in our own eyes its moral center. That's scary. The more passports the better. And immigrants in my experience are very aware of the strengths and weaknesses of this country and its way of life. I live in Queens in a neighborhood that looks pretty much like the General Assembly, but more peaceful, if not more quiet. The tension such as it is, is mostly between immigrants and American born blacks from the projects. But that can be looked at in similar terms to the tensions between Caribbean and American blacks in Brooklyn. Over the years in the construction trades I've worked with a lot of Caribbeans, and far fewer American blacks. I have to admit, one of the things I like about talking to immigrants day in and day out, is their withering contempt for the laziness, physical and intellectual, of Americans, black and white. As an aside, here's something interesting from The Guardian:"According to a recent study by the Journal of Human Resources, the wages of Arab and Muslim workers in the US fell by 10% in the years following the terror attacks; but they are still better paid and better educated than non-Muslims."
And you are right: immigrants create jobs. The building boom in the outer boroughs wouldn't be possible without immigrant workers, or immigrant investors. And they're creating neighborhoods that are far more interesting than what was there before. Imagine the lower east side of the early 20th century if people moved up and not out, and could fly back to Italy or eastern Europe once a year. I sat at a bar last friday with 4 Latinos, 1 Chinese, 2 Tibetans, 2 Bulgarians, an Indian and an ex-Yugoslav. The women were gorgeous and when the subject of languages came up, I might as well have been hung like a hamster. Everyone else spoke at least 2 fluently, some 3 or 4 and the most beautiful bartender, 5. And of course they all spoke capitalism in one form or another. The bartenders were all in college and thinking about graduate school.
I think it's best to think of illegal immigration as people are beginning to think of music downloading: it's not about an ideal of honesty, but about the fact that its not going away. I'd never turn anyone in. I worked on a job where a sub had a crew of 15 year old ecuadorian kids. They sent money home to their parents. School was out of the question- I couldn't call a truant officer- and I sure as hell wasn't going to call the INS. I gave them dust masks and looked out for them when I was around. I was at the airport in Phoenix and I listened in on a conversation among a few Barbie and Ken dimbulb crew-members about having to search a plane full of passengers for the feds and finding a little girl in a white sunday dress and realizing she was the one who had to go. "El pueblo contra los poderosos" I'm both (I shrug)
Illegal immigration is a problem, but my blood pressure troubles owe more to Ph.D.'s with Potomac fever who make foreign policy recommendations, many of them on this site, based on the theology that we are The Necessary Country and who then mull over what they consider the inappropriate and ungrateful responses of those in other lands who fail to see our intentions for what the professors themselves know them to be. These soi disant internationalists do us far more harm than the real ones who sneak in under the door.