Changing Demographics

"The Hispanic population has taken on a momentum of its own," said Kenneth Johnson, senior demographer at the University of New Hampshire's Carsey Institute. "If you close the borders tomorrow, there is still going to be a large Hispanic increase." That's from a Wall Street Journal writeup of a Census report on the fast-growing Hispanic population, showing that a bit over 60 percent of the increase is attributable to the Hispanic birthrate rather than to immigration.

This is why I think the GOP has probably dodged an important medium-term bullet by nominating John McCain. For a while it looked like there was a very real chance that the Republicans were going to abandon the immigrant-friendly posture that's helped their party do well with more prosperous Latinos in favor of embracing a politics of Anglo ethnic panic that could have been enormously harmful over time. At the non-presidential level, though, the right still seems quite invested in crackdown policies and McCain has made some significant gestures in that direction during the primaries so it remains to be seen what they'll start busting out if things look bad in the fall.

Comments

Re "in favor of embracing a politics of Anglo ethnic panic that could have been enormously harmful over time."
--------------
1) What's more "enormously harmful over time" than spending $1 Trillion/year on the military while letting your country be taken over by foreigners who wave the Mexican flag and who seem loyal largely to their own ethnic group, not to their fellow US citizens?

Hispanic US citizens should THEMSELVES be OPPOSED to further immigration until the their fellow poor US citizens -- black, white , Hispanic , whatever -- have decent wages and are employed. When did you ever see that in La Raza's platform?

2) Oh, but Matthew's argument seems to be "there's already too many of the self-serving fuckers here now so we have to pander to them."

How is that an argument for letting in more?

3) Oh, the US lifestyle consumes enormously more natural resources per individual than any other country on earth.

Good luck preserving that lifestyle -- or in maintaining environmental quality, open space, reducing oil comsumption, maintaining food reserves, providing wild life habitat, conserving water aquifers, etc -- when you are increasing your population by 1 million immigrants year after year.

Posted by Don Williams | May 1, 2008 10:42 AM

Well, Republicans should appreciate Matt's touching concern over their long-term prospects. But getting a 35-40 percent share ( "prosperous Latinos") of a continually rising demographic group isn't such a good strategy. On the other hand, if they were able to slow down immigration somewhat, it should increase "assimilation" and "middle-classness" among the second and later generations of Latinos--so somewhere down the road the GOP could get the kind of Latino vote they now get from Italians.

Of course, maybe the war supporting Republicans deserve to die (politically) anyway. . .

Posted by TACreader | May 1, 2008 10:44 AM

Especially when those 1 million immigrants have a religion that bans contraception and encourages a couple to have 6 or 8 kids --irregardless of whether they can actually feed them. Look at South America for the long term consequences of that.

Posted by Don Williams | May 1, 2008 10:46 AM

When the Senators from Calif. are no longer Boxer and Feinstein but Lopez and Sanchez, and Lopez and Sanchez care little for the environment, gays, or Israel, the left will cry about immigration.

Posted by del | May 1, 2008 11:10 AM

del,

You have hit it on the head. When the rich liberal elites realize that the Hispanics will not vote for them anymore than they will vote for Republicans, the liberal elites will want controls.

Does anyone think that Los Angeles will ever have a white mayor again as long as mexican immigration is so high.

Posted by superdestroyer | May 1, 2008 11:27 AM

Hispanic US citizens should THEMSELVES be OPPOSED to further immigration until the their fellow poor US citizens -- black, white , Hispanic , whatever -- have decent wages and are employed.

Unless they want people to have the same opportunities that they have, recognizing that being poor in the United States is highly preferable to being anything less than wealthy in Mexico.

Posted by right | May 1, 2008 11:38 AM

This Yglesias, son of Dalton and Harvard, is an elite. What could he possibly know of the middle-class virtues that cause many private Americans, regardless of political stripe, to reject our coming demographic disaster?

Posted by Billare | May 1, 2008 11:51 AM

Billare, how is it a *demographic* disaster? One could call it a poverty disaster, an overpopulation disaster, but a *demographic* disaster? I'm not seeing it.

Posted by Tyro | May 1, 2008 11:55 AM

...letting your country be taken over by foreigners who wave the Mexican flag and who seem loyal largely to their own ethnic group, not to their fellow US citizens?

I'm afraid "Don Williams" should really stick closer to issues about which he has better knowledge or personal experience.

I'm afraid I'll have to start reconsidering my design to support him for the presidency...

Posted by RKU | May 1, 2008 11:56 AM

"Especially when those 1 million immigrants have a religion that bans contraception and encourages a couple to have 6 or 8 kids --irregardless of whether they can actually feed them. Look at South America for the long term consequences of that."

Don,

In the long-term, there is no guarantee that the native-born descendants of those Hispanic immigrants will follow Roman Catholic teachings on contraception, even if official Catholic doctrine remains opposed to contraception. Despite all the hysterical gloom and doom painted by the Lou Dobbses and the Tom Tancredos of this country, Hispanic immigrants to the US are still following the pattern that other non-English speaking immigrants have followed. The 2nd generation of immigrants (the 1st native-born generation) is far more Americanized than their immigrant parents, and the 3rd generation is so assimilated that the ethnic culture of their grandparents is almost entirely wiped out. Like most other Americans who were raised Roman Catholic, we 3rd generation Latinos tend to be English-only speakers and very secular in our outlook.

Posted by eltoro | May 1, 2008 11:59 AM

AHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Completely, unequivocally wrong. I guess few here have
actually looked up the relevant data. Again.

Posted by Billare | May 1, 2008 12:05 PM

We've already seen this dynamic play out at the state level. Pete Wilson made California a safe Democratic state. (Ahhnold is a special case.)

Thanks Pete! Keep it up Tom Tancredo!

Posted by Dave | May 1, 2008 12:07 PM

Re RKU's comment "I'm afraid I'll have to start reconsidering my design to support him [Don Williams] for the presidency"
-------------
Damm. And here I had already bought some Claymores in anticipation of the floor fight at the Convention.

Posted by Don Williams | May 1, 2008 12:12 PM

"while letting your country be taken over by foreigners who wave the Mexican flag and who seem loyal largely to their own ethnic group, not to their fellow US citizens"

Don,

Perception does not equal reality.

Hispanics are far from being in a position to take over the US. The US population will remain predominately Caucasian for a long time, and the combined Caucasian, African-American, and Asian-American shares of the population will far exceed the share that Latinos represent for a long time. Moreover, political power in this country depends on suffrage, and Hispanics are a long way away from being able to exercise the right to vote in numbers proportionate to their population size. In addition, by the time the Hispanic share of the electorate actually matches the Hispanic share of the population, the forces of assimilation will have created enough divisions within the Hispanic community on the basis of education, income, religious observance, etcetera, that Hispanics won't vote monolithically for one political party or political movement, anymore than Caucasians do now.

