My German family didn't start to learn to speak fluent English until after World War I. It was World War II that put the nail in the coffin of my bilingual family. Most of the Lutheran churches too didn't abandon the German language in services until World War II. One important factor in that Mexico is right on our border, not an ocean away. It is very unlikely that most immigrants will ever completely abandon speaking Spanish, especially if they still have family in Mexico. We are witnessing the slow process of the United States becoming a bilingual nation. If that happens it won't be the end of the world.
Thanks to Katrina, we're well on our way as we have most likely dealt a death blowto the whole Cajun/Creole culture of Southern Louisiana. Those people should have stayed in Canada.
Economist's pro-business slant: http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=6771382 Myths and migration Apr 6th 2006 From The Economist print edition Do immigrants really hurt American workers' wages? EVERY now and again America, a nation largely made up of immigrants and their descendants, is gripped by a furious political row over whether and how it should stem the flood of people wanting to enter the country. It is in the midst of just such a quarrel now. Congress is contemplating the erection of a wall along stretches of the Mexican border and a crackdown on illegal workers, as well as softer policies such as a guest-worker programme for illegal immigrants. Some of the arguments are plain silly. Immigration's defenders claim that foreigners come to do jobs that Americans won't—as if cities with few immigrants had no gardeners. Its opponents say that immigrants steal American jobs—succumbing to the fallacy that there are only a fixed number of jobs to go around. One common argument, though not silly, is often overstated: that immigration pushes down American workers' wages, especially among high-school dropouts. It isn't hard to see why this might be. Over the past 25 years American incomes have become less equally distributed, typical wages have grown surprisingly slowly for such a healthy economy and the real wages of the least skilled have actually fallen. It is plausible that immigration is at least partly to blame, especially because recent arrivals have disproportionately poor skills. In the 2000 census immigrants made up 13% of America's pool of workers, but 28% of those without a high-school education and over half of those with eight years' schooling or less. In fact, the relationship between immigration and wages is not clear-cut, even in theory. That is because wages depend on the supply of capital as well as labour. Alone, an influx of immigrants raises the supply of workers and hence reduces wages. But cheaper labour increases the potential return to employers of building new factories or opening new valet-parking companies. In so doing, they create extra demand for workers. Once capital has fully adjusted, the final impact on overall wages should be a wash, as long as the immigrants have not changed the productivity of the workforce as a whole. However, even if wages do not change on average, immigration can still shift the relative pay of workers of different types. A large inflow of low-skilled people could push down the relative wages of low-skilled natives, assuming that they compete for the same jobs. On the other hand, if the immigrants had complementary skills, natives would be relatively better off. To gauge the full effect of immigration on wages, therefore, you need to know how quickly capital adjusts and how far the newcomers are substitutes for local workers. City to city Empirical evidence* is as inconclusive as the theory. One method is to compare wage trends in cities with lots of immigrants, such as Los Angeles, with those in places with only a few, such as Indianapolis. If immigration had a big effect on relative pay, you would expect this to be reflected in differences between cities' wage trends. David Card, of the University of California, Berkeley, is one of the leading advocates of this approach. His research suggests that although there are big differences between cities' proportions of immigrants, this has had no significant effect on unskilled workers' pay. Not everyone is convinced by Mr Card's technique. His critics argue that the geographical distribution of immigrants is not random. Perhaps low-skilled natives leave cities with lots of immigrants rather than compete with them for jobs, so that immigration indirectly pushes up the supply of low-skilled workers elsewhere (and pushes down their wages). Mr Card has tested the idea that immigration displaces low-skilled natives and found scant evidence that it does. An alternative approach, pioneered by George Borjas, of Harvard University, is to tease out the effect of immigration from national wage statistics. Mr Borjas divides people into categories, according to their education and work experience. He assumes that workers of different types are not easily substitutable for each other, but that immigrants and natives within each category are. By comparing wage trends in categories with lots of immigrants against those in groups with only a few, he derives an estimate of immigration's effect. His headline conclusion is that, between 1980 and 2000, immigration caused average wages to be some 3% lower than they would otherwise have been. Wages for high-school drop-outs were dragged down by around 8%. Immigration's critics therefore count Mr Borjas as an ally. But hold on. These figures take no account of the offsetting impact of extra investment. If the capital stock is assumed to adjust, Mr Borjas reports, overall wages are unaffected and the loss of wages for high-school drop-outs is cut to below 5%. Gianmarco Ottaviano, of the University of Bologna, and Giovanni Peri, of the University of California, Davis, argue that Mr Borjas's findings should be adjusted further. They think that, even within the same skill category, immigrants and natives need not be perfect substitutes, pointing out that the two groups tend to end up in different jobs. Mexicans are found in gardening, housework and construction, while low-skilled natives dominate other occupations, such as logging. Taking this into account, the authors claim that between 1980 and 2000 immigration pushed down the wages of American high-school drop-outs by at most 0.4%. None of these studies is decisive, but taken together they suggest that immigration, in the long run, has had only a small negative effect on the pay of America's least skilled and even that is arguable. If Congress wants to reduce wage inequality, building border walls is a bad way of going about it.
