The Parapundit and I have argued in the discussion sections here on Winds and over on his site about the likelihood of a new, policy changing, public debate on immigration starting in the USA. I think one is coming, one that will cause mass immigration to be arrested for a generation the way it happened from 1920 through 1960 and Randall Parker does not.
It looks like I'm about to be proven right as Victor David Hanson new book titled "Mexifornia: A State of Becoming" seems to be starting that debate in both the blogosphere and the Republican base in time for the next Presidential election. The latter is the important part given that Victor David Hanson made the Republican Base A-List with a Rush Limbaugh interview.
I saw this article in National Review and I was particularly taken by this passage:
And if one wishes to find real anti-Americanism, there is no need to go to Brussels or Damascus. Simply peruse the Mexico City newspapers, read what Mr. Fox says to non-Americans, or listen carefully to la Raza (a blatantly racist term analogous to the old German concept of a pure Volk) dogma in the southwest. Papers in Mexico often mirror those in the Arab world — blaming the United States for Mexico City's own failure to address self-created pathologies. If we truly wished to help Mexico and its people, then we would not be complicit in the present corrupt status quo by allowing its ruling families to export millions of potential dissidents and would-be reformers.It is not a moral thing for either Mexico or us to barter in human capital, as we accept tens of thousands of poor economic refugees who work at menial jobs that we say we cannot do. Both the race industry on the left and the corporate right must accept that they are on the wrong side of history, and it is time to return to the sanity of measured, documented, and legal immigration — jettisoning the charade of consular IDs, billions lost in unfunded entitlements, and everything from driver's licenses to in-state tuition discounts for those who are here illegally. Rwanda, the Balkans, and separatist Muslim communities in southern France should remind us all of the wages of ethnic separatism, chauvinism, illegal immigration, and the creation of a second-class citizenry relegated to menial work.
Thousands of influential Americans in Washington and New York, revolving in and out of government on a perpetual basis, at home, on the networks, and in newspapers, will resist all such reappraisals tooth and nail. It is not just that their foundations receive money from a variety of foreign and domestic special interests, or that they enjoy flying to Brussels, or being courted in Georgetown by diplomats — or liked being liked.
It is less dramatic than all that. Instead, a change to a new muscular autonomy for conventional policymakers simply represents an entire paradigm shift, an acceptance that their world has been turned upside down after September 11.
You see, their old way of doing business is now both old and in the way.
VDH has a way with words that is as direct and to the point as a Greek Hopilite spear. More importantly that spear is being used to puncture a politically correct barrier to wider debate on the pluses and minuses of immigration
I did a google search on "Mexifornia" just to see what turned up. I saw this, this, this and this among other links.
Hanson's clear and uncluttered observations of the cultural and economic impact of unrestricted illegal immigration in California echos with any American who has lived in or visited the border areas of the American South West:
I used to worry over the theft of a tractor battery. Yet in the last decade, I have run off at gunpoint three gang members trying to force their way into our house at 3 am. Last year, four patrol cars—accompanied by a helicopter whirling overhead—chased drug dealers in hot pursuit through our driveway. One suspect escaped and turned up two hours later hiding behind a hedge on our lawn, vainly seeking sanctuary from a sure prison term. When a carload of thieves tried to steal oranges from our yard, I soon found myself outmanned and outgunned—and decided that 100 pounds of pilfered fruit is not worth your life.It is a schizophrenic existence, living at illegal immigration’s intersection. Each week I pick up trash, dirty diapers, even sofas and old beds dumped in our orchard by illegal aliens—only to call a Mexican-American sheriff who empathizes when I show him the evidence of Spanish names and addresses on bills and letters scattered among the trash. So far I have caught more than 15 illegal dumpers, all Mexican, in the act. In the last 20 years, four cars piloted by intoxicated illegal aliens have veered off the road into our vineyard, causing thousands of dollars in unrecompensed damage. The drivers simply limped away and disappeared. The police sighed, “No license, no insurance, no registration” (“the three noes”), and towed out their cars.
Yet I also walk through vineyards at 7 AM in the fog and see whole families from Mexico, hard at work in the cold—while the native-born unemployed of all races will not—and cannot—prune a single vine. By natural selection, we are getting some of the most intelligent and industrious people in the world, people who have the courage to cross the border, the tenacity to stay—and, if not assimilated, the potential to cost the state far, far more than they can contribute.
Hanson's powers of observation are not limited to his life in California. What he says about the academic race hustlers also ring the truth like the sound of sword banging on a hopilite shield:
Our schools, through multiculturalism, cultural relativism, and a therapeutic curriculum, often promote the very tribalism, statism, and group rather than individual interests that our new immigrants are fleeing from. If taken to heart, such ideas lead our new arrivals to abject failure in California. Moreover, if we were to entertain attitudes toward women that exist in Mexico, emulate its approach to religious diversity, copy the Mexican constitution, court system, schools, universities, tax code, bureaucracy, energy industry, or power grid, then millions of Mexicans quite simply would stay put where they are. Indeed, even the most pro-Mexico Mexican native in America never chooses to forgo the Western emergency room for the herbalist and exorcist in times of acute sickness or gunshot trauma. He does not complain that the American middle class is too large, the water too clean, the gasoline not adulterated, the food too abundant and noninfectious. Nor does he lament the absence of uniformed machine-gun-carrying soldiers on his block. Illegal aliens clamor for reduced tuition for their offspring at supposedly biased UC campuses, not native fellowships for them to enroll in Mexican universities. I often suggest to teachers who tell aliens that our culture is racist, exploitative, and sexist that they should live in Mexico themselves to fathom why millions are dying to obtain what they so casually dismiss.The sheer numbers of new immigrants presented a golden opportunity for the demagogue. And sure enough, at times of racial tension, you can see brazen agitators on the street with bullhorns and picket signs. Some are organized by MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan)—one of whose mottoes once was: “For our race, everything; for those outside our race, nothing.” Sometimes the provocateur shows up at a local school, after a Chicano gang has kicked to near death a (Mexican-American) school guard and consequently been expelled. With megaphone—and with the six o’clock news cameras rolling—he screams about “targeting La Raza” and “keeping the brown down.” “There is only one gang who murders in Fresno,” he announces at his poorly attended press conference, “and they wear police blue.”