Hispanics may seem to you to be largely loyal to their ethnic group over their fellow US citizens, but that is not the case at all. Yes, we are sensitive by attempts by nativists to make Latino immigrants the scapegoats for this country's social ills, and we are concerned about achieving just and fair treatment for our fellow Latino Americans. However, many of us are concerned about the fate of other Americans, whether they be African-American, Asian-American, Caucasian-American, and so on.

As for the controversies over waving the Mexican flag, you need to remember that when a Mexican immigrant waves a Mexican flag, it is an affirmation of ethnic pride, not a rebuke to the United States and to American citizens. Immigrants from Italy and Ireland and Germany and Poland managed to wave the flags of their mother countries and still became loyal and patriotic Americans, as did my Mexican immigrant grandparents and their children and grandchildren.

Posted by eltoro | May 1, 2008 12:31 PM

the 3rd generation is so assimilated that the ethnic culture of their grandparents is almost entirely wiped out.

Case in point: Tom Tancredo.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | May 1, 2008 12:43 PM

Isn't it about time for ole Chris Ford to weigh in on this matter with one of his patented diatribes?

Posted by SLC | May 1, 2008 12:45 PM

"AHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Completely, unequivocally wrong. I guess few here have
actually looked up the relevant data. Again."

Billaire,

What relevant, reliable, and accurate data do you have to support a contrary case? In places like the Chicago metropolitan area, Hispanic immigrants are still being assimilated into American culture, and their native-born children and grandchildren view themselves as Americans, not as Mexicans or Nicaraguans or Argentinians. Moreover, the grandchildren tend to be English-only speakers, and don't wave any flag other than the American flag. Moreover, the impression that I have gotten from visiting other parts of the US is that this pattern holds true with Latino immigrants outside of Chicago.

The only subset of the Latino American population that I see being resistant to assimilation are the Chicanos of the Southwest, the descendants of Mexicans who were there before the Americans took over. This group does not fall under the parameters of the American immigrant experience; instead, they are a conquered people like the Native Americans. Even with this subset, however, the forces of assimiliation are breaking through, and the proportion they represent of American Latinos is growing smaller and smaller over time.

Posted by eltoro | May 1, 2008 12:50 PM

If any politician was serious about reducing the number of illegal aliens, they'd stop blathering about a fence and start cracking down on employers. Most illegals are here for economic reasons -- they can make more money here. If employers stopped hiring, millions would have to go home.

Plus an employer crack-down would pay for itself in fines.

But the Republicans won't anger their corporate funders. Unlike the Democrats, who...oh wait a minute.

Posted by Oberon | May 1, 2008 1:03 PM

eltoro is confusing what (supposedly, according to studies from those with an agenda) happened in the past with what will happen in the future. No one can tell what's going to happen one or two generations from now.

It's also good to see MattY get some blowback. I'll also add that MattY's "immigrant-friendly posture" would lead to even more power inside the U.S. for the MexicanGovernment; their president recently encouraged Mexicans (of any status) inside the U.S. to push that country's agenda inside the U.S. That president also said they're going to be working with U.S. non-profits to push their agenda inside the U.S. and, in fact, a Mexican government agency recently announced a partnership with the ACLU and they have direct or indirect links to other groups and even Democratic politicians.

The bottom line is that Matty isn't thinking of what's in the long-term best interests of the U.S.

Posted by TLB | May 1, 2008 1:07 PM

Eltoro
The first point of Matthews post is that the Hispanic swing vote affects who gets the huge electoral votes of California -- and Florida and Texas.

The second point of his post is that the Hispanic community exerts a lot of political pressure as a bloc on a single issue: letting more Hispanics into the USA.

The third point was made in the WSJ article to which he linked: Hispanics make up 15% of the population but accounted for over HALF of the population growth in recent years -- and 62% of that growth was due to a high birth rate.

The US Census data shows that Hispanic households are significantly larger than white or black households. But even that data is obscured because the Census only gives averages. And it lumps multiple Spanish speaking groups together as "Hispanic". So the large family sizes of some groups gets watered down by the smaller family sizes of other groups.

Of course, in any group there's outliers. This white Arkansas fundamentalist couple was HONORED by Mike Huckabee for having 14 children --and another one's on the way.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/offbeat/2004-04-07-bigbrood_x.htm

Posted by Don Williams | May 1, 2008 1:22 PM

I should also note that there's other dimensions to this issue.

There are a number of non-Hispanic Catholic Churchs who are advocates for immigration. In my opinion, they feel a stronger loyalty to foreign Catholics --who endure miserable conditions in Central and South America -- than they feel to their fellow US citizens who are not Catholic.

See, e.g, Catholics Without Borders at
http://uscatholic.claretians.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=13149&news_iv_ctrl=0&abbr=usc_&JServSessionIdr007=s5wwden1l2.app43a

So in some respects, the ethnic-based lobbys are supported by other lobbys that are more religious-based.

But you also have Catholic Pat Buchanan, who evidently hasn't gotten the word yet from Bishop Jaime Soto.

Posted by Don Williams | May 1, 2008 1:44 PM

"eltoro is confusing what (supposedly, according to studies from those with an agenda) happened in the past with what will happen in the future. No one can tell what's going to happen one or two generations from now"

TLB,

You can make reasonable predictions based on past trends, especially if the factors driving those past trends are still in play. So far, the classic pattern of increased Americanization among the descendants of immigrants is holding up, even among Hispanics.

Hispanics are not like the Amish, who are able to seal themselves off from the forces of assimilation in American society. The influence exerted by popular culture and economics are simply too great to overcome.

Posted by eltoro | May 1, 2008 1:45 PM

Matt,

Are you talking about the McCain immigration bill that he no longer would even vote for?

Posted by Evan | May 1, 2008 1:50 PM

No one can tell what's going to happen one or two generations from now.

Unless you're bedwetting blogwhoring ladder-pulling friend-of-white-supremacists Chris Kelly, in which case you're utterly convinced that TehBrownMenaceOHNOES!1! is going to overthrow the US government and make him eat tacos.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | May 1, 2008 1:50 PM

eltoro: One of the authors of a famous assimilation study wants to "integrate" North America as one political unit, so, I'm going to guess that there's something interesting in the study he forgot to mention. And, the conditions today are far different from what they were twenty or forty years ago, when the people involved in those studies first came here. The correct way to handle this would be for those who support the current situation to post a bond: if their predictions turn out to be inaccurate, they and their descendents would forfeit everything, hopefully including their liberty. That's the way I'd like to work it, but of course that's not going to happen: hacks like MattY and those with actual power are going to push their agenda and then flee behind their gates or to other countries when the full effects of their policies become known.

