Assimilation Then and Now

Reading an article about how the current wave of immigrants is assimilating just fine thank you, Atrios remarks that "as someone who lives in a city which still has plenty of white ethnic enclaves I've long been puzzled by the widespread belief that today's immigrants are somehow 'different,' aside from the skin color of some of them."

One point is simply that a lot of people seem to have exaggerated ideas about past assimilation and simply don't realize that 100 years ago, just like today, major American cities had foreign language newspapers and things like Yiddish theater that were the equivalent of Univision. There never was a time when people got off the boat, immediately enrolled themselves in English-immersion classes, and gave birth to perfect little Anglo-Saxon children. It was always the case that linguistic, social, and economic integration was a complicated multigenerational process

Comments

It's too bad Yiddish was lost, and I hope that the proximity of Mexico will insure that Spanish never is. I will never understand the notion that a monolingual, monocultural society is a good thing. Monocultures are as debilitating in human societies as they are in agriculture.

Posted by Steve LaBonne | May 13, 2008 11:19 AM

Cue the chorus of "My grandfather stepped off the boat from Sweden/Germany/Italy/wherever, went through the process perfectly legally, and never spoke [insert foreign language] again because he wanted to be an American, dammit."

Posted by Dragonfly | May 13, 2008 11:20 AM

The immigrants of the early 20th century, of course, weren't considered "white" at the time either, so skin color isn't an argument for exceptionalism.

What is different, of course, is the structure of U.S. immigration policy, which has to some extent incentivized immigrant communities (especially in the Southwest) to stick together and maintain a safe distance from everyone else--just because that's the best strategy to protect undocumented residents from getting caught. So it might be possible that the level of fear and distrust (on both sides) accompanying relations between immigrants and "natives" is higher than it used to be--but it's not the immigrants' fault.

Posted by Dara | May 13, 2008 11:25 AM

One problem is that in blog discussions of the issue there always seem to be pro-immigration commenters arguing that a bilingual society is nothing to fear and that people should be learning Spanish anyway. That's inconsistent with the argument that everyone will end up learning English and assimilating like previous generations.

Also, was the government printing ballots in Yiddish then, or providing instruction in Yiddish in the public schools? It seems like the level of provision of government services in non-English languages is a lot higher than it ever has been. Am I wrong?

I don't think there's a crisis, so I'm mostly just playing devil's advocate and wondering whether you're oversimplifying the situation.

Posted by KCinDC | May 13, 2008 11:25 AM

That's inconsistent with the argument that everyone will end up learning English and assimilating like previous generations.

Actually it's not inconsistent. One can wish that many of their descendants would keep their Spanish while recognizing that for the most part they probably won't.

Posted by Steve LaBonne | May 13, 2008 11:35 AM

IIRC, in Atrios' own Philadelphia, there were public schools taught entirely in German right up to WWI.

Posted by Kiril | May 13, 2008 11:36 AM

"It was always the case that linguistic, social, and economic integration was a complicated multigenerational process"

Sure, but after a "complicated multigenerational process" 41% of 4th generation Mexican-Americans still don't graduate high school. If that were true of the descendants of the Ellis Island immigrants of 100 years ago, we'd all agree that the Jews, Italians, etc. had largely failed to assimilate. We keep giving Mexican-Americans mulligans.

Also, you may have noticed some differences between America today and 100 years ago. For starters, we no longer have industries such as textiles that require lots of uneducated, unskilled workers; today we need smarter immigrants. Another difference is that 100 years ago there was no welfare state -- no Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, federal Welfare, food stamps, etc. About half of those Ellis Island-era immigrants couldn't hack it and went back home.

Posted by Fred | May 13, 2008 11:39 AM

IIRC, in Atrios' own Philadelphia, there were public schools taught entirely in German right up to WWI.

Right, the parochial schools in St. Louis only had one hour of Englisch in the late 19th century.

Also, in 1886, the New Yorker Staats-Zeitung had a considerably higher circulation than the New York Times.

Posted by Raghav | May 13, 2008 11:42 AM

Fred,

I'd like to know your sources for that statistic that 1/2 of Ellis Island immigrants went back home.

Posted by freddiemac | May 13, 2008 11:44 AM

The Constitution of Wisconsin is written in English and German.

Wikipedia link

Posted by KEn | May 13, 2008 11:44 AM

100 years ago? when matthew's dad and i were young, there was still yiddish radio in new york, which my grandparents listened to faithfully, and the forward was still published in yiddish (that continued at least through the '60s and conceivably quite a ways longer).

Posted by howard | May 13, 2008 11:44 AM

The Constitution of Wisconsin was written in English and German back in 1848.

Wikipedia link

Posted by KEn | May 13, 2008 11:44 AM

The Constitution of Wisconsin was written in English and German back in 1848.

Wikipedia link

Posted by KEn | May 13, 2008 11:46 AM

Matt's point is mostly correct, though I'd say notable differences, if we're trying to think about how immigration is different now than it once was, are the following:

1) The proximity of Mexico compared to Europe and advances in transportation surely make it easier to maintain a closeness to the former culture that immigrants in the great waves of the 1800s and pre-WWI didn't enjoy.

2) Though there were always immigrants who came here and went back home, my understanding is that a much higher proportion of immigrants today come to the United States not because they want to become citizens and live here forever after, but because they want to earn high American wages and either send money home to their family or save enough to return home, build a house etc.

3) I don't really worry much about the "reclaim Aztlan" groups, but they do exist, and it seems inevitable that as long as such radicals exist some people are going to worry about them, and not completely unreasonably.

I say all this as someone who supports higher levels of legal immigration than we have today, and as someone who isn't bothered in the least when someone is speaking a different language on the street or in line at the grocery store or whatever.

But a particular kind of assimilation -- enough English fluency to understand our political process and passing on to one's kids the habits of participatory democracy -- strikes me as a worthwhile goal.

Posted by Conor Friedersdorf | May 13, 2008 11:46 AM

After a little Googling, I end up at Wikipedia, as usual:

After two or three generations, German Americans adopted mainstream American customs—some of which they heavily influenced—and switched their language to English. As one scholar concludes, "The overwhelming evidence … indicates that the German-American school was a bilingual one much (perhaps a whole generation or more) earlier than 1917, and that the majority of the pupils may have been English-dominant bilinguals from the early 1880s on."[31] By 1914 the older members were attending German-language church services while the younger members were attending English services (in Lutheran, Evangelical and Catholic churches). In German parochial schools, the children spoke English among themselves, though some of their classes were in German. In 1917–18, after the US entry into WWI on the side of the British, nearly all German language instruction ended, as did most German-language church services.