The brawling provocateur is as old as America itself, and today’s California demagogue harks back to the urban ward bosses of old. More than a century too late, he shares their nineteenth-century vision of enormous ethnic blocs, entirely unassimilated, with tough ramrods like himself at their head—but with the added advantage that his Mexican immigrant constituency in the new age of multiculturalism might be permanent rather than destined to assimilate. His chief fear, I think, is that immigration may slow down; that millions may read and write excellent English; that his brother or sister—or he himself—may marry the white or Asian other; that a Mexican middle class might emerge in private enterprise outside of government entitlement and civil service; that the Mexican propensity for duty, family, and self-sacrifice might yet make him obsolete; that we all might integrate and forget about race; that he will not be needed and thus not have to be bargained off.
Other opportunists—for some reason, more often Spanish than native American—are the products of Chicano, Latino, La Raza (“The Race”), or Hispanic studies programs at universities. (Could we ever tolerate any other university program or national organization dubbed “The Race”?) They are the well-meaning Latino elites who have suddenly reverted from Alex to Alejandro and have never met an “r” they won’t trill. These self-appointed leaders are professed tribalists—who do not wish to live within the tribe. They may make speeches and films about gang violence and teen pregnancy, but they never really tell us why these endemic problems came into being and how they can be prevented. They leave cause and effect unspoken, allege racism and victimization, not a failure to learn English and accept a common culture—and then they go home in SUVs to upscale suburban homes well apart from the unassimilated barrios they claim to represent.
It is such clear and powerful truth telling that matches what people experience in their daily lives. It will be told around the the traditional information gate keepers of the Big Media, Big Business and Academia through the Internet Samizdatz (AKA the blogosphere, and sites like Lucciane.com and FreeRepublic.com) on through talk radio and the big alternate media sources like the WASHINGTON TIMES and the WALL STREET JOURNAL OPINION PAGE.
This in turn will hit the sensative political antenna of Karl Rove. I don't see Rove advising Bush against the powers of the plutocrats of the left and right in an election year, but events and the American people's slowly building consensus are controlling here, not the interests of the powerful.
"Mexifornia" is like a crystal cast upon a supersaturated solution. It will crystalize a large, well connected, and politically active group of people's views on illegal immigration against the elite's current interests.
And in America, that is how the world changes.
A year ago withdrawl from South Korea seemed impossible and unthinkable. Today it seems inevitable. The future holds a similar fate for illegal immigration as we know it.
JK: See also an earlier VDH article on this very subject, referenced here in "It's No Fun Being An Illegal Alien."
You wish.
Short of an East German type border complete with barbed wire, kill zones, mine fields, and attack dogs covering the Mexican border and shores of California you will not keep the Mexicans out.
A better plan would be to turn them into Constitutional revolutionaries.
I think it would be perfectly appropriate to construct a 15 foot wall (with 5 foot long steel palisades lining the top) along the entire U.S./Mexico border, as the cost of construction would be far less than the cost of uncontrolled immigration. The Israelis are cordoning off the West Bank by constructing such a wall (well, without the palisades :) along with trenches and motion detectors. As a result of the earlier construction of a similar wall fencing off the Gaza Strip, there have been no suicide bombers who have entered from Gaza.
Considering that most Mexicans aren't terrorists, in our case, the goal wouldn't be to completely cut off entry. The entry points would be the current border checkpoints along major highways.
I'm not in favor of prohibitting all immigration, but I think it's imperative that we establish both control over who enters and stricter conditions for immigration. I think that there should be a ceiling upon the number of new permanent residents (100,000 a year sounds reasonable). We should give priority to those who are highly skilled and who already speak English, and require that they have a long-term job already waiting for them. I favor eliminating bi-lingual education, denying automatic citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants, launching a nationwide sweep upon illegals immediately after the construction of the aforementioned wall, and devising a new policy to settle refugees in places that serve as a better cultural fit than the U.S.
If we can pull this off, within a generation, America should become a significantly less ethnically and culturally Balkanized place.
In regards to significantly reducing the immigration of unskilled laborers, illegal and legal alike, the basic question always comes down to:
"How much are you willing to pay for a head of lettuce?"
There is an anger building among residents of those communities that have been overrun in the past decade by Hispanic immigration. In Ogden, Utah where I live the Hispanic population has reached 25% and it continues to grow. In the past year there were two sensless crimes of random violence committed by Hispanic gangs. I sat in court while the families of one of the victims of those crimes spoke at the sentencing of one of the "perps". The anger was thick and I suspect will not go away anytime soon. As VDH suggests, Mexican immigration is an issue we will have to tackle soon or the Balkans will be upon us before we know it.