Posted by TLB | May 1, 2008 2:02 PM

Past Generations did not have cell phones, satellite television, and the internet to keep themselves connected to the country of their ancestors. These days, it is easy to find second generation Americans who do not use a word of English outside of their work environment. They can watch foreign language television or DVD's, make phone calls to relatives in other countries and easily organize into ethnic groups.

Also, as millions more immigrants come in each year, they will reinforce eth separateness of the ethnic groups. In the past, immigration was limited for decades at a time to give assimilation time to occur. That will not happen in the future.

Those who write for newspapers and magazines should start worrying that there will be enough upper middle class English readers to supply enough readers to keep themselves employed.

Posted by superdestroyer | May 1, 2008 2:06 PM

The only subset of the Latino American population that I see being resistant to assimilation are the Chicanos of the Southwest, the descendants of Mexicans who were there before the Americans took over.

Yes, I think there's certainly an element of truth in this. But that's just the point---these numbers are so extraordinarily small.

For example, I think there were only something like 20,000 Mexicans in CA when it become part of the U.S., so probably about 99.5% of CA Latinos derive from an immigrant background. The Latino native percentages for Texas, New Mexico, and the other parts of the Southwest are probably a little higher but not much, so maybe around 97% to 99% or so in total of their Latinos originally come from an immigrant background.

And I really hate getting drawn into these interminable "immigration" threads...they're almost as bad as the "racism" threads...

Posted by RKU | May 1, 2008 2:08 PM

it is easy to find second generation Americans who do not use a word of English outside of their work environment.

Usually because they've married someone from the old country. But if they're using english in their work environment, what's the problem? They're speaking English: mission accomplished. And same with their children in school.

Those who write for newspapers and magazines should start worrying that there will be enough upper middle class English readers to supply enough readers to keep themselves employed.

You just said that those 2nd-generation Americans speak english, already. And those who make it to the upper middle classes will certainly be the market for those newspapers and magazines.

Children are insidious little buggers: no matter how much their parents want them to act like they do, kids always figure who the "powerful" are in a society and how to suck up to them. The quickest way to get a Happy Meal at McDonald's is to ask for it in English, and the quickest way to figure out what Paris Hilton is up to or see who won American Idol is to hear it in English, and that's what they'll chase after. It almost explains why immigrant families want to insulate their children from American culture.

Posted by Tyro | May 1, 2008 2:14 PM

Don,

The Hispanic vote can only exert a kingmaker role in winning electoral votes only when the race is closely contested in that state among non-Hispanics. The Hispanic vote is key in California only because neither Democrats nor Republicans are able to build a political majority using only African-Americans, Asian Americans, and Caucasians. In a state like Texas, the GOP is able to maintain its political dominance by appealing primarily to white voters; the Democratic coalition of Mexican-Americans, African-Americans, and liberal-leaning whites in Texas isn't large enough to secure Texas's electoral college votes for the Democrats.

In Florida, the Cubans exert political influence only because the GOP needs their tiny sliver of votes to put them over the top. If the Florida GOP had the overwhelming support of white non-Hispanic voters to the degree that the GOP has in other Southern states, they wouldn't need the Cubans at all. After all, the GOP dominates in states like Georgia and Mississippi, despite the overwhelming support by Black voters for the Democrats, and Black voters make a far more substantial portion of the population of those states than Cubans do in Florida.

As for my home state of Illinois, if the GOP were to gain the support of the overwhelming majority of white voters, even the combined vote of Blacks & Hispanics would be insufficient for the Democrats to win statewide. It is only because the white vote in my state is more or less evenly split between the Dems and the Repubs that minority voters are able to exercise any political influence on a statewide basis.

In addition, the relative weight of the Hispanic vote in many states is far less than the Hispanic share of the population for a variety of reasons (lack of citizenship, a population whose average and median ages skew far younger than the US population as a whole, and a failure so far by Hispanic political leaders to mobilize Hispanic-Americans who are eligible to vote.) African-Americans still have greater relative voting power than Hispanics do, because their participation rates in the political process are far greater than those of Hispanics (and that's despite the fact that African-Americans have a long way to go in matchng the participation rates of white voters.)

Posted by eltoro | May 1, 2008 2:19 PM

Like MattY, JPod is putting his reputation on the line to promote the wrong side of this issue. Generally speaking, it isn't a good career move to promote policies that are obviously wrong, so MattY might want to contact the higher ups and suggest they make their proposals more rational.

Posted by TLB | May 1, 2008 2:29 PM

"The correct way to handle this would be for those who support the current situation to post a bond: if their predictions turn out to be inaccurate, they and their descendents would forfeit everything, hopefully including their liberty."

TLB,

So long as you will pay the same price when your predictions turn out to be wrong, that is a fair deal.

Posted by eltoro | May 1, 2008 2:30 PM

Don Williams,

You appear not to be too knowledgeable about current demographic trends in Latin America. The average woman in South America currently has 2.5 children I believe, and around 2.7 in Central America. A number of countries including Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Cuba, and Costa Rica are already at or below replacement level fertility, and Mexico is on track to reach replacement level in a few years. (The average total fertility rate was _never_ 6 to 8 children, I believe that prior to the 1960s it was about 4-5.) South America's population will probably level off sometime in the next 20 years or so- it's probably the least overpopulated of any continent relative to its natural resources. Several South American countries are actually trying to _raise_ their fertility rates right now.

And while I'm not a Catholic, I would certainly expect that a Catholic would be concerned, firstly about humanity in general, and then about fellow Catholic Christians in particular, and only then about his fellow non-Catholic Americans. It would be an odd religion indeed that preached loyalty to the nation above loyalty to God and His Church.

Posted by Hector | May 1, 2008 2:32 PM

Re Hector "It would be an odd religion indeed that preached loyalty to the nation above loyalty to God and His Church. "
---------
Hmmm. Isn't that what the Catholics and the Protestants told each other in Northern Ireland?

So how did that work out?

Posted by Don Williams | May 1, 2008 2:44 PM

eltoro: I'm not promoting radical changes as others are. And, if we sharply reduced all immigration tomorrow the only thing that would happen is a minor economic disruption so even if a bond would be necessary I'm pretty sure there'd be little risk. Those who are promoting radical changes will have a far greater impact on the U.S. than simply an economic one.

