Originally published October 15, 2006

Immigrants deserve thanks for positive population growth



By Gerald Ensley
DEMOCRAT SENIOR WRITER
We're still No. 3!

And we owe it all to immigrants. As we always have.


So let's celebrate. And be nicer.

Sometime this week - Tuesday is the official prediction - the United States' population will hit 300 million people. Somewhere in this great land, a baby will be born or an immigrant will land (or sneak across the border).

We will strengthen our standing as the third most populous nation on earth, behind only China (1.3 billion) and India (1 billion). Fourth-place Indonesia (240 million) is dropping way behind.

Three hundred million people is an amazing milestone: The U.S. population has doubled in the lifetime of all of us 50 years old or older. One hundred million people have been added just since 1967 - and another 100 million will be added by 2040. Our nation's population growth rate is the highest among industrial nations; many other countries are seeing population declines.

Americans aren't scared by the growth. In a survey this summer, half of Americans said they lived in a town that had grown - though only a quarter said growth was a problem.

One would guess local residents are similarly resolute. With a current population of 271,000, the Leon County population grows only 2 to 3 percent a year. We complain a lot about growth, but nobody seems to move away.

Of course, not all Americans have an appreciation for numbers: That poll this summer found that only 12 percent of Americans could come within 50 million people of correctly guessing the U.S. population. An astounding 19 percent thought our population was one billion or more.

What is scary about growth to some has been immigration. Immigrants, legal and illegal, account for 53 percent of the growth in the U.S. Our population would be only 250 million without that flood tide.

There can be legitimate concerns about immigration when it accounts for more than half of an explosive population increase. Traditionally, growth has been a staple of American progress: More people means more consumers means more goods means more jobs. But increasingly, growth also means problems. All our nation's struggles to provide clean air and water, secure sufficient energy, meet transportation demands and protect a fragile environment are exacerbated by a growing population.

So discussions about immigration have to be part of the discussion about handling our growing population. Unfortunately, those discussions so far seem mostly about racial and ethnic prejudice - particularly against Hispanics.

Fueled by a 1965 law that increased immigration quotas as part of a broadening civil rights movement, the majority of our immigrants now come from Latin America. Hispanics make up 15 percent of the U.S. population - triple their percentage 30 years ago - and some estimates say Hispanics will account for 25 percent of the U.S. population by 2050.

Though Florida has one of the nation's highest Hispanic populations, 18.5 percent, Leon County has only a 3.5 percent Hispanic population. Neighboring Gadsden County has the largest Hispanic population in the Big Bend at nearly 7 percent.

Reaction to the growth in the country's Hispanic population has been unfriendly. The federal government talks of installing cameras, flying drones and a 700-mile fence along the Mexican border. There has been a crackdown on driver's licenses for illegal immigrants. There is a small-minded insistence by some Americans to have "English only" spoken in our public agencies and schools.

It's an overwrought - if all too familiar - reaction to those simply chasing the American dream. For all our talk about being a melting pot, this nation has spent much of its history trying to prevent immigration. In the 19th century, we tried to keep out the Germans and Irish. At the turn of the 20th century, we banned Chinese, Japanese and Indian immigrants. In the 1920s, we shut the door to those from Eastern and Southern Europe, particularly Catholics and Jews.

Always, the critics complained that certain ethnic groups, races and religions were a threat to our "American culture." Even that champion of American broad-mindedness, Benjamin Franklin, complained in the late 1700s that German immigrants were coming in such numbers that they were going to make us all speak German.

"There have always been groups who look at migrants and say we can't accept those people because they won't be a part of the country," said Florida State University history professor Suzanne Sinke, who specializes in immigration history. "There is a saying that 'riff-raff' is the people who come after you."

Yet all of those once-shunned groups eventually came, assimilated into our culture and made us a more diverse, stronger country. It is laughable to imagine their not being part of America now, just as someday it will be laughable to imagine the U.S. without its Hispanic population.

"There has always been a significant degree of animosity against people who were later accepted. (Assimilation) is one of our strengths," Sinke said. "I don't see enough differences in what is going on today to warrant the belief this (wave of immigration) would be any different."

Contact reporter Gerald Ensley at (850) 599-2310 or gensley@tallahassee.com.


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