During World War I, German Americans, especially those born abroad, were sometimes accused of being too sympathetic to the German Empire. Teddy Roosevelt denounced "hyphenated Americanism" and insisted that dual loyalties were impossible in wartime.

Only the names have changed.

Posted by Kiril | May 13, 2008 11:53 AM

KCinDC, historically, you are wrong about the level of services available to non-English speakers. For your example of ballots, government printed ballots (called an "Australian ballot") were relatively new and mostly limited to major cities with a strong progressive movement. Most areas still used ballots provided by political parties. The parties, in turn, made sure their ballots were comprehensible to non-English speakers, along with the large number of illiterate English speakers. The provisions to allow illiterate voters to cast ballots continued even as Australian ballots became more widespread. For example, in Alabama, parties had to have a unique symbol to put on the general election ballot, so illiterate white voters could make sure they voted Democratic (the Democratic Party's symbol was a white rooster - which is the genesis of the original Black Panther Party's logo, they wanted a cat because cats killed roosters). Even education often was in the native tongue, until World War I. As part of the crack down on civil liberties during the Great War, children were forced to switch to English only education. Before the war, 25% (roughly) of American school children were educated only in German. These types of sell sustaining non-English speaking communities were the norm through most of the country, until the stress of war and a more harsh type of progressive movement took hold of American policy.

Posted by Clashkid | May 13, 2008 11:55 AM

Kiril writes: "Only the names have changed."

But as Fred wrote above: "41% of 4th generation Mexican-Americans still don't graduate high school.".

Long before the 4th generation, past immigrant groups had matched or exceeded (as in the case of Jews) the scholastic achievement of the host society.

Posted by scottynx | May 13, 2008 11:59 AM

KCinDC, historically, you are wrong about the level of services available to non-English speakers. For your example of ballots, government printed ballots (called an "Australian ballot") were relatively new and mostly limited to major cities with a strong progressive movement. Most areas still used ballots provided by political parties. The parties, in turn, made sure their ballots were comprehensible to non-English speakers, along with the large number of illiterate English speakers. The provisions to allow illiterate voters to cast ballots continued even as Australian ballots became more widespread. For example, in Alabama, parties had to have a unique symbol to put on the general election ballot, so illiterate white voters could make sure they voted Democratic (the Democratic Party's symbol was a white rooster - which is the genesis of the original Black Panther Party's logo, they wanted a cat because cats killed roosters). Even education often was in the native tongue, until World War I. As part of the crack down on civil liberties during the Great War, children were forced to switch to English only education. Before the war, 25% (roughly) of American school children were educated only in German. These types of sell sustaining non-English speaking communities were the norm through most of the country, until the stress of war and a more harsh type of progressive movement took hold of American policy.

Posted by Clashkid | May 13, 2008 12:00 PM

Part of what killed Yiddish so thoroughly was Israel. American jews largely agreed to give up Yiddish, the language of their grandparents, in favor of teaching their children Hebrew. But that ended the continuity with their recent writing tradition. They even agreed to trade in their s's for t's in the name of unity.

As far as the other differences between today and one hundred years ago, they mostly don't hold up to well. I have read that Italian immigrants also came here with the intention of going back after finding money. (And that is a much more likely explanation that immigrants going home because they couldn't cut it here.

Similarly, it is not that we have anti-immigrant people now, and they were so pro-immigrant then. It is that many of the anti-immigrant people today are descendended from the immigrants then who faced the same anti-immigrant segment. So what is different is our current attitude towards past immigrants, not our current attitude towards current immigrants vs our past attitude towards past immigrants.

Posted by Lon | May 13, 2008 12:01 PM

"Sure, but after a "complicated multigenerational process" 41% of 4th generation Mexican-Americans still don't graduate high school."

Fred,

Where's your support for this figure? The data source you previously reported was a mere snapshot taken back in 1990, and the 4th generation figure was suspect, since it appeared to be composed of all Mexican-Americans who were 4th generation or greater, which would include the descendants of Chicanos who were in the Southwest, and therefore don't really count as immigrants, since they were a conquered people like the Native Americans. In addition, if the 4th generation is really 4th generation and above as of 1992, then it would include a high proportion of elderly people who came of age in eras when high school graduation was far lower among people of all ethnic groups in the US. Finally, your source compared each 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th gen Mexican-Americans to all other Americans. It did not provide a proper apples-to-apples comparison between 1st gen MAs and 1st gen others, 2nd Gen MAs and 2nd Gen others, etc.

Do you have a better source of data for your assertion with valid apples-to-apples comparisons?

Posted by eltoro | May 13, 2008 12:02 PM

We're still living with the damage those 19th century immigrants caused. The Irish made a mess out of every city government from Boston to Chicago, corrupted the police forces, and lowered the tone of college frat parties considerably. The Italians imported crime, stupid hairstyles, chest hair and pedophile priests. The Jews have burdened our bookshelves with countless bad novels, maudlin memoirs of tenement life and New York baseball nostalgia, not to mention infiltrating our better golf clubs. The list of immigrants' descendants we would be better off without is endless - Caitlin Flanagan, Bill O'Reilly, Pat Buchanan, Antonin Scalia, Giuliani, all the Kagans and Kristols, on and on.

Posted by John Bull | May 13, 2008 12:04 PM

After a very long time trolling here, Old Fart Fred still has his One Fucking Factoid. Let's just say that he's not really come very far.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | May 13, 2008 12:15 PM

"Sure, but after a "complicated multigenerational process" 41% of 4th generation Mexican-Americans still don't graduate high school. If that were true of the descendants of the Ellis Island immigrants of 100 years ago, we'd all agree that the Jews, Italians, etc. had largely failed to assimilate."

Fred,

Considering that a large portion of Latino immigrants are educated in our dysfunctional inner-city public schools, whose students as a whole, native-born and immigrant, suffer from low high school graduation rates, low high school graduation rates aren't necessarily a sign of a failure to assimilate. It could instead be a troubling sign that too many Latinos are assimilating the dysfunctional mores prevalent in many African American inner city communities.

Posted by eltoro | May 13, 2008 12:18 PM

I have read that Italian immigrants also came here with the intention of going back after finding money.

That was true of my great-grandfather Luigi. He originally intended to go back to Italy and sent money home to buy a farm, but his brother started managing the farm, and made it very clear the farm would do just fine without Luigi coming home. At least that was the story. I bet WWI had something to do with it as well, that cut a lot of people off from the old country and by the time the war ended Europe was in ruins and a life in the US looked pretty good.