Tyro: many might not be "using english in their work environment".

Posted by TLB | May 1, 2008 2:50 PM

"The third point was made in the WSJ article to which he linked: Hispanics make up 15% of the population but accounted for over HALF of the population growth in recent years -- and 62% of that growth was due to a high birth rate."

Don,

What drives that high birth rate among Hispanic-Americans compared to Anglos? It is not solely due to Old World attitudes toward contraception and family planning among Latino immigrants, since the birth rates of Hispanic immigrants to the US tend to be higher than those of Hispanics who stayed behind Mexico, Central America, and South America. It is a peculiar effect of the immigrant experience; the relatively better life that Hispanic immigrants find in the US compared to the old country promotes an optimistic view of future material success, which tends to promote a desire for a large family. This pattern was also found among the Italians and the Irish when they were primarily immigrant communities.

However, the native-born descendants of Italian, Irish, and Hispanic immigrants tend to have smaller families than their immigrant forebears. In the long run, it is unlikely that the Hispanic community will be able to maintain the high birth rate it now enjoys. The current high birth rate will lead to a future Hispanic community composed primarily of native-born Americans, which will cause the future Hispanic birth rate to decrease to the levels experienced by non-Hispanic, native-born Americans.

Posted by eltoro | May 1, 2008 2:51 PM

Birth rates will indeed probably level off, but there are 500 million people in Latin America and the increasing segment of our population that MattY and JPod want to put in charge of our immigration system have shown a remarkable support for ethnic solidarity.

Posted by TLB | May 1, 2008 3:10 PM

Good luck preserving that lifestyle -- or in maintaining environmental quality, open space, reducing oil comsumption, maintaining food reserves, providing wild life habitat, conserving water aquifers, etc -- when you are increasing your population by 1 million immigrants year after year.

Something has to give. We cannot conserve our way to energy independence or maintain wildlife habitat, adequate water for all if we grow the US population to 438 million in 2050 or 720 million in 2100 as the US Census projects with Open Borders.
ACLU Jews love mass immigration because they believe the immigrants will leverage their power to dismantle the evil white Christian culture the ACLU fights. Wealthy Republican and Democrat Ruling Elites love immigration because it depresses wages and they have figured out how to force the costs of immigration to be socialized across all US taxpayers while the profits of cheap labor are reserved for the few.

It is not just Latinos. Other high birthrate peoples are pouring into the US - from the Carribean, Africa, the Ummah. We need a major pause to assimilate, and with Global Warming and realization we can't maintain massive fossil fuel burning indefinitely to give a high technology green revolution Civilization to 12.6 billion people in 2100 - to begin honest discussions of what is an optimal population for the globe, and for America, so we all have a good standard of living and do not destroy the planet.
Common sense tells me 438 million Americans is not optimal, certainly not 720 - and we may be very close to clamping down on the "right" of people to have as many children as they please and even requiring the rest of us to subsidize their "reproductive choices" if they cannot support a large family on their resources. And certainly not be forced to accept the "right" of "precious refugee" foreigners from overpopulated lands with collapsing ecosystems to come here and do to America what they did to El Salvador, Haiti, or Bangladesh or the Sahel.

Posted by chris ford | May 1, 2008 3:13 PM

Re Hector's comment: "You appear not to be too knowledgeable about current demographic trends in Latin America "
--------------

Hmmm.
Birth Rate per 1000 population for selected Countries
Source: US Census Bureau via http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0934668.html

Guatemala: 29.1
Paraguay: 29.1
Belize: 28.3
Honduras: 27.6
El Salvador: 26.2
Nicaragua: 24.1
Dominican Republic: 22.9
Bolivia: 22.8
Panama: 21.5
Mexico: 20.4

USA: 14.2

----------
Re Hector's comment about "replacement levels" in Latin America, obviously there's a lot of people being born in Latin America. So where are they disappearing to?

Let me guess.

Posted by Don Williams | May 1, 2008 3:15 PM

"Past Generations did not have cell phones, satellite television, and the internet to keep themselves connected to the country of their ancestors. These days, it is easy to find second generation Americans who do not use a word of English outside of their work environment. They can watch foreign language television or DVD's, make phone calls to relatives in other countries and easily organize into ethnic groups."

Past generations did have archaic, low-tech, devices call pens, pencils, papers, envelopes, and stamps, and quaint techologies like oceangoing ships and the telegraph. So even the immigrants of old were able to stay connected to the country of their ancestors.

Moreover, it would be very hard to find 2nd generation Americans who never use English outside of their work environment. They have the option to watch Univision or Telemundo, but many would rather watch CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox, CW, MTV, VH1, or HBO instead, in English. When they go to Blockbuster or receive DVDs from Netflix, they'll watch the 40-Year Old Virgin or Superbad or Soul Plane or 300 or Grindhouse or the Simpsons Movie, instead of Pan's Labrynth. They will watch movies made by Americans like Robert Rodriguez, not foreigners like Pedro Almodovar or even Guillermo Del Toro, and they and their kids will watch them in English. Moreover, they and their kids will constantly playing music by Hispanic artists like Jay Z, 50 Cent, Beyonce, Justin Timberlake, and Green Day.

Last time I looked, the immigrants of old didn't exactly have trouble organizing into ethnic groups. There were no such thing as generic European immigrant communities in places like NY and Chicago; there were Irish, Italian, Jewish, Polish, German, Lithuanian, Serbian ones instead. Yet, if one goes through these neighborhoods, you will see that 3rd generation Americans living there speak English only. Moreover, 3rd generation Mexican-Americans like myself have no problem communicating in English, while our Spanish-speaking skills are weak at best (or even nonexistent as in my case).

Posted by eltoro | May 1, 2008 3:20 PM

Re Chris's comment "Common sense tells me 438 million Americans is not optimal, certainly not 720"
-------------
I concur. As a country becomes overpopulated, you have greater and greater support for fascist , strongman governments --because the elites become frightened by the threat of social unrest caused by famines and epidemics.

Eventually, you reach a point where everyone senses that there is not enough food -- then one group exterminates other groups in a preemptive wave of genocide as has occurred in several places in Africa.

Posted by Don Williams | May 1, 2008 3:30 PM

eltoro,

so I guess all of the tienda and mercados in places like Manassas Virginia really are not selling calling cards for central America or Spanish Language DVD's? That the Prince William County schools are not filled with the children of immigrants who cannot speak English and whose parents are illiterate in Spanish and English. That all of the cheap apartments in Manassas Park are covered with satellite dishes because all of the immigrants really want to watch American Football on ESPN.