I agree that we may have problems on the horizon about groups of immigrants who refuse to assimilate. But is that because we have relatively free immigration, or is it because we have too many people in positions of authority (in academia as well as in government) who don't insist that these immigrants assimilate? (Indeed, they often PROMOTE separateness as a way to further their own careers. But then, I'm only restating the obvious, I guess.)
I do know one thing, though. I would say to the Pat Buchanans of this country, who want to send the latest bunch of immigrants "home" to whatever hell-hole they came from, "Why don't YOU go 'home' to Ireland/Poland/Russia/Germany/Italy, you 'stinking immigrant'?"
Hale Adams
(Most of MY ancestors made it to these shores prior to 1700. Take THAT, Mr. Buchanan! Go 'home' to Ireland, you new-arrival.)
M. Simon,
The means exist to control our borders, given the political will.
Consider what has happened in Arizona when the locals in Texas and California finally forced the Federal government to put in real border barriers and controls. The coyotes who move large numbers of people basically shifted their operations from Texas/California to Arizona because the risk/profit ratio was better there.
Yes, we will never stop all illegal immigration, but stopping 70% or more of it is both possible and very much worth doing. If we are good enough at doing it to make it less costly for Mexicans to use legal immigration than illegal, then the coyotes are done and the problem is solved.
My point is that the techtonic plates of politcal will are moving and VDH is the voice of that cultural shift.
I don't disagree entirely with Trent Telenko's basic thesis here (and VDH's) regarding the defeatist, segregationist effects that at least some aspects of multiculturalism can have upon immigrant groups, and Latinos in particular, and Mexicans/Mexican Americans more in particular. However, a number of assumptions (some would say stereotypes) and inferences are either clearly wrong or grossly oversimplified, leaving me with the impression that VDH and I did not grow up in the same California.
1. Multiculturalism is hardly new. That's why Americans have historically been proud of their ethnic heritage and often identify themselves as Irish-Americans, Italian Americans, Jewish Americans, Chinese Americans, etc. Sometimes, they even have their own parades or sections in a multiethnic parade. As much as multiculturalism can go overboard in its tolerance of the intolerable (or the plain stupid), multicultural bashing can go overboard as well in its intolerance of the tolerable.
My experience of multiculturalist attitudes– even in their most flaky let's-all-hold-hands Californian manifestations – is that they tend to co-opt foreign ethnicities through inclusiveness into a common, dominant, host culture that is in fact hardly multi-ethnic in nature, but rather follows a distinctly American tradition of Anglo-Saxon tolerance. In this sense, multiculturalism can be a force for assimilation.
That is where VHD's reference to France's unassimilated Muslim communities holds only limited water: France, unlike America, is not multiculturalist – it is exclusionary - and this holds for most of Europe outside of Great Britain. Not coincidentally, the UK has been far more successful in assimilating immigrant groups than any other European country and is easily the least racist country in Europe and probably, together with the US, in the entire world (leaving aside a few special cases, such as Singapore).
2. The implication that the notion of "La Raza" implies racial supremacy is false. To my knowledge, la Raza comes from the Latin American expression for Columbus Day, "El Día de la Raza", known in Spain as " El Día de la Hispanidad". The Spanish proposed this as a day for celebration of common Hispanic heritage to certain Latin American countries – I believe Mexico was first – at the beginning of the century and it was adopted in most of Latin America as "El Día de la Raza". The reference to "Raza", meaning "Race", was to provide a unifying concept of identity to mestizo peoples who regarded (and correctly so) the Spaniards as the original conquerors. Given that there are hundreds of distinct tribes indigenous to Latin America racially intermixed with dozens of European and other groups (including blacks, Asians and Arabs) all of whom are part of La Raza, the construct is not really racial. An imperfect analogy would be to describing all indigenous Indian groups in the U.S. and Canada as a unified civilization of "Native Americans". The analogy is imperfect in that La Raza is more of a cultural than a racial concept and some would say that the vast majority of Native Americans live South of the Rio Grande. I might agree, nevertheless, with the rightwing politically correct that, at least in a U.S. context, the term could be regarded as offensive. (So, let's ban it!)
The real problem of racism among Mexicans is what is referred to as "auto-racismo" or "self-racism". Mexicans themselves are far more racist in their own domestic context than Americans will ever be and the racism is directed towards those with darker or more "Indian" complexions. (Think Malcolm X ogling white women from his jail cell.) Whiteness is equated with greater intrinsic worth and this leads to a national problem of self-image. There are a great number of "Indian jokes" in Mexico making fun of indigenous Mexicans. The problem is that those making the jokes are usually at least half-Indian themselves. The self-deprecation phenomenon is less apparent in the U.S., probably thanks in no small measure to those misguided multiculturalists.
3. It is misleading to equate European anti-Americanism to its Mexican counterpart. While there are some shared characteristics, Mexico lost one-third of its territory to the U.S. in the Mexican-American War, the U.S. has historically posed a real (not imagined) military threat to Mexico, intervened in the Mexican Revolution, invaded Veracruz in the Tampico Incident, not to mention the tensions created by Cardenas' nationalization of the oil industry in the 1930s. The Mexican Constitution forbids foreigners (read "Americans") from owning land within 100 kilometers of the border or 50 kilometers of the coastline. Mexican anti-Americanism may sometimes border on the paranoid, but there is definitely a history there.