Posted by vanya | May 13, 2008 12:29 PM

Eltoro writes: "It did not provide a proper apples-to-apples comparison between 1st gen MAs and 1st gen others, 2nd Gen MAs and 2nd Gen others, etc.

Do you have a better source of data for your assertion with valid apples-to-apples comparisons?"

I can't speak for Fred, but here is something that might interest you:

"Second-Generation Mexicans: Getting Ahead or Falling Behind?

By Roger Waldinger and Renee Reichl
University of California Los Angeles"
http://www.migrationinformation.org/Feature/display.cfm?ID=382

Table 3 shows 16.9% of 2nd generation Mexicans having less than a high school education in 2004, compared to 2.9% of 2nd gen. canadians/europeans/australians, 3.6% of 2nd gen. asians, and 2.4% of second gen. "other americas".

Table 4 shows 14.1% of second generation mexican adults (aged 25-64) having a college degree, compared to 42.6% of 2nd gen. canadians/europeans/australians, 57.4% of 2nd gen. asians, and 41.3% of second gen. "other americas".

2nd generation mexicans are doing exceptionally poor with regards to education when compared to other 2nd generation immigrants.

Posted by scottynx | May 13, 2008 12:30 PM

El Toro,

"Where's your support for this figure?"

See pp.12-13 of The Hispanic Challenge (PDF) for the data and citations, one of which is the United States Census. As I wrote last time we had this discussion,

If they've already failed to assimilate to mainstream European-American norms after four generations, what makes you think the fifth generation will be a charm? The typical trajectory of successful immigrants in America is two or three generations of successively higher achievement followed by complacency and a reversion to a mean, and you see that with Mexican Americans too, the only difference is that because they start with less human capital, their arc is lower than that of higher-achieving groups. In the PDF I linked to above, it also shows the "no high school" numbers for the first three generations of Mexican Americans: the percentage of high school grads peaks in the third generation, at about 67% (33% with no high school), and then the fourth generation is worse.

"Considering that a large portion of Latino immigrants are educated in our dysfunctional inner-city public schools, whose students as a whole, native-born and immigrant, suffer from low high school graduation rates, low high school graduation rates aren't necessarily a sign of a failure to assimilate. It could instead be a troubling sign that too many Latinos are assimilating the dysfunctional mores prevalent in many African American inner city communities."

So you have now switched tacks and instead of denying that 41% of fourth generation Mexican-Americans don't graduate high school, you are now blaming their lack of educational attainment on proximity to African Americans? If this were true, then Mexican-Americans in New Mexico would be doing well academically, because New Mexico is only 2.5% black, compared to the national average of 12.8%. You're not going to stipulate this, are you?

Posted by Fred | May 13, 2008 12:43 PM

It was always the case that linguistic, social, and economic integration was a complicated multigenerational process

Some descendents of immigrants still cling to furrin-lookin spellings of their names, even. What are they up to?

Posted by FearItself | May 13, 2008 12:49 PM

Also, was the government printing ballots in Yiddish then, or providing instruction in Yiddish in the public schools? It seems like the level of provision of government services in non-English languages is a lot higher than it ever has been. Am I wrong?

In Colorado the state constitution originally recognized three official languages for the state: English, Spanish, and German. There is a Colorado Supreme Court decision from 1879 finding that Spanish-speakers could be empaneled as jurors at a criminal trial with an interpreter provided and translated copies of the jury instructions. Town of Trinidad v. Simpson, 5 Colo. 65 (1879)

Posted by Just Dropping By | May 13, 2008 12:57 PM

Pseudomonas,

Here's another fact for you, from the same study:

Percent of 4th Generation Mexican-Americans with household income over $50k: 10.7%. Percent of all other Americans (excluding Mexican-Americans) with a household income over $50k: 24.8%. So after four generations here, Mexican-Americans still earn less than half what other Americans earn. Another example of their successful assimilation?

Posted by Fred | May 13, 2008 1:01 PM

Ah, Fred, going to back to Samuel Huntington, the brilliant scholar who, as that eminent uber-liberal blogger Dan Drezner once noted, might have a wee-bit of an issue with brown-skinned people.

In their book, "Remaking the American Mainstream," Richard Alba of SUNY-Albany and Victor Nee of Cornell point out that though there are some border neighborhoods where immigrants are slow to learn English, Mexicans nationwide know they must learn it to get ahead. By the third generation, 60 percent of Mexican-American children speak only English at home.

Nor is it true that Mexican immigrants are scuttling along the bottom of the economic ladder. An analysis of 2000 census data by the USC urban planner Dowell Myers suggests that Latinos are quite adept at climbing out of poverty. Sixty-eight percent of those who have been in this country 30 years own their own homes.

Who wrote that? None other another uber-liberal blogger, David Brooks.

Posted by Shine | May 13, 2008 1:07 PM

It's too bad Yiddish was lost

Yiddish lives!

Posted by Tyro | May 13, 2008 1:20 PM

Shine,

"Ah, Fred, going to back to Samuel Huntington, the brilliant scholar who, as that eminent uber-liberal blogger Dan Drezner once noted, might have a wee-bit of an issue with brown-skinned people.">

These were the sources of Huntington's data that 41% of fourth generation Mexican-Americans don't graduate high school:

Source: Rodolfo O. De la Garza, Angelo Falcón, P. Chris García's "Mexican Immigrants, Mexican Americans, and American Political Culture," in Barry Edmonston and Jeffrey S. Passell's (eds.) Immigration and Ethnicity: The Integration of America's Newest Arrivals (Washington: Urban Institute Press, 1994); and "Census of Population: Persons of Hispanic Origin in the United States," Washington: U.S. Census Bureau, 1990)

Are you claiming that Messrs De La Garza, Falcón, and García have a "wee-bit of an issue with brown-skinned people"? Are you claiming that the U.S. Census Bureau does? If not, then what's the point of your second hand allegation about Huntington?

Posted by Fred | May 13, 2008 1:21 PM

I suppose that if you only read the headline then this article allows one to self righteously crow about racist know-nothings who don't understand that if we only allowed millions of people with no appreciable education into a society that is moving more and more towards a "knowledge" economy they will easily assimilate and only provide positive benefits to America.

"The overall assimilation index also masks big differences between immigrants from certain countries. Mexicans, for example have an index of 13, while Vietnamese were at 41. And although immigrants who arrived as children tend to be nearly identical to their U.S.-born counterparts, apart from their lower rates of citizenship, those who come from Mexico are less assimilated and have higher incidences of teenage pregnancy and incarceration."