In the past, the Italian immigrants who migranted to the U.S. around 1900 knew that they were never going back. Today, the Mexican immigrants plan on going back and forth. The Italian immigrant was put on hold for decades at a time (like around World War I) but today those same neighborhoods in Manssas keep getting new immigrants.

You keep referring to old models even through the situation is very different and the U.S. is not following the old models. I point out that we are operating under a new model and it more likely that Manassas Park will become like El Paso Texas than El Paso Texas will become like Manassas Park, VA.

Posted by superdestroyer | May 1, 2008 3:36 PM

Tyro: many might not be "using english in their work environment".

Until they want to get a better job. In SNL's classic "Cheeseburger Skit", one of the characters is describing in detail the sort of omelet he wants while Bill Murray, behind the counter, nods. At a certain point, it becomes clear that Bill Murray's character speaks no English at all. No one ranted on an on about the insidious Greek Menace taking over our diners and not speaking English, even in their own work environments. Rather, it was considered an amusing joke, because lots of viewers knew about the time their family started out in the same position.

Posted by Tyro | May 1, 2008 3:38 PM

"Birth rates will indeed probably level off, but there are 500 million people in Latin America and the increasing segment of our population that MattY and JPod want to put in charge of our immigration system have shown a remarkable support for ethnic solidarity."

TLB,

This ethnic solidarity only exists in response to perceived nativism against Latin Americans as a whole. If Latino immigrants are not treated collectively as a "brown menace", there is little reason for Latinos, who are comprised on multiple nationalities, to have ethnic solidarity with each other. In fact, the 3 main Hispanic nationalities in this country, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans, are often rivals to one another, and tend to have different voting patterns.

Mexican voters historically have tended to vote like white ethnic Democrats, while Puerto Ricans have tended to vote in sympathy with African-American interests. Cubans of course tend to vote like white Republicans. If these 3 groups of Latinos behave so differently, how are people as different as Guatemalans and Argentinians ever going to form some unbreakable political monolith?

Posted by eltoro | May 1, 2008 3:47 PM

21st century America does not require the mass infusion of labor that early 20th century America did.

We don't need Irish and Poles to mine coal in Scranton, we don't need Italians and Slovaks to work the steel mills of Youngstown, and we don't need to bring southern blacks to Detroit to work on the assembly lines.

Scranton has no coal, Youngstown ceased forging steel, and GM builds cars in Mexico.

The Latinos are here to mow the lawns, not build the greatest industrial nation the world has ever seen. We are no longer an industrial nation, therefore, no need for strong backs. The new immigrants are soaking the American taxpayer.

Posted by del | May 1, 2008 4:05 PM

Re eltoro's comment "This ethnic solidarity only exists in response to perceived nativism against Latin Americans as a whole "
--------------
I think this is incorrect. No one is picking on Hispanic citizens of this country. I would be the first to oppose that. If someone is a US citizen, they deserve my loyalty and the rights of a citizen.

But that's a two-way fucking street. It really pisses me off when people are given the benefits of US citizenship but acknowledge no loyalty to the citizens of this country in return.

If you are a Hispanic who has accepted US citizenship, then you loyalties should lie with the black or white guys down the block who are your fellow citizens --not with the guys you left back in El Salvador.

You should not be willing to casually fuck the working poor of this country -- the people who fight this country's wars -- just in order to bring up some buddies from down south.

If someone wants to advocate for the rights of Mexicans, let them give up their US citizenship and move to Mexico. (I speaking as a general principle, eltoro, not at you personally.)

Posted by Don Williams | May 1, 2008 4:06 PM

tyro and eltoro keep peddling their BS and wasting others' time.

The ethnic solidarity I speak of is evidenced in endless ways having nothing to do with "response to perceived nativism". Take a look at all the actions of almost every Mexican-American politician and Hispanic politicians like Menendez. They're racial demagogues whose only interest is in obtaining race-based power. Take a look at minor things like the NCLR constantly referring to "our community" or the way that Spanish-language radio stations are advertised in L.A.

Or, take a look at this:
youtube.com/watch?v=MiszkrzoOs0

Please, whether you're doing this for free or because you're paid, stop wasting peoples' time by trying to peddle Big Lies.

Posted by TLB | May 1, 2008 4:24 PM

I want to amend my prev statement a little. I did not mean to slight latinos with the grass cutting reference. I am aware that latinos are proficient at other tasks, but that the United States no longer requires millions of unskilled laborers. Our economy does not build anymore. And for what little we do build, the native gringos can handle it. In fact, the latinos are driving down our wages.

One other aspect that does not get touched on in these rants is that the Mexican govt, Guatemala govt, El Salvador govt, are more than happy to have their 17-45 year old men in the Estados Unidos working for low wages.

If these men were in their native lands, they would be jobless, idle, poor, and pissed off. These type of men start revolutions. The govts don't want angry, young, and revolutionary men around fucking up their perfectly good corrupt banana republic.

Posted by del | May 1, 2008 4:25 PM

del, I actually agree with you. I think the US immigration policy is screwed up, and we don't require the mass influx of unskilled labor.

However, it is still self-obvious that immgrants assimilate within a couple of generations and that trying to whip up anti-immigrant fervor only causes such communities to start organizing and voting as a block in order to defend their own interests.

Posted by Tyro | May 1, 2008 4:47 PM

"But that's a two-way fucking street. It really pisses me off when people are given the benefits of US citizenship but acknowledge no loyalty to the citizens of this country in return.

If you are a Hispanic who has accepted US citizenship, then you loyalties should lie with the black or white guys down the block who are your fellow citizens --not with the guys you left back in El Salvador.

You should not be willing to casually fuck the working poor of this country -- the people who fight this country's wars -- just in order to bring up some buddies from down south."

Don,

Last time I looked, American citizens of Hispanic descent are avid supporters of unionization, improving protections of workers' rights, improving educational opportunities for the poor, making our tax system less regressive, and lots of other measures to improve the lot of the working poor as a whole in this country. So I don't see how they are working to fuck the working poor in this country, which includes many Hispanics as well. Many of those same Hispanics have fought in our nation's wars, and continue to do so today.

The problem afflicting the working poor in this country is not competition from immigrants, legal or illegal. The problem is that the economic elite in the US opposes measures that enable maximum social mobility for the working poor. If the working poor are given adequate opportunities to acquire skills and trades, and are given to the ability to organize and bargain effectively against the multinational megacorporations that dominate our economy, that will do more far more to improve the plight of the American working poor than protecting them from competition with Latin American immigrants.