4. The vision of Mexican immigrants (both legal and illegal) as largely unassimilated and resistant to assimilation of the local culture is contrary to my experience. (The example of the illiterate farmworker who doesn't speak English after 20 years is hardly convincing. Often, his children do not even speak Spanish. In fact, despite widespread assumptions and Latino group claims to the contrary, the vast majority of Mexican Americans no longer speak fluent Spanish by the age of 18.) I am also baffled as to why and how the problems of assimilation that DO exist can be attributed to a supposed overdose of multiculturalism or cultural relativism.
5. I focus here on my experience of Mexicans, and Mexican Americans, rather than "Latinos" as that seems to be VHD's primary focus, even if he is making a larger point about Hispanics and third-world immigrants generally. In part, it is also that I find it impossible to compare Mexicans with Argentines, Cubans or Puerto Ricans, all of whom are entirely distinct groups that have about as much in common as Parisians, Moroccans and Haitians. The category "Hispanic" is more a political construct than a cultural reality.
Final note: When I listen to (Mexican) Spanish language radio in California, I can't avoid noticing how much of the agenda concerns topics, such as child abuse, Ritilin treatment for hyperactive kids, the pros and cons (mostly the pros) of abortion, and other specifically American political and social themes - treated in distinctly American terms of debate – that are non-existent in Mexico, at least in such form. It is true that the agenda is dominated by a more liberal viewpoint, perhaps naturally so, but it is distinctly American. I suggest that VHD and Trent Telenko's case is somewhat exaggerated and, in any event, overlooks some of the background mentioned above.
Why don't you and Hanson tell it to these guys:
Cpl. Jose A. Garibay 21 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment Orange, California Killed in action near Nasiriya on March 23, 2003
1st Sgt. Joe J. Garza 43 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division Robstown, Texas Killed on April 28, 2003, when he was struck by a civilian vehicle
Pfc. Juan Guadalupe Garza Jr. 20 1st Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division Temperance, Michigan Killed in action on April 8, 2003, in central Iraq
Just to take three in order off the alphabetical list of casualties.
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/casualties/
Even my son's squad leader, now in Baghdad, is a Mexican from the Yucatan, not even a U.S. citizen yet.
Who's going to fight all these imperial wars that Hanson and you are so in love with?
How about a battalion of right-wing bloggers?
C'mon now, you can get a direct commission in an Army reserve or National Guard unit if you're not too old.
Gabriel Gonzalez,
Your translations of "La Raza" isn't what Hanson is talking about. Rather, he is referring to the "let's steal back the southwest from the gringos" activists he has seen in the California universities.
They are the left wing/latino "blood and soil" counterparts to the anglo "Buchannon Wall" brigades.
Hanson's book as opposed to the article clips I have posted and linked too, goes into the very assimulative effects of American popular culture that you talk about.
Much of the problems we are having with young latino males is universal with all males. For the last 20 odd years the public school system has given up its role as a civilizer of young men. Now those men are reaching college age with very little in the way of impulse control.
klaatu,
Get a life. Neither Hanson nor I am Patrick Buchannon. Take your straw men elsewhere to beat up.
Gabriel Gonzalez,
>It is misleading to equate European anti-
>Americanism to its Mexican counterpart.
No, Hanson is correct here.
Whatever the historic roots, anti-Americanism in both places is used by the elites as an excuse or booggie-man to ignore/deflect domestic problems.
And in both places its resolution will only come via regime change.
Trent,
I've changed my mind.
If they can stop illegal drugs from coming in there is no doubt that illegal people can be stopped. As we all know Americsa has stopped all cross border drug traffic and has been drug free since 1995. At least according to Congressional promises of the 80s. Let us hope they do as well with people trafficers.
As to building a big fence. Once the fence is up it will need to be patrolled. You got any idea how many people will be required for 24/7 coverage of a 4,000 mile fence? Say 10 people per mile for 3 shifts. Times 7/5 to allow for weekends off. That is about 200,000 troops. (Actually the fence eventually will have to be twice as long as the smugglers try the easy ways first).
La Raza: Hanson may be referring to the phenomenon you mention - which I would describe as both extremist and marginal - but suggests that the term is per se racist. It can be appropriated that way, and might even fairly be described as inappropriate, but there is more background to it and the term is widespread and has been in use without those connotations for a long time. My point was limited to that.
Multiculturalism: I think the assimilationist effects are not merely limited to pop culture. Maybe we are speaking at cross purposes or I am focusing on a different part of the multiculturalist spectrum than you are. I still think that multiculturalism derives from principles of liberal democracy, perhaps pushed to extremes. I also view it as a distinctly American (or at least Anglosphere) phenomenon that has nothing to do with, for example, transnationalism.
Anti-Americanism: Yes. In the respect you mention, there is a similarity. Again, I was trying to bring more perspective and I think there are actually substantive differences in the manifestation of Anti-Americanism in Europe (France in particular) and Mexico. There has been some debate in Mexico on the very point you mention: using it to divert blame.
Mexicans, unlike the French, are extremely distrustful of authority and of their government - for good reason. They may dislike Americans for historical reasons and, in part, for the reasons you mention. But they pretty much separate blame for their own domestic mess from aversion to Americans (in a way that I don't think the French, for example, do).
Their are also basically two sets of elites in Mexico: Traditional old money elites, whose reference is the grand culture of Europe, and modernist elites, more new money, who regard the U.S. as their reference. The former tend to be far less anti-American. But of course I've heard it said that no self-respecting Mexican cannot not be anti-American.