Posted by bbk | May 13, 2008 1:22 PM

Eltoro, the achievement gap between blacks and hispanics on one side and whites and asians on the other is also present within well-funded suburban school districts. The "bad urban schools" story is not the whole story at all:

"Policy Issues 13: Closing the Achievement Gap in Urban and Suburban School Communities"

excerpt: "Middle-class, suburban schools often are overlooked in the achievement gap debate. Yet an achievement gap exists even in some of the most well-resourced, middle-class school districts in the nation. The No Child Left Behind legislation makes identifying and addressing achievement gaps a critical concern—not just for urban school districts, where attention has been focused for years, but for suburban school districts as well. This newer emphasis on suburban districts is especially compelling, given 2000 Census data that shows one-third of all black children and roughly half of all Hispanic, Asian, and white children live in suburban communities.
http://www.ncrel.org/policy/pubs/html/pivol13/dec2002d.htm

Posted by scottynx | May 13, 2008 1:23 PM

"Ah, Fred, going to back to Samuel Huntington, the brilliant scholar who, as that eminent uber-liberal blogger Dan Drezner once noted, might have a wee-bit of an issue with brown-skinned people."

Do you have a citation? If Drezner resorted to such mindless comments then that lowers my opinion of him. Here's a Dan Drezner blog item on Huntington's "Hispanic Challange" thesis:

"The Controversial Sam Huntington"
excerpt: "..it would be dangerous to dismiss Huntington as some paleocon or crank -- he's neither. Read this Robert Kaplan biography of Huntington from the December 2001 Atlantic Monthly....... to get a sense of Huntington's career.

Second, most of the commentariat want Huntington to be wrong. That doesn't mean that he actually is wrong. Beware those who simply brand the argument as offensive and dismiss it out of hand -- Huntington is way too smart to be rejected without a sober evaluation of his thesis and evidence."

Posted by scottynx | May 13, 2008 1:35 PM

Above D. Drezner blog post is found at:
http://www.danieldrezner.com/archives/001120.html

Posted by scottynx | May 13, 2008 1:37 PM

I always love how East Coast pundits assume that Mexican immigrants are this brand new phenomenon, a blank slate really, that could well turn out just like Yiddish-speaking immigrants of yore. Who knows how thy could turn out because they're so new!

In the American Southwest, however, it's an old, old story. People arrived from what's now Mexico and settled in what's now New Mexico around 1600. New Mexico comes in about 45th-49th worst out of all states on most measures of human welfare.

Posted by Steve Sailer | May 13, 2008 1:40 PM

As bbk noted above, the happy-go-lucky WaPo title masks the many caveats and warnings in the actual article. Here's another:

"Vigdor also said his findings included cause for concern: most notably, the fact that the 2006 assimilation index of 28 is less than the previous low point of 42 in 1920. The difference indicates the substantial change in the composition of today's immigrants compared with earlier immigration waves."

Posted by scottynx | May 13, 2008 1:42 PM

"So you have now switched tacks and instead of denying that 41% of fourth generation Mexican-Americans don't graduate high school, you are now blaming their lack of educational attainment on proximity to African Americans?"

I am not switching tacks, Fred.

First of all, I have pointed out you have nothing to back up your assertion that 41% of 4th generation Mexican-Americans don't graduate high school. Even when I look at the table you refer to in Huntington's paper, the data doesn't really say that. What it says is that at a statistical snapshot taken circa 1990, 41% of 4th generation or greater Mexican-Americans did not graduate high school. That's all it says. A snapshot figure like that does not lead to your conclusion. There is no time series of data given for 4th gen or greater over a period of 80 years or more, indicating any progress or regress in that graduation rate. In addition, there is no breakout of that 4th gen population by age, which is a crucial variable in this comparison. If the 4th gen figure includes a large number of old people in 1990, who came of age in a era when high school graduation rates for even native-born Americans was much lower than it was in 1990 or even now, then the figure doesn't really inform us about the progress being made by Mexican-Americans today, in comparison to their native-born peers of other ethnicities.

Second, when I pointed out that many Latinos attend inner city public schools, where many of the native-born non-Latino students also suffer from low graduation rates, I was doing to counter your use of this figure as proof of a lack of assimiliation. I was merely pointing out that it could be a sign of the opposite conclusion, which is that Latinos in inner cities are assimiliating American culture, but unfortunately that American culture is the dysfunctional inner city African American culture. I was not using that argument as a replacement for my previous argument.

Third, as for low high school graduation rates among the Chicanos of New Mexico, I agree with you that the negative influence of dysfunctional inner city culture is not the cause. However, I wlll remind you that the Chicano community in New Mexico dates back to before the time that New Mexico was annexed by the US. Therefore, the Chicano culture established in NM is the culture of a conquered people, and thus displays many of the dysfunctional mores associated with Native American communities.

When looking at the high school graduation rates of Latinos in NM, we must at 2 distincit subsets. The 1st subset consists of the descendants of Mexicans who were already there when the Americans took over. The 2nd subset consists of Mexican-Americans who are either immigrants or descendants of immigrants. Do you have any data that controls for this?

Posted by eltoro | May 13, 2008 1:48 PM

Nothing seems to quiet enthusiasts of unskilled immigration like facts. After a flurry of facts from Sailer and scottynx, you can hear crickets chirping here.

Posted by Fred | May 13, 2008 1:50 PM

Wait: MattY led off this post with a sleazy race-baiting LogicalFallacy from Atrios, and he didn't even know it was a sleazy race-baiting LogicalFallacy? The Atlantic really needs to give MattY a minder.

As for Conor Friedersdorf not worrying about the "reclaim Aztlan" groups, I'm not worried either! The fact that some former leaders/members of those groups now hold public office (as Dems of course) doesn't bother me, nor does the fact that those who've publicly expressed those views (like ArmandoNavarro) have links to even more Dem politicians, nor does the fact that per a ZogbyPoll 58% of Mexicans think the U.S. southwest rightfully belongs to Mexico bother me. It's not like there's widespread irredentist feelings and Democratic leaders willing to take advantage of them.

Maybe MattY's minder could help him do an intellectually honest version of this post where he mentions all the issues with the study, such as a definition of assimilation that doesn't deal with country-specific issues.

As usual, click my name's link and look through my archives to find out what's really going on with this issue.

Posted by TLB | May 13, 2008 1:51 PM

Another East Coast pundit's fantasy is the "Yiddish theatre" assumption that illegal immigrants and their descendants must be bringing us all this vibrant culture, just like their great-grandparents brought to NYC. Granted, they can't think of much, if any, but simple logic shows that everything must be getting vibrant in Van Nuys. Who are you going to believe: theory or your lying eyes?