I come from the working class Southeast Side of Chicago, where the steel mills once dominated. The white working class there has suffered because companies like US Steel left the area and moved to other areas of the country or even to other countries altogether with weak labor movements, or because these companies invested in technological capital in order to minimize their need for a large unskilled workforce. No Mexicans or other Latinos had any part in the decisions made by those corporations, which are dominated by wealthy Anglos.

In fact, when we Mexicans first came to the Southeast Side in the early part of the 20th century, we didn't allow the steel mills to use us a tool for breaking the nascent labor union movements. We sided with the white ethnic working poor and supported unionization. So I take great offense at you making today's Hispanic immigrants the major cause of the plight of the white and black working poor. It's the well to do whites like Fred and Al that are out to fuck the working poor, not poor Central Americans.

Posted by eltoro | May 1, 2008 4:48 PM

Superdestroyer,

So I guess Chicago neighborhoods like Pilsen and Little Village and South Chicago aren't filled with children of Hispanic immigrants who are learning English, graduating high school, attending college, etc? So I guess when I see Hispanics watching Flavor of Love and America's Next Top Model and American Idol and renting English language versions of Will Ferrell comedies and listening to artists like 50 Cent and Jay Z on urban-contemporary stations like WGCI and Power 92, it's all an illusion? When I see Hispanics watching the Chicago Cubs and the White Sox and Da Bulls and Da Bears and even the Blackhawks more than they watch the Chicago Fire, let alone the Mexican team in the World Cup, I guess they are only pretending to enjoy these American teams?

Posted by eltoro | May 1, 2008 5:08 PM

"In the past, the Italian immigrants who migranted to the U.S. around 1900 knew that they were never going back."

Are you sure about that? Many of these immigrants maintained ties to the old country; they didn't forget about the relatives they had back in Italy, and made occasional trips back to visit them in Italy when it was feasible. In addition, they didn't abandon their Italian culture, and tried to maintain many of their traditions with their native-born children and grandchildren. However, the forces promoting assimilation were too strong, and their children and grandchildren lost any ties to the old country when grandpa and grandma passed away. This experience parallels of Hispanic immigrants to this country. (I certainly don't know any of my relatives back in Mexico, and they certainly don't know who I am. Moreover, they wouldn't be able to communicate with me, unless they were fluent in English.)

Posted by eltoro | May 1, 2008 5:26 PM

"In the past, the Italian immigrants who migranted to the U.S. around 1900 knew that they were never going back."

Are you sure about that? Many of these immigrants maintained ties to the old country; they didn't forget about the relatives they had back in Italy, and made occasional trips back to visit them in Italy when it was feasible. In addition, they didn't abandon their Italian culture, and tried to maintain many of their traditions with their native-born children and grandchildren. However, the forces promoting assimilation were too strong, and their children and grandchildren lost any ties to the old country when grandpa and grandma passed away. This experience parallels that of Hispanic immigrants to this country. (I certainly don't know any of my relatives back in Mexico, and they certainly don't know who I am. Moreover, they wouldn't be able to communicate with me, unless they were fluent in English.)

Posted by eltoro | May 1, 2008 5:28 PM

eltoro is correct. Many immigrants did return back to their home countries. It is simply a matter of selection bias which explains why we don't normally hear about this (obviously none of the immigrants from Italy that we know ended up going back to their homelands).

This site pegs the return rate at "between 11 percent and 73 percent." Not too helpful, but it did happen.

I think that the Irish had the lowest rate of return and the Greeks the largest (about 60%). Sometimes, though, "returning" meant coming to the US, getting married, having kids, and then retiring back to the home country, leaving the children in the US who would still go back and forth to the old country to visit.

Much immigration wasn't motivated by the desire to "come to America." It was about coming to the US, making money to send back home, and then moving back to their hometowns with more capital for their farms or businesses. Of course, eventually, life interferes and people decide that staying was a better deal.

Posted by Tyro | May 1, 2008 5:33 PM

"The Latinos are here to mow the lawns, not build the greatest industrial nation the world has ever seen. We are no longer an industrial nation, therefore, no need for strong backs. The new immigrants are soaking the American taxpayer."

Del,

We are still very much an industrial nation. Manafucturing still counts as a large portion of our GBP; it just doesn't require the amount of unskilled labor that it commanded in the past. Manufacturing companies over the last 30 years have invested in technology in order to automate their processes, and large corporations have the ability to move to anti-union states in the South and West, or even out of the country altogether. The ability of unions to organize in so-called right to work states and in places like China pales in comparison to the ability of corporations to leave and set up shop elsewhere.
In addition, our labor movements have lagged behind in their ability to organize workers in the growing service sectors in our country.

The new immigrants are hardly soaking the US taxpayer. They pay FICA taxes, sales taxes, and both direct and indirect property taxes (via rents for apartments and houses). Many of them even pay income taxes; not all immigrants are illegals. Moreover, when immigrants transition from illegal to legal status, they wind paying income taxes just like everyone else. Moreover, their native-born children and grandchildren pay income taxes and other taxes too when they enter the workforce. (Having immigrant Mexican grandparents hasn't shielded me from having to pay Uncle Sam and the Land of Lincoln more and more every year.)

Posted by eltoro | May 1, 2008 5:46 PM

"Take a look at all the actions of almost every Mexican-American politician and Hispanic politicians like Menendez. They're racial demagogues whose only interest is in obtaining race-based power."

TLB,

Politicians, even Anglo ones, are a despicable group overall. I wouldn't doubt if there Hispanic politicians just as guilty of racial demogoguery as many Black and White politicians are.

However, there are many Hispanic politicians who are honestly advocating for the legitimate concerns of their Hispanic consituents. Just as many black politicians feel that if they don't speak up for the African-American community, nobody else will, many Hispanic politicians like Luis Gutierrez feel it is their particular responsibility to speak up for Latinos.

Nevertheless, just as most African-American politicians care about the well-being about American society overall, so do most Hispanic-American politicians. Politicians in both groups want to assemble multi-ethnic, multi-racial coalitions and improve the lot of Americans overall. On the national level, both Barack Obama and Bill Richardson have tried to assemble Harold Washington style coalitions of Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and whites. (Richardson failed to do so, while Obama's political coalition still needs some work.)

Posted by eltoro | May 1, 2008 6:19 PM

Re eltoro's comment "The ability of unions to organize in so-called right to work states and in places like China pales in comparison to the ability of corporations to leave and set up shop elsewhere."
---------
1) If someone is building a housing development or a shopping center, they can't outsource the carpentry to China or to some other state.

2) You obviously have a valid point re other forces screwing the working class. But my primary points remain: a) this country is running out of room and (b) we shouldn't be increasing the labor supply until more of our people are fully employed and wages have risen enough for them to support a family.