I forgot to add in another 20% for reserves sickness leaves, training etc. That is up to 250,000. Figure a cost per person of $100,000 per year including salaries, vehicles, training, buildings, etc. That is a running cost of $25 billion per year. Probably doubling once the 8,000 mile job is done. Pensions probably extra. You got any idea how many carrier battle groups we could support with the same money? Don't we need them more?
I also forgot the easiest way to evade the patrols. Bribery. Just what we need. Another corrupt Federal Department.
Did I mention that by making so expensive to get in few will want to leave once they get here? As usual with any socialist plan backed by guns the incentives are all in the wrong direction. The coyotes (the capitalists) will defeat the border patrol (the socialists) every time. Did I mention the war on drugs?
I still think there are not enough Spanish speaking Americans spreading the words of Thomas Jefferson. Assimilation is the answer.
Correction: "The LATTER tend to be far less anti-American"
We have to get used to the fact that Mexico and America are now economically integrated. Social integration is well along and political integration is bound to follow.
No fence or East German style border is going to change that. The process is too far along.
The question now is not how to stop the process. With such a long border and so much cultural integration already you can't. Mexicans blend in.
Much better to put your efforts into how we will make them Americans. I see nothing wrong with another 70 or 100 million Americans in the world. Especially if they conquer Mexico and points South by the force of American ideas.
The only question is: Canada first or Mexico first?
In the end the logic is that powers must (or tend to be) continental. In the American case it will be two continents. The American advantage is that there are only three major languages. English, Spanish, and Portugese. Europe is fractured by a number of languages as is the Russian empire. Africa is a basket case and the East has Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Indian etc. Then you have the Africans, hopeless. Followed by the lands of Islam, held back by their beliefs.
Look for the empire of the Americas to dominate the world. Thank you Munroe. Our allies will be Spain, Britain, Australia, Portugal. All former naval masters (I include Austrailia in the naval masters category because of what it did in WW2)and mother countries of the Americas.
Of course Australia isn't a mother country. However, since they too got their start as a dumping ground for criminals we are glad to have them in the grand world conspiracy. Did I mention Israel? They punch very far above their weight.
Using the disastrous effects of combining muliculturalism and immigration as a reason to restrict immigration is similar to getting a hangover after drinking scotch and soda and resolving to give up soda. If we stop immigration and continue to let left-wing loons run the schools, they'll come up with other ways to stir up trouble (they can use ehtnic groups already here or provoke a fight between "red states" and "blue states"). If we tar and feather multiculturalists and continue immigration, the immigration will be harmless.
BTW, immigration does not mean the left will win more elections. The left was most entrenched when immigration was restricted.
Nothing will ever be done about illegal immigration.
Democrats view illegal immigrants as potential welfare clients and voters.
Republicans want to ensure a steady supply of cheap labor for their corporate buddies.
Neither wants them to go away. The plutocrats and the race hustlers won't stand for it.
Some incidents:
A few years ago: PBS covered the Mexican-American war, in which we grabbed most of our Southwest. Apparently the US troops who landed in Veracruz faced desperate resistance right up to the gates of Mexico City. Instead of arming the city populace to repel the Yanquis, the rulers of Mexico let them march into town unmolested. Apparently they feared their own people more than the Americans. A wicked land-grab to be sure, but it could not have happened to a more deserving government.
September 12, 2001: For unadulterated flag-waving, tune to Univisión or Telemundo. The green, white and red go down, the red, white and blue go up.
November, 2002: At the terminal of the Chicago brown line, went to "Taquería El Pastor". Asked for "tacos al pastor" which were on the menu and was informed on the spot that "we don't e-speak e-Spanish". Yeah, right. Tasty pork tacos (but not al pastor...)
March, 2003: More flagwaving on Telemundo; evening news invites listeners to send in pictures of their family's soldiers for the "roll of honor". Interview of the "rapping Marine" Alex Rivera's parents.
"Mi Soldado" by Los Tigres del Norte on rotation. Father's son goes off to war even though father taught him to respect life. THe son responds "...my country was attacked, and for her I will fight." Very deliberate play at the heartstrings.
April, 2003: Talking to my students in ESL class, one of my students mentioned how the poor cannot go to school past the sixth grade and that people call them "burros" -- donkeys. Fumed for several hours since you don't call my students rude names. Had stupid idea about grabbing another row of Mexican states and turning their government over to Mexican immigrants.
April 9, 2003: "Mi Soldado" every hour with another US-patriotic song on the half hour. Same for the next three days.
Early June 2003: Compared Mexican "basket of basic foodstuffs" with American and Mexican poverty guidelines. At three times food expenses, the Mexican poverty line would be about $32/day for a family of five. The highest poverty line given by Mexican sources is $28/day. In America, it's about $70/day. Perhaps we should let Mexicans know that living expenses here tend to be over twice as high as they are in Mexico. Chasing $2.80/hour is a lot less attractive than chasing $6.00/hour.
Nineteen migrants found dead in Victoria, Texas, left in a trailer to stew in the 100 F sun for several days. Mexican government goes into conniptions, Texas and US begin inquiries. One of them a father who can't afford uniforms for his five daughters; survivors tell Chicago Spanish-language paper that they knew the US gave them good things...
Bishop of San Luis Potosí writes "A Catholic Votes This Way" -- forget about birth control. Government debates pressing charges against him.