Posted by Steve Sailer | May 13, 2008 1:54 PM

Wow, who would have ever dreamed that a bunch of dishonest racist little shits would swarm this post? Besides the usual Fred and Steve Sailer, I mean. Hey, Steve, did you ever get around to making your own emigration plans, in case a genetically inferior Negro becomes President in place of a member of the master race?

Posted by mds | May 13, 2008 1:55 PM

"2nd generation mexicans are doing exceptionally poor with regards to education when compared to other 2nd generation immigrants."

Scottynx,

I don't dispute that. 2nd generation Mexican need to greatly improve their educational attainments, just as many inner city African-Americans and Appalacian whites need to.

What I dispute is that this figure displays a failure to assimilate American mores. Instead, it might be a sign that too many 2nd generation Mexican-Americans are assimilating the dysfunctional mores of certain segments among native-born Americans, such as inner city African-Americans.

Posted by eltoro | May 13, 2008 1:59 PM

I would guess that the women of Yiddish theater were more modestly dressed than the women of Univision.

Posted by Tom | May 13, 2008 2:03 PM

Looks like I spoke too soon about the crickets chirping.

El Toro,

"First of all, I have pointed out you have nothing to back up your assertion that 41% of 4th generation Mexican-Americans don't graduate high school."

Sure I do. I have the U.S. Census and the study by Messrs De La Garza, Falcón, and García cited as the sources of that statistic in Huntington's PDF. If you want to be ticky-tack about it, you could fault me for not adding the qualifying phrase "as of 1990", but I doubt more recent data will show much higher graduation rates among 4th generation Mexican-Americans. If you have such data, feel free to post it here.

"Second, when I pointed out that many Latinos attend inner city public schools, where many of the native-born non-Latino students also suffer from low graduation rates, I was doing to counter your use of this figure as proof of a lack of assimiliation. I was merely pointing out that it could be a sign of the opposite conclusion, which is that Latinos in inner cities are assimiliating American culture, but unfortunately that American culture is the dysfunctional inner city African American culture. I was not using that argument as a replacement for my previous argument."

Isn't this a fruitless argument for you? Even if I agreed with your hypothesis that Mexican-Americans assimilate to the "dysfunctional inner city African American culture", that hypothesis still supports the argument that Mexican-Americans have failed to assimilate to mainstream socio-economic norms and thus, can't be compared (except invidiously) to the Ellis-Island-era immigrants.

"Therefore, the Chicano culture established in NM is the culture of a conquered people, and thus displays many of the dysfunctional mores associated with Native American communities."

Any facts to support this bit of pop-psychology? The poor educational attainment could also be the result of lower aptitudes for academic study, on average, among Chicanos and Native Americans. If it were due to "conquered people syndrome" it ought to apply across-the-board to other peoples who were conquered. Does it? Does it apply to Vietnamese immigrants, whose country was conquered by North Vietnam? Does it apply to WWII-era Jewish immigrants, whose home countries were conquered by the Nazis?

Posted by Fred | May 13, 2008 2:10 PM

Matt,

Did you even read this article? Or did you just like the headline?

You have to weight that chart of assimilation rates per country of origin by the volume of immigrants. In other words, the poor scores for Mexico are a lot more important than higher scores for the other countries individually.

Posted by Steve Sailer | May 13, 2008 2:13 PM

"In the PDF I linked to above, it also shows the "no high school" numbers for the first three generations of Mexican Americans: the percentage of high school grads peaks in the third generation, at about 67% (33% with no high school), and then the fourth generation is worse."

Fred,

Actually, the PDF shows that circa 1990, 2/3 of Mexican-Americans were high school graduates or better. The 4th generation number is really 4th generation or greater, and would have included a much older population than the 3rd generation population. Age is a crucial variable, since high school graducation rates for all Americans were much lower in the early 20th century than they were in the late 20th century and the early 21st. Since the 3rd generation population is a much younger population than the 4th generation number, it would no surprise that the high school graduation rate for the 4th generation is much lower than that of the 3rd generation population.

Do you any actual valid data showing the graduation rates of the children of that 3rd generation population? Are today's 4th generation Mexican-Americans graduating from high school at the same rate as those 3rd generation Mexican-Americans did circa 1990, or are they graduating at even higher rates? Provide some apples-to-apples data.

Posted by eltoro | May 13, 2008 2:18 PM

"2nd generation Mexican need to greatly improve their educational attainments, just as many inner city African-Americans and Appalacian whites need to."

One of these groups is not like the other. We haven't been importing anymore slaves from West Africa or Scots-Irish indentured servants for a long time. We are still importing millions of unskilled immigrants from Mexico. We should stop doing that. Claiming that African-Americans and Appalachian whites have socioeconomic characteristics just as bad as Mexican-Americans' isn't a selling point for importing more unskilled immigrants from Mexico.

Posted by Fred | May 13, 2008 2:22 PM

"Sure I do. I have the U.S. Census and the study by Messrs De La Garza, Falcón, and García cited as the sources of that statistic in Huntington's PDF. If you want to be ticky-tack about it, you could fault me for not adding the qualifying phrase "as of 1990", but I doubt more recent data will show much higher graduation rates among 4th generation Mexican-Americans. If you have such data, feel free to post it here."

Fred,

You don't have support for your assertion, even from the date that Huntington compiled from his sources. Huntington shows that as of 1990, 67 % of 3rd generation Mexican-Americans, while 59% of 4th generation or greater Mexicam-Americans had not graduated high school. There are no adjustments made for the different age demographics of each population (the 4th gen population is a much older population than the 3rd gen, and those older people came of age in an America where high school graduation rates across the board were much lower than they were in the late 20th century and the early 21st.). Therefore, Huntington's table is not showing the true picture of the graduation rates of 4th generation Mexican-Americans circa 1990, since he is not limiting his data to the children of the 3rd generation circa 1990.

Since you are the one making the assertion, Fred, the onus is on you to provide the relevant backup data, not me.

Posted by eltoro | May 13, 2008 2:37 PM

One of the reasons Washington DC pundits just don't get the rest of the country's concerns about illegal immigration is because in DC itself, it's raining white people. More white trust funders move in to DC each year, pushing out African-Americans. The Washington Post recently reported:

" The District, which the census treats as a state, stands in marked exception to that trend. As once-affordable neighborhoods have gentrified over the past decade, the city has been losing black residents while gaining white newcomers, steadily diminishing its longtime status as a majority-black metropolis.

