Thread: Immigrant nation, immigrant values, Linda Chavez

Immigrant nation, immigrant values

By Linda Chavez
CREATORS SYNDICATE
September 26, 2009

For the first time in decades, the number of foreign-born individuals living in the United States declined last year, according to new numbers released by the Census Bureau's American Community Survey. The drop was small, from 12.6 percent of the U.S. population to 12.5 percent of the population, but it is significant nonetheless. It suggests that not only are fewer people coming here but also some who are already here have decided to leave. But the reason for the decline may be nothing to cheer about. It may have less to do with tougher border enforcement effectively keeping out illegal immigrants than it does with a shrinking economy making the country a less enticing destination.

Immigrants always have been the canaries in the mine shaft — an early warning system about the health of the U.S. economy. By mid-decade, informal networks of immigrants in the U.S. had already begun to send word-of-mouth messages back home that job opportunities in the U.S. were drying up. As a result, immigration from Mexico — the country responsible for about a third of all immigration to the U.S. — began a steep decline and is now down overall by about 40 percent. And according to estimates from Mexico's National Survey of Employment and Occupation, Mexicans have been returning home at a rate of more than 400,000 a year since 2006, at the very time that fewer Mexicans have been choosing to leave Mexico for the U.S.

But what about those who remain? The greatest passion generated during immigration debates over the past few years has concerned illegal immigration, but many people also have voiced fears that Hispanic immigrants, even those who came legally, are somehow different from all previous immigrants and never will move into the American mainstream. The Heritage Foundation's Robert Rector, for example, warned in one study that the descendants of Mexican immigrants will constitute a permanent underclass, dependent on welfare and unable to carry their fair share of the tax burden, discouraging lawmakers from considering changes to immigration law that would allow more Mexicans to immigrate, even if they were to do so legally.

A recent study by the Pew Hispanic Center, however, suggests that many of these fears are overblown and that children of Latino immigrants are doing well on most measures. They fare better on most health indicators (except obesity) than native-born Americans, for example, despite being less likely to be covered by health insurance. Most importantly, they are about as likely to grow up in two-parent households as whites — 73 percent, compared with 77 percent for whites. They graduate high school at rates slightly less than non-Hispanic whites (80 percent, compared with 92 percent of whites), but almost half go on to attend college. And those who graduate from college actually earn slightly more than their native-born counterparts.

The overwhelming majority of Hispanics born in the U.S. to immigrant parents are able to speak English well, which is key to their successful integration into American society. While the Census Bureau counts many Hispanic immigrants as linguistically isolated — unable to speak English well enough to function in daily life — they aren't unique in that respect. In fact, Asian immigrants are slightly more linguistically isolated than Latinos.

Yet few people seem to fret that Asians never will assimilate.

Contrary to the impression that Hispanics remain poor no matter how long they've lived in the U.S., upward mobility is still the rule, not the exception. Twice as many third-generation Hispanics live in households with incomes more than $75,000 a year (nearly one-third of all third-generation Hispanics do so) than live in households with incomes less than $25,000 a year.

The one worrisome trend among American-born Hispanics is the same demographic trend that plagues African-Americans and growing numbers of poor whites: rising out-of-wedlock births and an increasing number of children who grow up in female-headed households. “Third-generationâ€

Linda Chavez, can't you find a real job? Blathering about the personal lives of Hispanics or any other "group" is no interest at all and serves no purpose whatsoever. We have laws that need to be enforced whether illegal aliens are Hispanic or something else. We don't care what their ethnic origin is, if they're here illegally, many of us want them deported to their homeland of citizenship where they belong, along with all their minor children.

Yet few people seem to fret that Asians never will assimilate.

This is an example of the dumb stuff people say when Obama does some horrible thing to the American people.

Example: Obama pushed the Stimulus bill down our throats and illegally threw in mandated “Universal health care reform" and Obama supporters say “Bush put us in this financial position. It’s HIS entire fault. Yes, it' not the issue and it doesn't pertain. So just like you say to an eight year old “I don't care what so and so did, I care about what YOU did".

So Linda Chavez, if you want to talk about Asian illegals, save that discussion for another day. Let's talk about the damage Hispanic illegals have done to our country, since you brought this subject up.

PS
We were a nation of hard-working LEGAL immigrants now we are a nation that has been invaded by self-serving, arrogant, egotistical illegals that seem to think we owe them something.

Indeed, immigrant family values may be exactly what all Americans — Hispanic and non-Hispanic alike — need more of, not less.

Indeed, and what would those family values be? Marrying off children at puberty, dropping little citizens every year, molesting minors, speaking only Spanish and infiltrating our culture so that you have to press 1 for Ingles? Or is it the drug cartel family value cutting down our forests and parks and setting communities on fire? Or is it the family values of the Allah Akhbar culture, where honor killings are the norm, and the suicide trying to blow up the infidel is something to be honored? How about the former USSR immigrants, who have a mindset to steal and cheat for everything they can get hands on?
Granted there are so many who have come here and embraced the opportunities they have enjoyed, gotten citizenship and are proud to be Americans. There are others, who have no such desires, but know they can hide in their ethnic enclaves and live life like they did in the old country. And finally, so many of the illegals are here for no other purpose than greed.

They play the victim card because it's one of the most powerful in the deck. That and the racist card.

Originally Posted by laughinglynx

They play the victim card because it's one of the most powerful in the deck. That and the racist card.

The victim card might still carry some weight, but the race card is nothing more than a bad tired, worn out old joke these days.