Mid-June 2003: Found "7 Dias de Los Altos", a newspaper serving the arm of Jalisco that stretches northeast from Guadalajara. Apparently remittances play a major role in the economy...and the people who run the place seem rather proud of that. Ms. Tepatitlán looks distressingly like Miss Spain.
Late June 2003: Passed translation class with flying colors. Went to Supermercado "El Rancho" to celebrate with a little shopping spree. A truly nasty place offering expired merchandise for the undiscriminating shopper. American flags still all over the cars, sometimes sharing place of honor with the Mexican flag.
Found it hard to believe that Mexicans prefer their pastries very stale and dry and a smelly meat counter, but the store will cash checks as long as your purchase comes to 10% of the check.
On web development site based in Spain, a Mexican web designer says he wants to set up a site for Latino immigrants. Another Mexican replies that the majority of migrating Mexicans are campesinos and would not know how to get on...can La Migra work in cyberspace? "HAHAHA LA MIGRA GOT 'EM! I'm not a racist, just a realist...hehehe" Reminded the first that there are lots of sites geared to Latinos but that there's always room for the best. Reserved a boot to the head for the second.
"I'm not a racist, just a realist"
On realism: The Web came to much of Latin America before it even arrived in Europe. In 1996, while the French and German authorities, who had no idea what the Internet was, were throwing managers of ISPs in the burgeoning European Internet in jail for allowing access to pornography, many Latin Americans were already connected to the web. Until recently, Mexico was miles ahead of France or Spain in internet access and Mexico had a fixed fee per call telephone tariff for local calls, allowing internet access at low cost. This has changed as the internet has spread and European capacity to provide infrastructure for broadband has allowed it to take a lead.
Still, the amount of web communication, websites, etc. in the Latin American world is quite amazing.
If you go into an internet café in Paris, Madrid or London, often half or more of the customers are Latin American, most often students, but immigrants as well, in particular in Spain where there are a great number of educated Latin American immigrants. I don't have statistics, but I do know that on my MSN messenger I have a dozen or so contacts from the U.S. and Canada, a dozen or so from Latin America, and none from France. And I live in Paris.
M. Simon,
People are not drugs. They cannot be put into little baggies and be stuffed between the inner and outer walls of a tractor truck trailer. People have a certain irreducable size, they need to breath, drink, eat, excrete, sweat and radiate body heat.
>You got any idea how many people will be
>required for 24/7 coverage of a 4,000 mile fence?
There you go again with that "Wall of Buchannon," it's impossible, and if not impossible it is too expensive strawman riff.
Controlling, monitoring and intercepting all vehicle traffic between the USA and Mexico and directing it through controlled ports of entry is doable.
It will take time, it will cost money and it will start with high speed transit areas and spread out to more remote areas over time. From there, technology will help with the rest. Americans love technological solutions and a sensor net built up over a period of years will reduce the need for bodies.
Increase the costs of people smuggling and reform the legal immigration system to lower the cost and wait and you squeeze out the coyotes.
Hanson's arguements for what ammounts to an immigration pause while we culturally digest the latest wave of immigrants are sound, as is his point that the problems of Mexico that drive immigrants north begin in Mexico City and require a regime change to correct.
some guy,
It has only been the power of the Plutocrats in both parties that has prevented action on immigration to date.
They also prevented our rearranging our global military committments to Europe and South Korea after the Cold War ended.
Just as 9/11/2001 changed that for the military, and focused the politicians on the changed politics of the post-Cold War world. So to will it be with immigration.
Controlling our borders is a national security imparitive that is recognized dimly, but with growing focus by the American public.
That focus will be shaped by Hanson's Mexifornia.
"People are not drugs. They cannot be put into little baggies and be stuffed between the inner and outer walls of a tractor truck trailer."
I think I need to introduce you to some paisans in New Jersey, who have a very different opinion on this issue. :-)
To whoever said, "it all boils down to the price of a head of lettuce," I agree. It all boils down to whether we want a bunch of corporate welfare queens to increace our tax bill so they can have slightly cheaper labor costs thanks to illegal labor.
The way the illegal labor market is set up currently, if you legalized all illegal immigrants in the country overnight, but made it so that they had to pay withholding, and all the other things citizens are stuck with, and didn't change the situation at the border, the unemployment rate among that group would go up drastically.
The people using illegal labor aren't saving money overall, just moving their costs around.
The only other thing I have to say is, it seems that different regions of the country are handling assimilation of hispanics in very different ways. "Hispanics," even recent immigrants, are far from a unified bloc. I suspect this would be a very fruitful area to study if we want to better integrate these people into our society.
Hanson's latest column in the 29 June 2003 LA TIMES.
Phil,
You are right about the cost shifting problems of illegal immigrant labor. That is a point Hanson thumps on.
You are wrong about them being "corporate welfare queens." The reason agri-biz does it isn't greed, it is fuduciary responsibility forced upon it by the stock markets.
If corporate agri-biz doesn't do everything possible to meet quarterly goals, they are punished in the markets and are personally liable for shareholder suits.
This is much the same problem American manufacturers face when dealing with China, with the added problems of the kleptocratic '4000 Princes' thrown in.
This is where the American people must express their interests over those of the Plutocrats. Bad things happen to good people when they make the wrong choice, including doing nothing.
I still think it is more productive to think in terms of adding Americans than subtracting Mexicans.
