Keep the Immigrants, De****t the Multiculturalists
By JASON L. RILEY
May 15, 2008; Page A17
So, whatever happened to immigration as a presidential campaign issue?
In the early caucus and primary states =96 Iowa, New Hamp****re, South
Carolina =96 the media assured us that immigration was foremost on the
minds of voters. You couldn't watch a Republican debate without the
issue dominating a good chunk of the discussion. And when Hillary
Clinton appeared to endorse a proposal in New York state to give
driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, it was considered a major
stumble, and the senator spent weeks trying to clarify her remarks.
The public, we were told, was fed up with illegal immigrants,
especially those coming from Latin America. These foreign nationals
were stealing jobs, depressing wages, filling our jails and prisons,
refusing to learn English, and not assimilating like past immigrant
groups. The conventional wisdom was that any presidential candidate
who stood a chance of being elected would have to take a hard-line
stance on illegal aliens.
Yet somehow the issue seems to have faded, if not disappeared
entirely. The presumptive Republican nominee, John McCain, isn't a
fire-breathing "seal the border" restrictionist. Rather, he's the
candidate most closely associated with a comprehensive immigration
reform proposal that would have given most undo***ented immigrants a
shot at becoming legal residents if they met certain requirements. As
for the Democrats, when's the last time you saw the term "illegal
immigrant" appear in a story about Mrs. Clinton and Barack Obama?
So what happened?
Well, I have a theory, and it is that Americans are basically pro-
immigrant but ambivalent about it. This ambivalence is reflected in
polls, which of course provide different results based on how
questions are asked. For example, last year a CBS News poll asked,
"Should illegal immigrants be prosecuted and de****ted or shouldn't
they?" And 69% of respondents favored de****tation. When the same
interviewers asked the same respondents what should happen to illegal
immigrants who have lived and worked in the U.S. for at least two
years, and then offered a specific alternative to de****tation, only
33% favored de****tation; 62% said they should be given a chance to
keep their jobs and eventually apply for legal status.
When a separate Gallup poll asked a similar question but offered four
alternatives, just 13% favored de****tation, and 78% said illegal
immigrants should be allowed to keep their jobs and apply for
citizen****p.
In other words, for all the loud talk we've heard in recent months,
via cable news, talk radio and the blogosphere, the American public
seems not to have lost confidence in the melting pot. And rightly so,
because there's plenty of evidence that assimilation is proceeding
apace. True, it doesn't always seem that way, but we all know that
perceptions can sometimes be illusions.
The media offers up a steady diet of data about current immigration
from Mexico, and much of it consists of "averages" regarding English-
language skills, income, home-owner****p rates, education and so forth.
But while digesting these figures, it's im****tant to keep in mind that
Latino immigration is ongoing. These averages are snapshots of a
moving stream and therefore of little use in measuring assimilation.
To properly gauge assimilation, we need to find out how immigrants in
the U.S. are faring over time. Only longitudinal studies that track
individuals can provide that information.
Just looking at averages can give you a very distorted view of who's
learning English or dropping out of school or climbing out of poverty.
How so? Because overall statistics that average in large numbers of
newcomers can obscure the progress made by pre-existing immigrants.
Dowell Myers, a demographer at the University of Southern California,
calls it the "Peter Pan Fallacy." "Many of us assume, unwittingly,
that immigrants are like Peter Pan," says Mr. Myers, "forever frozen
in their status as newcomers, never aging, never advancing
economically, and never assimilating." In this na=EFve view, he says,
"the mounting numbers of foreign-born residents imply that our nation
is becoming dominated by growing numbers of people who perpetually
resemble newcomers."
The reality, however, is that the longitudinal studies show real socio-
economic progress by Latinos. Progress is slower in some areas, such
as the education level of adult immigrants, and faster in others, such
as income and homeowner****p rates. But there is no doubt that both
assimilation and upward mobility are occurring over time.
With respect to linguistic assimilation, which is one of the more
im****tant measures because it amounts to a job skill that can increase
earnings, the historical pattern is as follows: The first generation
learns enough English to get by but prefers the mother tongue. The
children of immigrants born here grow up in homes where they
understand the mother tongue to some extent and may speak it, but they
prefer English. When those children become adults, they establish
homes where English is the dominant language.
There's every indication that Latinos are following this pattern.
According to 2005 Census data, just one-third of Latino immigrants in
the country for less than a decade speak English well. But that
pro****tion climbs to 75% for those here 30 years or more. There may be
more bilingualism today among their children, but there's no evidence
that Spanish is the dominant language in the second generation. The
2000 Census found that 91% of the children of immigrants, and 97% of
the grandchildren, spoke English well.
If American culture is under assault today, it's not from immigrants
who aren't assimilating but from liberal elites who reject the concept
of assimilation. For multiculturalists, and particularly those in the
academy, assimilation is a dirty word. A values-neutral belief system
is embraced by some to avoid having to judge one culture as superior
or inferior to another. Others reject the assimilationist paradigm
outright on the grounds that the U.S. hasn't always lived up to its
ideals. America slaughtered Indians and enslaved blacks, goes the
argument, and this wicked history means we have no right to impose a
value system on others.
But social conservatives who want to seal the border in response to
these left-wing elites are directing their wrath at the wrong people.
The problem isn't the immigrants. The problem is the militant
multiculturalists who want to turn America into some loose federation
of ethnic and racial groups. The political right should continue to
push back against bilingual education advocates, anti-American Chicano
Studies professors, Spanish-language ballots, ethnically gerrymandered
voting districts, La Raza's big-government agenda and all the rest.
But these problems weren't created by the women burping our babies and
changing linen at our hotels, or by the men picking lettuce in Yuma
and building homes in Iowa City.
Keep the immigrants. De****t the Columbia faculty.
Mr. Riley, a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board, is
author of "Let Them In: The Case for Open Borders" (Gotham), which is
out today.
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