Boy, it didn't take long for the racism card to come out, lol. Considering I'm an advocate of open borders, you're being pretty silly. I never said you had to abandon your cultural heritage. Nor that you stop speaking your native language. Its pretty simplistic to suggest that all Chinese live in Chinatown, Cubans in little Havana etc. Certainly new immigrants gather together in communities - that seems natural enough. But there needs to be an impetus to join the larger community and those communities usually are the jumping off point for new immigrants. Would it have been a bad thing to learn English when they got here? I don't see the argument for that. Who said they had to abandon Spanish? There is nothing wrong with being bilingual.
There's your solution right there. Systematically have wars with every country on earth. When you get done, come back around and start over again. This will force recent immigrants to chose sides and start speaking English. It also means perpetual war, which is good for the economy. It's a win-win solution!
No it wouldn't have been a bad thing, but it didn't happen either. It isn't easy for adults to learn a new language and if they live in a community of like kind, then it is even less likely to happen. It usually takes a generation or two for a family to assimilate into American society. My grandmother talked about how her teachers made fun of her accent in elementary school. Living in Arizona, one of the hot topics here is making English the official state language. I guess some folks here are mad that state documents are produced in two languages. There isn't anything wrong with being bilingual, it is a asset when looking for a job in todays globalized economy. I might be bilingual too if the Germans left behind in the old world didn't start two world wars. My great-grandfather stopped speaking German during World War I. He wouldn't talk to anyone unless they spoke to him in English. For that reason my grandfather forgot how to speak German by the time he became an adult, he knew it as a young child.
Telling Mexicans they have to assimilate and can't build their own community is racist. Sorry dude ...any way you slice it. Note: I'm not calling you racist but your idea certainly is. Why?
how about the definition of is? you're using the proverbial "race card" as a defense. there is not such thing as a mexican race. now if you had said, then maybe it wouldn't have even caught my eye. furthermore, this isn't racist or prejudice to talk about people that colonize with like-minded, or like-ethnicity a bad idea. if you hang out with a certain group you will adopt the group's traits. if a mexican wants to become an american the best way is not to live in "little mexico" wherever that may be. the best way would be to assimilate with the rest of the culture. he should be proud of his heritage and celebrate it, but if all he want is his own heritage, and doesn't want to accept the other cultures or the melting pot idea, then he needs to leave.
Obviously you can't let every one of the 6 billion people on this planet that would like to live in America immigrate, say what, 500 million? We'd have no housing for them, no clean water, you couldn't process all their waste, they would over tax the health care system, there are not enough jobs..at any wage. So given you can't take everyone, so you have to draw a line somewhere. The 11 million that are here get to stay , but no more! If you announce an amnesty program the borders will be over run by masses of people trying to get in under the wire. We have existing laws, shouldn't we just try to enforce them the best we can? Shouldn't we have some discouragement to the mass migration? Rob the rich, feed the poor till there are no rich no more. Free condoms people, all over the world ... before it's too late. If 500,000 people, like organized in Dallas, got together in Mexico and all came across at once, you couldn't stop them.
Now if we can get the total amount of illegal immigrants below 5% of our total population they will be pulling their own weight.
How am I using the proverbial "race card." If you can't discuss issues of race and prejudice in this topic, when is it acceptable to talk about it? Seriously, when? It is when you tell them it is a bad idea to colonize with like-minded people. Please show me where it says it is a requirement to "assimilate" in order to be a naturalized US citizen. I'm certain you can't. This term "assimilate" is a made up term that many intolerant people use to mask their predudices. If naturalized as an American, what he does, where he lives and who he socializes with is none of your business. It is anti-American and flat out prejudicial to force him to "assimilate," as you call it.
What a stupid post. Leaving aside the obvious disrespect and xenophobia of your post, 5% of 280 million Americans is roughly 14 million people. Estimates of illegal population are 11 to 12 million. So I think we're already there.
lol. Actually, we need to get a few more million illegals to get to that 5%. Everything I've heard, is the 11-12 million # estimate is the broadest # folks can find. Actual #'s might be significantly <11 million but we don't know for sure.
Myths and migration Apr 6th 2006 From The Economist Do immigrants really hurt American workers' wages? If Congress wants to reduce wage inequality, building border walls is a bad way of going about it. Beating down the Mexican horde that is invading to our country is all about the Republicans maintaining an ability to win national elections. All of the rest of the arguments being thrown about are just *Iraqi WMD*.
If we open the boarders What is the criteria of who gets to stay and who gets deported? Remember we were tippnig over boat fulls of Haitians Cubans have special status If you allow unlimited immigration [which seems to be the case] and allow competition to be the law of the land Considering the premisis is the immigrants are hard workers as oppose to you average americam in a few decades the avergae american is displaced totally and completely what then . . . is it the DoDo if the average american is displace an put in the street by the new immigrants. . . we are all fine about that esp considering the average american would not be *as* welcomed there Rocket River I personally think unlimited immigration is a long way away from being workable
I think the issue is that of that 11 Million a significant portion is concentrated in various places Southern Boarder states, florida, Ny,etc their is a vast portion of america that will not feel the impact for quite sometime I doubt the DaKotas are worried Rocket River
In defense of HayesStreet if you step back and look at somewhere else, like France, I think it's pretty much common knowledge that the failure of the French government to try to assimilate African immigrants has left them severely marginalized and ghettoized as the underclass of France. I think, however, that the "great American melting pot" should be bi-directional. If you add salt to a stew, it integrates and dissolves and becomes part of the larger pot, but at the same time one can continue to taste the extra flavor it adds to the dish. I think it is reasonable to expect people coming to America to agree to integrate to some minnimum degree in culture of the country they are wanting to live in.