" The latest census figures confirm that pattern, with non-Hispanic blacks accounting for 54 percent of the District's population in 2007, compared with 60 percent in 2000. Meanwhile, the number of non-Hispanic whites increased from 28 to 33 percent in that period, while the Hispanic and non-Hispanic Asian population remained at 8 and 3 percent, respectively."

Don't forget, the ethnic clearing of African-Americans from D.C. is actually happening faster than these numbers for "non-Hispanic blacks" indicate -- the African-Americans are being replaced by black immigrants, who tend to be more obsequious and thus make better service workers for white Washingtonians.

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2008/05/why-dc-elite-thinks-immigration-is.html

Posted by Steve Sailer | May 13, 2008 2:40 PM

el toro writes: "Since the 3rd generation population is a much younger population than the 4th generation number, it would no surprise that the high school graduation rate for the 4th generation is much lower than that of the 3rd generation population."

Ok, I think I see what you might getting at. So earlier generation hispanics probably have a higher birthrate and younger age at first birth, thus skewing 4th generation hispanics as being slightly older on average than 3rd generation hispanics. Is that what you are getting at? If that is, I still don't see how the effect could be much more than trivial. Could the 4th generation (and above even, if that's what the statistic meant, which is far from certain) really be more than 1 or 2 years older on average than the 3rd generation?

Posted by scottynx | May 13, 2008 2:40 PM

I don't need to tell you this, but you can't trust MattY or the WaPo. Someone who covers these issues for the Austin AmericanStatesman says:

Current immigrants — especially Mexicans — are less assimilated than those 100 years ago, a study released Tuesday found...

But the progress "is not present for all groups and in particular, it's not present among some of the Latin American immigrants that are at the heart of the immigration debate these days," [the study author] added.

In Austin, the assimilation index is 22, lower than the national average, according to the study. However, immigrants in the area had a high rate of economic assimilation, 78.

In Waco, Texas, the assimilation index is 14, far below the national average, according to the study. In addition, the economic index rate is 63.

For Mexicans, the assimilation rate is 13, according to the index. By comparison, Canadians have an assimilation index of 53 and Germans have an index of 87, the highest.

Posted by TLB | May 13, 2008 2:40 PM

"Isn't this a fruitless argument for you? Even if I agreed with your hypothesis that Mexican-Americans assimilate to the "dysfunctional inner city African American culture", that hypothesis still supports the argument that Mexican-Americans have failed to assimilate to mainstream socio-economic norms and thus, can't be compared (except invidiously) to the Ellis-Island-era immigrants."

Fred,

The argument is not about attaining the socio-economic norms of the American mainstream. It's about whether Mexican-Americans are assimilating or not. The study actually shows that Mexican-Americans have a high rate of cultural assimilation compared to other immigrant groups; where they fall behind is on the indexes for economic and civic assimilation. The authors of this study believe that is driven by the illegal status of many Mexican immigrants. Change that factor, and the indexes for economic and civic assimilation will improve greatly.

Posted by eltoro | May 13, 2008 2:47 PM

Fred: 41% of 4th generation Mexican-Americans still don't graduate high school

The last time Fred (or was it Steve Sailer?)brought this up, a couple weeks ago, I took a look at the source he provided, and I noticed that the trend for 1st to 3rd-generation Mexican-Americans was of improved graduation rates over time, but that this reversed with the 4th generation. No explanation was offered for this, so in the absence of further study I would venture to say that this indicates that the 4th-generation Mexican-Americans represent a group with other significantly-different characteristics than the 1st-through-3rd generation Mexican-Americans.

In other words, I would find it unlikely that the great-grand-children of immigrants are suddenly reversing course and becoming less assimilated than their parents. In the absence of any evidence otherwise, I would expect that the children of today's 3rd-generation Mexican-Americans would likely follow the improving trend of the 1st through 3rd generations, and not resemble today's 4th generation.

In other words, the stat is interesting, but as currently used, misleading.

Posted by Adam Villani | May 13, 2008 2:51 PM

Part of the problem of assimilation for Hispanics is that they now have a grievance theater (ala African Americans) that encourages them to be separate. 40+% of your kids born out of wedlock? Blame the Man. Single parent homes with low academic achievement? Blame the Man and demand affirmative action. Can't get ahead economically? Blame the Man and attempt to blackmail him for subprime mortgages (Oops!). Meanwhile, Chinese people are stumbling out of shipping containers and kicking economic ass in a couple years. No excuses. Immigrants from the Ellis Island period focused on families and education and within a couple generations were the Man.

Posted by danceswithgoats | May 13, 2008 2:59 PM

As usual, click my name's link and look through my archives to find out what's really going on with this issue.

As usual, ignore the blogwhoring ladder-pulling shut-in.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | May 13, 2008 3:14 PM

The last time the federal National Assessment of Educational Progress achievement tests asked students if they were born in America was 1992. Not surprisingly, foreign-born Hispanics did worse than African-Americans, winding up 5 to 6 grade levels behind whites, assuming they stuck it out through 12th grade, which is a big if.

But, what about American-born Hispanics, from the second through seventh generations? They did better than African-Americans, but the test score gap was still 67% as large as the notoriously deleterious white-black gap, putting them on pace to wind up 3.3 grade levels behind whites by 12th grade.

http://www.vdare.com/Sailer/new_underclass.htm

Posted by Steve Sailer | May 13, 2008 3:17 PM

I shouldn't get involved in this cesspit. Well, with Fred and Steve Sailer, it's a cesspit. But hey, WTF. I know these numbers in a way that neither of those two posers do.

Unsurprisingly, the source data for the Huntington paper don't seem to have any relation to the graphs. Surprise!

Here's the 2000 data for native-born Americans of Mexican descent v. natives, aged 18 to 64:

H.S. dropouts 8.3 21.0
H.S. graduates 34.3 40.0
Some college 29.5 27.7
College grad 27.9 11.3

Clearly an issue. But 41%? Nope.

I could get into the problems of measuring intergenerational progress in a population with such a high exogamy rate (huge), or discuss the fiscal impact of immigrants (positive). Or we could talk about whether the U.S. needs more skilled-based immigration, even if we honestly disagreed, and the impact of immigration on unskilled Americans. We could compare educational attainment among immigrant groups controlling for legal status and parental education, and discuss policy solutions. We could have all sorts of conversations, we could honestly disagree, minds could be changed.

But not with this crowd. Ya me voy. Hasta.