3) If some rich fucker doesn't want to pay his gardener a livable wage, then let him mow his own damm yard.

4) I have no problem with people arguing that immigrants can --in some cases -- contribute to this country.

You, for example, have not made some of the stronger arguments -- that an influx of young immigrant workers is needed to sustain Social Security because the baby boomers did not have enough children to sustain the Trust Funds.

Also, some poor rural areas in the US are badly in need of doctors and value foreign doctors who agree to practice in low income areas for several years in exchange for citizenship or government support.

And it would be hard to object to foreigners who serve in our military receiving US citizenship in exchange for several years of service.

5) But we should debate as fellow countrymen discussing what is in the best interest of the USA. Not as whites fighting Latinos or vice versa.

Posted by Don Williams | May 1, 2008 6:20 PM

I ride the bus through East L.A. every day on my way to work. The Spanish-speakers on the bus are, by and large, immigrants, or their very young children (pre-school age). Once the kids start going to school, they learn English. I've lived in L.A. practically my whole life, have known, gone to school with, and worked with many, many immigrants and Hispanic people, and have never known a single person over the age of six born in the U.S. who wasn't fluent in English.

The fact that you see areas with a bunch of signs in Spanish or oriented toward Mexico or Central America tells us nothing about Hispanics assimilating or not assimilating when you consider that most of the people you see at these places are immigrants, not 2nd- or 3rd-generation Americans. Just like in past waves of immigration, 2nd-generation Americans tend to be bilingual and 3rd-generation Americans are generally English-dominant and don't know much of their grandparents' language at all.

They may still like eating food from the old country or watch soccer, but so what? Are they not American if they don't eat meat and potatoes like a white Midwesterner?

Posted by Adam Villani | May 1, 2008 6:25 PM

Don,

Why have unions in the construction trades failed to mobilize Hispanic immigrants to organize against housing contractors trying to exploit immigrant labor in order to undermine prevailing wages in the construction trades? The steelworkers' unions back on the Southeast Side of Chicago were able to get Mexican immigrants to back the unions against companies like US Steel, who exerted far more market power than your average housing contractor today. Even today, unions like SEIU are actively courting Latino immigrants who work in many service industries. Nobody likes getting screwed by the Man, even Latino immigrants. There is no reason why immigrant labor and native-born American workers have to be in conflict with one another.

Posted by eltoro | May 1, 2008 6:39 PM

As others have noted, 41% of fourth generation Mexican-Americans don't graduate high school. As a group, they do not assimilate to American socioeconomic norms, even after several generations here. This isn't a problem for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which welcomes low wage workers, or for Democrats, who are adding another under-achieving constituency they can make dependent on government largess, but it's a bad deal for this country.

Better to just offer statehood to Mexico if the Mexicans want the border erased. Then we can clean house on their corrupt monopolists and let our agricultural and energy industries unlock the natural resource wealth that Mexicans have been incompetently squandering for decades; and we can start building retirement communities for Americas on the coasts of Mexico.

Posted by Fred | May 1, 2008 6:47 PM

"But we should debate as fellow countrymen discussing what is in the best interest of the USA. Not as whites fighting Latinos or vice versa"

Don,

I agree with you 100% on this. If only people like Lou Dobbs and Bill O'Reilly and Tom Tancredo felt this way, we could make a lot more progress on immigration issues.

Posted by eltoro | May 1, 2008 6:55 PM

There is no reason why immigrant labor and native-born American workers have to be in conflict with one another.

Of course there is. Immigrants both increase the supply of labor and increase the supply of laborers willing to work for lower wages. That inevitably tends to depress the wages of competing non-immigrant laborers. There is plenty of evidence that immigrants have depressed the wages of unskilled and low-skilled American workers. That doesn't mean our immigration policy is bad, just that it has costs to non-immigrants that need to be considered.

Posted by Mixner | May 1, 2008 7:01 PM

"As others have noted, 41% of fourth generation Mexican-Americans don't graduate high school. As a group, they do not assimilate to American socioeconomic norms, even after several generations here."

Fred,

Assuming that your data is accurate, that means that almost 60% of 4th generation Mexican-American do graduate high school. This statistic is not as high as it should be, but it's hardly a reason to declare that Mexican-Americans are inevitably doomed to failure in the United States.

BTW, is this statistic a mere snapshot taken from data collected in this decade, or is it a conclusion from a comprehensive survey comparing a time series of data over 80 years or more? If it is a current snapshot, it doesn't follow that this picture will remain the same, particularly if improvements are made to urban public school systems in places like LA and NY and Chicago. Improving the quality of inner-city schools would do a lot to improve this statistic over time.

If it is a conclusion derived from a comprehensive survey over a period of 80 years, then we need to examine the trend for this figure over time. Has it improved or declined over time, on either an absolute or relative basis? Does it make a true apples to apples comparison of different ethnic groups, by adjusting for different starting points in education levels? Does this pattern persist throughout different regions and different eras and through all Hispanic nationalities, or are there considerable differences were examine closely for regions, time periods, and particular nationalities? (For example, I would expect that Cubans or Argentinians have a much higher graduation rate than Mexicans or Puerto Ricans.)

Got any data for me to look at, Fred?

Posted by eltoro | May 1, 2008 7:20 PM

There are other communities with low graduation rates, also. There are counties in Appalachia with dropout rates over 50%. This doesn't mean these people are Unamerican, it means they're poor, economic opportunities are bad, and their parents probably didn't have much education.

Posted by Adam Villani | May 1, 2008 7:51 PM

Adam,

You cannot claim that third generation mexican immigrants are poor and uneducated after eltoro has used ten posts to tell everyone that third generation hispanic immigrants are just like everyone else. Please pick one of the two options.

Of course, if you look at the South Side of San Anontio, it is easy to see that third generation mexican immigrants are poor, uninterested in education, and commit crimes at a much higher rate than whites.

Posted by superdestroyer | May 1, 2008 8:56 PM

Don Williams,

You're confusing crude birth rate and total fertility rate.

Crude birth rate is affected by demographic momentum and isn't a good snapshot of current fertility rate. If the total fertility rate was high in the past, as it was in LA, then there will be a lot of women of childbearing age and so the crude birth rate will be high. But for projection purposes, total fertility rate is more useful. The average Latin American woman born today will have about 2.6 children which is only a little bit over the replacement level of 2.3 children. Mexico currently has a fertility rate of 2.37, only a little over replacement; some of the other large countries like Brazil, Argentina, and Chile already have below replacement level fertility.