=============================================I never said it couldn't be done. After all the East Germans did it. All I pointed out is the neighborhood of what it would cost. Cost is not a straw man. It is a valid factor in decision making. Except for drug warriors and communists. "If it saves just one life it is worth the whole American GDP" is nonesense. If it costs ten cents in America it is probably always worth it. In between there are decisions to be made and alternatives to be chosen.
If you want to channel 99% of the current illegal traffic through border posts you are going to have to make it easier to get in not harder. In fact to keep the force in the range of 250,000 you will need to make it attractive for them to come through the border posts so the fence could not be overwhelmed locally by a sudden flood of 200 or 300 people.
===========================================Terrorists are not flooding across our borders undetected by the thousands. Or even hundreds or tens. If that was the case we would already see more attacks in America. Where are they? So terrorism is not a good reason to build a fence. It is a good reason for carrier battle groups and divisions.
The fence idea might work if backed by mobile teams watching and collecting those that come through.
To think that all this is going to be easy or cheap or quick is ludicrous.
BTW smugglers don't smuggle baggies of pot. They do tens, hundreds, and thousands of pounds at a time. Otherwise it is not worth the effort.
Did I mention that baggies of pot don't have brains and feet, plus no baggie full of pot that I know is capable of driving a motor vehicle? Plus baggies are poor at knife and gun fights. That adds a challenge once they leave their conveyance or are on foot don't you think?.
If we want a totally sealed border it is East German tactics all the way. The less of that sort of thing we accept (no mine fields, no shoot to kill) the more porus the border.
I assume the terrorists will always get through because he has the money to spend. Suppose the 9/11 gang had to spend $10,000 extra per person to get them in the country with the proper papers. Would it have deterred them? Doubtful.
===========================================In America roads cost $1 million a mile. If the wall costs the same it will cost $4 billion. The Israely fence is supposed to cost $2 billion for 400 miles. That says our fence would cost in the neighborhood of $20 billion. That buys us three fully equipped carrier battle groups. Which would you rather have in the next 10 years?
=============================================Suppose you have sensors all over the border. They have to be monitored and reaction teams have to get to the points of entry before the entrants disappear. This requires manpower. It requires defence in depth. 250,000 may not be enough. We might need double or triple that. This is starting to cost real money.
==============================================The cheapest thing to do is to make the crossers Constitution loving Americans and get them on our side.
Warren Eckels: excellent post, and really much closer to the truth of the matter than this spectre of an anti-American La Raza enemy-in-our-midst that is being raised here.
Did someone say straw man?
Really, does anyone expect that these Mexican immigrants are going to overthrow the government of the United States or reverse the Treaty of Guadelupe Hidalgo in some future?
In addition to the families of the fallen soldiers and Marines of Mexican decent, you can sell this theory to Alberto Gonzalez.
Economic growth in the USA depends on immigration; immigrants do the jobs our native-born won't do. In addition, their children are better behaved than our children, more anchored to traditional and religious values.
The problem is that white Americans really don't have much personal contact with "these people," and thus tend to get freaked out when they see a few boozed out migrantes on the street.
Read "The Tortilla Curtain" by T. Coraghessan Boyle, a great novel about the idea of us (white America and them (the teeming Mexican hordes) and think about it.
And no, Mr. Telenko, I don't think that you and Mr. Hanson are like Pat Buchanan. Buchanan doesn't want the Empire.
M. Simon,
You have a very bad libertarian knee jerk every time the mention of border control comes up.
Response time depends on the transportation and the surveillence capabilities as well as other technologies employed by both the US government and the illegals. Only when those are established can you guess at the manpower involved.
I suggest you think through the implications of cheap, implantable, pet i.d. chips for population control applications, since most illegal immigrants get caught a number of times before they get here.
klaatu,
Nope. Hanson is a Jacksonian-Jeffersonian hybrid who wants to win the war.
Myself, I am for reforming Arab culture at gun point and don't give a damn what others call it.
For Americans to be safe in the world, the world must be American. Which is the work of generations. Until then Americans are going to be rat bastards in crushing preemptively those who want us dead.
Kleptocracies with borders, a capitol city, the illusionary institutions of a state and who support terrorism have no soveriegnty as far America is concerned.
Some other points:
"La Raza" means what the speaker wants it to mean, as does "Aztlán".
For some, "La Raza" is short for "La Raza Cósmica", the mix of races that make up Mexico; on one hand this ideology attracts the usual scrum of racists and fascists, while on the other Mexican elites find it useful to try hiding the real and obvious correspondence between skin color and social status in Mexico. For others, it's that a new race was born in 1492, hence "El Día de la Raza" and a really neat way to sidestep the PC controversies attached to Columbus. The radio likes to refer to "La Raza de " on dedications -- at least in Chicago there are associations of people who come from Jalisco, Michoacán and other states.
For some, "Aztlán" is the part of the U.S. that Mexicans and Chicanos should strive to have given back to Mexico. For others, "Aztlán" is the community of Mexican descent on both sides of the border; this view appears popularized on window stickers showing the two national flags, a handshake wrapped in a Rosary and an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, Patroness of the Americas. (The Vatican assigned her to the whole hemisphere decades ago.)
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To those who oppose a Berlin Wall on our southern border:
It should be noted that the number of people slain crossing the Berlin Wall was 940, 270 killed by guards and the rest killed by drowning, falling and other mishaps. The Berlin Wall was up for about 27 years.