Posted by Noel Maurer | May 13, 2008 3:19 PM

"Any facts to support this bit of pop-psychology? The poor educational attainment could also be the result of lower aptitudes for academic study, on average, among Chicanos and Native Americans. If it were due to "conquered people syndrome" it ought to apply across-the-board to other peoples who were conquered. Does it? Does it apply to Vietnamese immigrants, whose country was conquered by North Vietnam? Does it apply to WWII-era Jewish immigrants, whose home countries were conquered by the Nazis?"

Fred,

Are you being deliberately obtuse, or do you think that the Vietnamese and the Jews lived alongside Native Americans and Chicanos during the time when the latter were CONQUERED BY AMERICANS? Surely you understand that the American experience of people conquered by the United States is vastly different from people who immigrated to the United States from other countries? As usual, Fred, you have trouble providing apples-to-apples comparisons.

To help illustrate the difference between the experience of being a member of an oppressed native ethnic group and being an immigrant, look at the historical experience of Russian Jews within Russia and within the US. In czarist Russia, Jews were oppressed for centurities to the point that many of them were unable to be achieve anything more than being a peasant. However, when many of these Russian Jews emigrated to America, their societal status changed enormously. The children of someone like Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof wound up assimilating not just mainstream American mores, but the mores of their high-achieving, middle-class Austro-German Jewish American cousins. The vast achievement gap that existed between Austro-German Jews and Russian Jews during the Ellis Island era has been erased.

Even with many of the Vietnamese, a similiar dynamic occurs. Not all Vietnamese who escaped after the fall of Saigon were middle-class refugees fearing liquidation by the Commies. Many were also peasants whose forebears had lived as peasants also for generatons and generations. When they came to America, however, the children and grandchildren of these peasants improved upon the socioeconomic achievements of their ancestors.

Posted by eltoro | May 13, 2008 3:30 PM

In the American Southwest, however, it's an old, old story. People arrived from what's now Mexico and settled in what's now New Mexico around 1600. New Mexico comes in about 45th-49th worst out of all states on most measures of human welfare.

Actually, Steve, the poorest, most backward, most-third-world-like states of the union are those that have been run for years by racist white conservatives. And California, with all our hispanic immigrants and our liberalism and our racial diversity, is rich as sin.

This must burn you up.

Posted by Dilan Esper | May 13, 2008 3:33 PM

California now has about 13 million Hispanics, and a sizable fraction of the population has been Hispanic forever. So, there must be all these highly assimilated Latino high achievers in California, right? It's simple arithmetic!

So, in Silicon Valley, there's Hector Ruiz, CEO of second-string chip maker AMD. And then there's ... well, ...

Although people born in Mexico make up by far the largest immigrant group, they don't rank in top 20 immigrant groups in the United States in terms of patents awarded. Turkish immigrant get more patents than Mexican immigrants, and there aren't many immigrants from Turkey.

So, never mind Silicon Valley, let's look at Hollywood! There's the highly creative Richard Rodriguez, a classic Mexican-American from a family of ten in San Antonio. And then there's, well, there are a few actors and actresses and comedians. And then ... oh yeah, there are bunch of art house directors!

Except, they aren't exactly Mexican-Americans -- they're from the urban Mexican cultural elite and moved to Hollywood after making it big in Mexico. They're the kind of Mexicans who normally don't move their families to California.

This isn't for a lack of trying on the part of American corporations. They've been desperate for Mexican-American celebrities to endorse their products for the growing Mexican American market since they latched on to Nancy Lopez in 1978 and made her the lady golfer with the widest range of endorsements ever.

There just isn't a high level of achievement among American-born people of Mexican descent. That's because people from high achieving families in Mexico tend to stay in Mexico. They like it there. Mexico is a great place to live if you're on top of the heap. The richest man in the world lives in Mexico. (The few who do move to the U.S. tend to move to Miami rather than LA -- they don't like LA because it has too many lower class Mexicans in it.)

The bottom line is that illegal immigration brings in people without many skills, and they tend to pass on their lack of skills to their descendants. The next generation gets more education, but they continue to lag American norms, and there's little evidence of improvement in subsequent generations.

And then there's assimilation in the wrong direction: the illegitimacy rate is higher among American-born Hispanics than among foreign-born ones. And the crime rate appears to go up substantially among the American-born Hispanics compared to their fathers.

But all these facts that are obvious in the American southwest are a big surprise to DC journalists who feel entitled to make up little fantasies about what Mexicans will do next because Mexicans are so, so new to America.

Posted by Steve Sailer | May 13, 2008 3:41 PM

A while back I had a test for Dilan Esper where I asked him to name the major IL group that's headed by someone linked to the MexicanGovernment. Silly me: as it turns out, he's not only an ImmigrationLawyer, but he writes for a site that links to that group in their sidebar.

As for CA, our situation is much more dire. We're developing an economy similar to BR, with large numbers of poor people and a small number of rich people who live in enclaves. Even DanWalters and others have warned about such a two-tier system. And, many of our legislators take actions that are indistinguishable from those that actual paid agents of the MexicanGovernment would take. Those include things like congratulating Mexico's president on helping block a law approved by 59% of voters.

As for our "diversity", I believe Dilan Esper is referring to the "liberal" variety of same, where neighborhoods that are 99% Hispanic are "heavily diverse".

Posted by TLB | May 13, 2008 3:52 PM

Most government high school graduation statistics are notoriously phony. The best analysis of dropout trends is the 2007 paper by Nobel economist and master statistician James Heckman. He looks at seven longitudinal studies and only includes Hispanics who were born in America or arrived as small children. The drop-out rate for these American raised Hispanics is around 35%, similar to the black rate, and about twice the white rate.

Heckman writes:

"In fact, we find no evidence of convergence in minority-majority graduation rates over the past 35 years."

The overall dropout rate bottomed out at around 20% around 1970, and has since gone up to about 25%. I calculate that the majority of that overall worsening was due to changing demographics.

For details and links, see:

http://www.vdare.com/Sailer/080101_dropout.htm

Posted by Steve Sailer | May 13, 2008 3:53 PM

By the way, in regard to the talk about how there were German-language schools in Wisconsin in 1900 -- the key fact is that Germany was way ahead of America in the 19th Century in educational standards. As bad as 21st century American education is, it's still a lot better than Mexico's.

Posted by Steve Sailer | May 13, 2008 3:59 PM

Dilan Esper asserts:

"And California, with all our hispanic immigrants and our liberalism and our racial diversity, is rich as sin."

Are you kidding? The standard of living for the median-income family of four in California, adjusted for the very high cost of living, is behind even New Mexico, ahead of only Hawaii and DC.