No doubt emigration has played some role (this would be especially the case in some of the Caribbean countries where emigraition is particularly high) but the bigger cause is that most women in LA these days do use contraception irrespective of the policy of the Roman Catholic Church. (There is also a significant number who do use Natural Family Planning).

Posted by Hector | May 1, 2008 10:03 PM

Eltoro,

"Got any data for me to look at, Fred?"

See pp.12-13 of The Hispanic Challenge (PDF) for the data and citations.

"Assuming that your data is accurate, that means that almost 60% of 4th generation Mexican-American do graduate high school. This statistic is not as high as it should be, but it's hardly a reason to declare that Mexican-Americans are inevitably doomed to failure in the United States."

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.

Adam Villani,

"There are other communities with low graduation rates, also. There are counties in Appalachia with dropout rates over 50%. This doesn't mean these people are Unamerican"

Yes, there are Appalachian groups with low levels of human capital. No, it doesn't make them un-American -- they were born here, so by definition they are American -- but it's also no reason to import tens of millions of more poor illiterates with similarly low levels of human capital. America gets the first pick in the global draft: we can do a lot better by picking smarter immigrants who will pay more in taxes than they consume in social services, whose children will graduate high school instead of joining gangs, and who will contribute more to this country than perennially under-achieving regions such as the backwater parts of Appalachia, the 9th Ward of New Orleans, etc.

Posted by Fred | May 1, 2008 10:31 PM

It's worth noting that the same source that shows 4th-generation Mexican-Americans with a 41% dropout rate is showing a 33% dropout rate for 4rd-generation Mexican-Americans. If these numbers are accurate, either (a) 4th-generation Mexican-Americans are somehow becoming less assimilated than their parents, or (b) there are significant differences in the characteristics of the populations being studied, beyond simply having been in the U.S. for another generation.

I suppose (a) is possible, but it seems unlikely to me. How large is the 4th-gen group compared to the 3rd-gen group? What part of the country do they live in? What were the differences between the 4th-generation group's great-grandparents and the 3rd-generation group's grandparents? Or, alternately, do the two groups represent the descendants of immigrants who arrived at the same time, but with the higher-dropout group (4th-gen) representing members of families with much shorter generations, i.e., several generations of young parenthood?

I really don't know the answer. A profile like that, assuming that it's accurate, raises a lot more questions than it answers.

Posted by Adam Villani | May 1, 2008 11:08 PM

Another way to put it:

Should we expect the children of today's 3rd-gen cohort to graduate at the level of today's 4th-gen cohort, or should we expect them to continue the trend of the 1st through 3rd generations?

Posted by Adam Villani | May 1, 2008 11:13 PM

1) I would note that it's not clear we can even support our CURRENT population in a long term , sustainable manner. Much less another 100 million people.

Certainly if the Saudi oil reservoir starts declining -- as I've heard rumors it may do in the near future -- we will have a severe adjustment.

2) Pointing to other nations with higher population densities is not a valid analogy. The USA FEEDS much of the world with our crops -- there would be much greater turmoil and possible famine in those countries if we had to shut down our exports of food.

3) I've looked into growing my own food. It's a lot more difficult that it appears at first glance.

While this country has a huge reserve of potential crop land -- our suburban lawns -- high nutrition crops like corn would deplete those soils within one harvest.

If you can't get fertilizer from Home Depot, you're in a world of hurt. Native Americans grew their own crops but could only support a million or so people --not 300 million. The soil areas that are self-replenishing (i.e, stream banks covered by spring floods) are very small in extent.

Posted by Don Williams | May 1, 2008 11:18 PM

1) I would note that it's not clear we can even support our CURRENT population in a long term , sustainable manner. Much less another 100 million people.

Certainly if the Saudi oil reservoir starts declining -- as I've heard rumors it may do in the near future -- we will have a severe adjustment.

2) Pointing to other nations with higher population densities is not a valid analogy. The USA FEEDS much of the world with our crops -- there would be much greater turmoil and possible famine in those countries if we had to shut down our exports of food.

3) I've looked into growing my own food. It's a lot more difficult that it appears at first glance.

While this country has a huge reserve of potential crop land -- our suburban lawns -- high nutrition crops like corn would deplete those soils within one harvest.

If you can't get fertilizer from Home Depot, you're in a world of hurt. Native Americans grew their own crops but could only support a million or so people --not 300 million. The soil areas that are self-replenishing (i.e, stream banks covered by spring floods) are very small in extent.

Posted by Don Williams | May 1, 2008 11:20 PM

I'd strongly second everything eltoro said in his numerous, detailed posts, as well as the statements of several other commenters.

And although his own personal experience is with Mexican immigration to Illinois---which is actually a somewhat atypical case---pretty much the same analysis applies to CA and the other Southwestern states, which still contain the vast majority of Latino immigrants. CA alone probably contains about one-third of all American Latinos, and they're approaching half the state's population.

As for Fred's claim that 41% of *fourth-generation* Mexican-Americans drop out of high school, I'd be extraordinarily skeptical of the correctness of that statistic, and strongly suspect it derives from a little sociological confusion.

The thing to remember is that Mexicans have traditionally had pretty high intermarriage/assimilation rates AND the population of Mexicans in America (say) 90 years ago was extremely small. Therefore, your average "fourth-generation Mexican-American" in America is quite possibly a blond blue-eyed Connecticut Republican named something like William Sanford, with (maybe) 1/8th or 1/16th Mexican ancestry, who doesn't particularly think of himself as being "Mexican-American", hence isn't counted in the statistic.

The sole major exception to this pattern would be the relatively small subpopulation of Mexican-Americans who've remained living in isolated rural backwaters of New Mexico and Texas for 100 years, while each generation their more energetic cousins moved away to the big city for better opportunities and soon disappeared into America's melting pot. So the high dropout rate really applies to that less-energetic residual rural population, which isn't too surprising.

A close analogy would be the case of Appalachia. For example, I happen to know several extremely successful individuals who came from rural Appalachia, or at least had parents or grandparents who did. They've occasionally told me amusing family stories of the tremendous ignorance, backwardness, and squalor of their "home towns", and my impression is that many of those problems still continue to this day.

So perhaps Appalachians today have a high rate of social dysfunction. But that's partly because all the Appalachians who've been living in Los Angeles or New Jersey for a couple of generations are no longer defined as "Appalachians." If instead you looked at all Americans whose great-grandparents once lived in Appalachia, I'd suspect you'd see average social indicators not too different from the white American mean.

Posted by RKU | May 1, 2008 11:41 PM

P.S. Although I generally avoid using links, here's one to an NYT piece from last Fall detailing the remarkable rate of recent Latino economic advancement: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/01/opi