Thread: Orange Grove: Legalization leads to assimilation

http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/op ... 272100.php

Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Orange Grove: Legalization leads to assimilation
People who want to promote the latter should support the former
By LEO R. CHAVEZ

People who oppose a legalization program for undocumented immigrants espouse two deeply felt positions. Some of them believe that we should not reward people who came to this country illegally by allowing them to become legal U.S. residents. Others believe that today's immigrants, especially Mexicans and other Latin Americans, do not want to assimilate into American society. Latinos are often portrayed as if they live in a social bubble, apart from the rest of society, and impervious to change.

Ultimately, these two positions are self-defeating because it is only by doing the former (legalization) that we can guarantee the integration of Mexican and other Latin American immigrants into our society. Put another way, I can't understand why anyone who fears that immigrants are not assimilating into American society would not also be advocating for legalizing undocumented immigrants.

I have come to this conclusion as a result of two major studies that I have recently been involved with. One survey interviewed almost 5,000 adult children of Asian and Latino immigrants in Southern California, defined as from north of Los Angeles to San Bernardino, about their social and economic mobility and political integration into U.S. society. The second study surveyed 800 Latinos, both immigrants and U.S.-born, in Orange County. We are currently preparing the findings of both studies for publication in scholarly publications.

Our findings speak to the current debate over what to do with the millions of undocumented immigrants currently in the country. Latinos, including those supposedly immutable Mexicans, become more integrated into U.S. society as they move along the pathway to citizenship, and also over generations.

Orange County is particularly good example since it has generated a number of anti-immigration movements, including Proposition 187 in the 1990s and the current Minuteman Project.

Our Orange County survey suggests that the pathway to citizenship is also a pathway toward higher earnings. Only 15 percent of undocumented Latinos, mostly Mexicans, in our Orange County survey had family incomes above $35,000 a year. For legal permanent-resident Latinos, the percentage was 31. Sixty-six percent of Latino naturalized U.S. citizens had annual family incomes above $35,000, as did 74 percent of U.S.-born Latinos. I still vividly recall a fellow telling me many years ago that if he was able to become a legal immigrant he would be able to invest more in his business, which he did.

This pattern holds true for homeownership, education levels and the intention to remain in the United States, all factors that increase dramatically along the path to citizenship. While it is true that education and a commitment to stay here resulted in obtaining legal permanent residence and naturalization, acquiring these statuses can also spur such behaviors and beliefs.

Culturally, Latinos are changing rapidly as well. Although the overwhelming majority (77 percent) of Latino immigrants are Catholic, only half their grandchildren are Catholic. Even in this most conservative of belief systems, one's religion, Latinos are not living in a vacuum but are changing as a result of their interactions with the larger society.

This interaction is facilitated by increasing use of English. Among Latino immigrants, 64 percent in our survey said they usually only speak Spanish at home. By the second generation, the number of Latino immigrants speaking primarily Spanish at home had fallen to 13 percent, and 2.5 percent for the third generation and beyond. Similar trends were found for the language spoken with friends and at work, where most Latino immigrants used both English and Spanish, or mostly English.

Given these trends, helping those immigrants living on the margins of society to acquire legal residence is a good thing. To work with dignity and live in relative freedom allows people to pursue their dreams and contribute fully to the larger society. It is a change that would pay off for generations to come, and is the logical way to ensure that fears of a large, nonintegrated Latino population never become a reality.


CONTACT US: Professor of Anthropology and director of the Center for Research on Latinos in a Global Society at UC Irvine

hippy-give-away-our-soverignty story packed full of opinionated lies!