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2005/05/standard-of-living-by-state.html

Sure, there are a lot of rich people in California, just like there are a lot of billionaires in Mexico. But is Mexico the utopia of egalitarian liberals? That's the direction California is heading.

Posted by Steve Sailer | May 13, 2008 4:15 PM

Steve Sailer:
...illegal immigrants and their descendants must be bringing us all this vibrant culture... simple logic shows that everything must be getting vibrant in Van Nuys. Who are you going to believe: theory or your lying eyes?

Posts like this make it even more difficult to believe that you're some kind of concerned factual researcher and not just a garden variety racist.

First off, people were making fun of Van Nuys even when it was mostly white. Woodland Hills is mostly white and it's hardly a cultural mecca.

Second, so your point here is that Mexican-Americans have no vibrant culture? That's something of a jaw-dropper, man. You do realize there are several TV networks full of Spanish-language entertainment, and that's not including the Latinos on TV? The list of Mexican-American contributors to culture goes a lot farther than Robert Rodriguez. Just off the top of my head: Sergio Aragones, Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez, Ted Williams, Nomar Garciaparra, Salma Hayek, Oscar de la Hoya, Anthony Quinn, Cesar Chavez, Carlos Santana, Cypress Hill, Jessica Alba, Linda Ronstadt, etc. etc.

Posted by Adam Villani | May 13, 2008 4:30 PM

Eltoro,

I gave you the citations for the data that, as of 1990, 41% of fourth generation Mexican-Americans hadn't graduated high school. None of your objections refute that data. No "apples to apples" comparison is necessary because there is only one apple in this case: the number isn't a comparison of one group to another, it is a statistic about one group (4th generation Mexican-Americans).

Your claim that

"The argument is not about attaining the socio-economic norms of the American mainstream. It's about whether Mexican-Americans are assimilating or not."

Is pure sophistry, if not deliberate obtuseness on your part. It's obvious from Matt's Yiddish Theater reference that when he (and everyone else except you) makes reassuring parallels about assimilation between today's Spanish-speaking immigrants and Ellis Island-era immigrants, the assimilation he is alluding to isn't to the "dysfunctional inner-city African-American culture" you described. No advocate for continuing the status quo of importing more unskilled immigrants from Mexico would claim that.

"Surely you understand that the American experience of people conquered by the United States is vastly different from people who immigrated to the United States from other countries?"

Hence the sorry state of affairs of today's Germans and Japanese, the descendants of people conquered by Americans? Or does your "conquered people syndrome" only happen in the Southwest?

Posted by Fred | May 13, 2008 4:43 PM

You forgot Raquel Welch!

Posted by Steve Sailer | May 13, 2008 4:46 PM

There are 30 million people of Mexican background in the U.S., one tenth of all residents. One big reason illegal immigration is so much more popular among elite Americans than among working class Americans is because illegal immigrants and their descendants provide such negligible competition for American elites and their children.

Posted by Steve Sailer | May 13, 2008 4:51 PM

Steve, I can't help but notice that in that wonderful picture on your website (you really couldn't find one less fuzzy? or at least newer?*) that you sort of have what some may consider a dark, even swarthy, countenance.

What's up with that?

*And what is it with aconmag guys and pictures, anyway? What's with the vanity? Raimondo went with a picture that was clearly more than a decade old for years until he finally udpated to his current dopey/squidgy modern pic.

Posted by SoCalJustice | May 13, 2008 4:58 PM

By the way, in regard to the talk about how there were German-language schools in Wisconsin in 1900 -- the key fact is that Germany was way ahead of America in the 19th Century in educational standards.

It still is.

Posted by vanya | May 13, 2008 5:10 PM

Adam Villani says a lot of stupid things, including Cypress Hill, Jessica Alba, Linda Ronstadt, etc.

If you're on a plane with any of those three, check it isn't headed to the sun. Moving to infamy, we've got the RailroadKiller, RickieRodriguez, and JuanCorona.

OTOH, HopeSandoval was a pretty good contribution.

Posted by TLB | May 13, 2008 5:17 PM

"I gave you the citations for the data that, as of 1990, 41% of fourth generation Mexican-Americans hadn't graduated high school. None of your objections refute that data."

I am not refuting the data. I am refuting your interpretation of this data. You claimed that 41% of Mexican-Americans still don't graduate high school, and used Huntington's data as support. As I have repeatedly pointed out, Huntington's data DOES NOT support that claim. All Huntington's data shows is that as of 1990, 41% of Mexican-Americans who were 4th generation or greater had not graduated high school. Neither you nor Huntington have providing tracking data covering the period since then. Until you show the children of that 3rd generation circa 1990 are graduating at lower rates today, you have not supported your assertion.

"No "apples to apples" comparison is necessary because there is only one apple in this case: the number isn't a comparison of one group to another, it is a statistic about one group"

The apples to apples comparison is necessary for 2 reasons. First, you can't really compare the 4th generation numbers to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd generation numbers if the 4th generation number really reprsents 4th generation or greater. If one item is a range, then the other items should also be a range. Second, in that table Huntington is comparing those 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th gen numbers to all other Americans. He doesn't compare 1st gen Mexican-Americans to 1st gen non Mexican Americans, 2nd gen Mexican-Americans to 2nd gen Mexican-Americans, etc. You and Huntington cannnot validly compare the progress of Mexican-Americans to non Mexican-Americans without creating this apples-to-apples situation.

"Hence the sorry state of affairs of today's Germans and Japanese, the descendants of people conquered by Americans? Or does your "conquered people syndrome" only happen in the Southwest?"

Are you being deliberately obtuse yet again? Last time I looked, the US did not annex Germany and Japan and make them part of the United States. Therefore, neither the Germans nor the Japanese constitute a people conquered by Americans. They were people we defeated in war and briefly occupied. However, we helped them rebuild their countries and ended our occupations of them.

That description does not apply to either Native Americans or the Chicanos of the Southwest. The land taken from the Native Americans by the US still is part of the US, as is the land that was taken from Mexico. The descendants of the people who were here before the Americans took over are therefore conquered peoples in the context of American history.

If native Americans or Chicanos immigrated to the UK and formed communities, those UK communities would not consist of conquered peoples. The historical context that those communities exist in would be a UK one, not a US one, and since those communities would exist in the UK due to IMMIGRATION, not conquest, those people would not be conquered people.

On the other hand, the Irish in Ireland for much of their history were a conquered people in the historical context of Great Britain. However, Irish-Americans were not a conquered people in the American historical context because the Irish-American community was created via immigration to the US; the US did not invade Ireland and make it part of the US.