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9911/06/wall.death.strip/
Compare that to 200-300 Mexicans dying every year in their attempt to cross the border. A few may be shot by vigliantes, but 115-degree desert heat, unscrupulous coyotes and dehydration kill the rest. Whatever the arguments against a Berlin Wall, loss of Mexican lives is not one of them.
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The Fox government is test-broadcasting the radio novel "Tortillas Duras: Ni Pa' Frijoles Alcanza" (stale tortillas, not good enough for beans; colloquial for hard times). It's an adaptation of a book that talks about some of the terrible things awaiting migrants in the United States.
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Here's my program:
1. The southern border should be patrolled as if we knew that there were Al-Qaeda camps on the other side. By this, I mean a green cordon from San Diego to Brownsville, not necessarily on the border itself in the case of Indian reservations. If a campesino who barely speaks Spanish, let alone English can cross, certainly Al-Qaeda members can cross as well.
(Forget the wall -- it's not that hard to dig a tunnel...)
2. Currently-illegal immigrants should be offered a resident visa and work permit for turning in employers and others who exploit them in violation of federal and state laws. Announcements of such rights should be placed in Spanish-language media. The employers should, upon conviction, face jail time, fines and civil liability in American courts.
3. Forget the "guest worker" program -- raise the immigration quota instead. Consider raising the quota to 50% of the current level of illegal immigration.
4. Forbid imports from any maquila that pays its workers less than US$2.00/hour in 2003, with 10% increases every year. (This should be extended worldwide, with the initial rate set at 150% of that required to purchase items in the local food basket.)
5. That $20 billion that New Wall advocates say we should spend would be better spent on a Marshall Plan for Mexico.
The cost of the fence between Israel and the West Bank is $1.7 million per mile and a US-Mexico border fence would cost about $3.4 billion to build.
As for the cost of patrolling the fence: If it is a really good fence then people aren't going to be able to get over it. If they are trying to get over it they will set off electronic sensors that will alert border patrol folks to their exact location.
It really is possible to stop illegal immigration by a fence and by making a serious attempt to round up illegals. Current US efforts to round up illegals are pretty pathetic. Local police do not participate. If the local police handed over to federal authorities every illegal they came across this would make a huge difference.
"For Americans to be safe in the world, the world must be American."
Whaaa?? . . . you must be joking or parodying the neo-imperial mindset.
I'm willing to leave some non-American parts of the world, myself. Rio wouldn't be Rio if it were "American." Not to mention Naples or Galway or Kyoto or Lamu. But then I'm a liberal, cosmopolitan degraded Atlanticist. Completely out of step with our new muscular Christian spirit.
See Mailer:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16470
Let's reform the world at gunpoint, by all means.
I felt pretty safe in non-American Europe as an American, even as an American wearing an American military uniform, in the 70s 80s and up to 99 on the annual reserve visit. Even visiting my son in Germany earlier this year before he deployed to Baghdad, I felt pretty safe.
Safer than in a lot of American places, where home-grown pathologies fester.
Remember what I said about Americans developing technological solution to foreign population control? And that doing vehicles first was the easy part? See here:
http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/6211959.htm
U.S. develops urban surveillance system
By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is developing an urban surveillance system that would use computers and thousands of cameras to track, record and analyze the movement of every vehicle in a foreign city.
Dubbed "Combat Zones That See," the project is designed to help the U.S. military protect troops and fight in cities overseas.
Police, scientists and privacy experts say the unclassified technology could easily be adapted to spy on Americans.
(snip)
Trent, The surveillance systems the military is developing would be useful for detecting illegal aliens trying to cross the border.
Randell,
Foreign population control technology will have domestic application as population control of foreigners inside US borders.
There is a whole new legal system coming for non-citizens resident in the USA. Permission to subject themselves to remote surveillance for long term residency will be a condition of the visa. (This technology will also be applied to convicted citizen felons on probation as a condition of release.)
If you want out from under it, become a citizen or leave. (For the citizen felons, it is part of the punishment.)
The technology for remote surveillance of borders and masses of individuals for cheap is going to be here within 3-5 years. The following is something I picked up today over on the Journal of Electronic Defense:
New Wireless Network for Miniature Sensors
The US Department of Defense's Defense Microelectronics Activity (DMEA) has awarded $6.5 million to Signal Technology (Danvers, MA) to develop hardware and software for collecting and disseminating information gathered by tiny sensors. Completion of the contract is expected by the second quarter of 2004, at which point a working prototype of the system is to be ready, with formal testing and prototyping likely to follow in later phases of the project, Signal Technology General Manager Charles Stuewe said.
Signal Technology demonstrated a pilot microsensor network in March as part of an earlier, $4.1-million contract awarded by DMEA. Bob Nelsen, the company's chief financial officer, said this proof-of-concept demonstration used available sensor systems that are much larger than the sensors that are ultimately planned for the network, which might consist of thousands of inexpensive, disposable devices, each equal to the size of three coins stacked up. "These are 'Timex watch' things that will be low cost and low power," he said. "A key aspect to it is the superconducting base stations that can pick up very weak signals from these sensors and filter out all the extraneous information."
Different types of sensors, from magnetic and acoustic to infrared and more, could be used in the network, with Signal Technology developing the radio-frequency transceiver for the network based on work the company has done previously on microwave-frequency networks. The company said it is working with "all the major sensor manufacturers" to develop the network, which could deployed by airpcraft, mortars, or other means and could potentially be used not just for guarding borders or facilities but also for battlefield surveillance and other reconnaissance purposes. - Ted McKenna
"Americans love technological solutions."