If Latinos in the U.S. don't assimilate, so what?

[XT]

If the Latino population of the Southwest were twice its present level, the idea of an independent “Aztlan” would remain as laughable as it is now.

Its mostly just a few nutballs who want this.

So why is it so important that they “assimilate”?

You answered this question in the previous sentence.

They just want to work and make money and be good citizens.

If they want to work at something above picking lettuce or digging ditches then they HAVE to assimilate…and that means learning English. Not just learning to speak it well enough to make themselves understood either…but speaking it fluently, like a native. I’ll give you a point of reference. I don’t know if you are familiar with the Gov. of New Mexico, Richardson, but have you ever heard him speak on TV? If so you will notice something…he doesn’t have a ‘spanish’ accent when he’s speaking. He DOES have a spanish accent when he relaxes…or when he wants too (for effect).

Though born in Mexico, I don’t have a ‘spanish’ accent either…unless I’m back home with my 'mano’s shooting the shit, or with my family for some get together. My kids don’t even speak spanish at all…I never taught them. Oh, they understand some spanish, and speak a little no doubt…they would have too otherwise it would be difficult to understand some of their cousins and my mother (who mostly speaks ‘spanglish’ :)). This was a consious decision starting on my dads part…to ensure that I and my brothers and sisters DID assimilate into US culture and society by making sure that we spoke the language not only fluently but as close to like natives as we possibly could. (WRITING on the other hand is something that has been painful for me to fully get the hang of in English…I get hung up mostly on all the odd spellings).

So, why do they need to assimiliate? Because otherwise you will have a class of people who are isolated with no real chance to improve themselves due to very limited job opportunities. In addition it will cause a greater split between the two groups (i.e. english speaking Americans of all races and those who speak spanish only).

Why do so many immigrants cling to spanish? Here I have to completely speculate, as my own situation was different due to my father. I’d say its because a lot of my bretheren come into the US by less than legal means…and they come in to do very vertically oriented type of work (such as harvest crops). In that kind of situation they don’t HAVE to learn English…spanish is fine and its much easier to just stick with what you know. It becomes a habit to just keep speaking spanish…and of course your kids essentially do what you do, so THEY just keep speaking spanish. It tends to isolate you to the point where you associate with your little groups of fellow spanish speakers without being able to branch out to the wider population. And now a days a lot of schools cater to this…here in New Mexico for instance many of the Charter Schools I do work for have spanish only classes for just such kids…where they are taught in spanish (and so isolated from the rest of the schools population through language).

English is pretty much the defacto international language of science and engineering…and business. Not Spanish. Not only that, it IS the defacto language spoken in the US…if you want to get anywhere or do anything short of heavy manual labor in this country then it is a must to learn it.

-XT

[John_Mace]

Why are we debating whether or not Hispanics assimilate? The OP is asking us what will happen if they don’t.

We would have a serious problem if any large group did not assimilate. Then John Edwards’ phony “Two Americas” would actually be true. It would be very difficult for an unassimilated minority group to do well economically, so we’d have a real permanent underclass. But the truth is, we’d have to have Spanish speaking schools in order for them to remain unassimilated through multiple generations, and that would take us back to seperate but equal. It’s somewhat easier for Hispanic (esp. Mexican) immigrants to cling to their culture today than it was for European immigrants a hundred years ago. I don’t think it’s necessary to force assimilation since it happens as a natural process, but we should avoid legislation which impedes assimilation. For instance, I have no problem with an English language proficiency test for citizenship and I certainly wouldn’t support a seperate Spanish language school system (not that anyone is actually proposing that).

[Lemur866]

Y’know, my grandfather’s grandparents were german immigrants. They lived in a german speaking town here in the US, where everyone spoke german, they couldn’t really speak much english, so they lived in one of the ethnic enclaves that existed all over the US at that time. Their children, my great-grandparents, of course could speak english, but they spoke german at home. When my grandfather was five, his parents decided that they shouldn’t speak german at home any more. So my grandfather pretty much lost all his german, he’d only occasionally sprinkle his speach with germanisms, like kaffeekuchen instead of coffee cake.

So we go from German-only first generation immigrants to bilingual second generation, to English-only third generation. And I don’t think there are any examples of Latinos born in the US who don’t speak english. Well, there might be 4 of them. But there is no evidence that Latinos born in the US refuse to learn english. Such people don’t exist, even if their immigrant parents can’t speak more than 20 words of english. The same pattern that my g-g-grandparents experienced is still occuring. And the only thing that could stop it from happening is to intentionally isolate the children of immigrants from english speaking, like separate school systems.

There’s nothing wrong with people choosing to speak spanish if they wish, just like there’s nothing wrong with russian, latin, esperanto, chinese, klingon, yiddish, or lakota. It’s a free country. What’s the big deal?

Our country and culture and language is very strong. I’m tired of arguments that the United States will pop like a soap bubble if we don’t immediately address some perceived threat. That some people are speaking spanish and eating tortillas and following soccor is not even close to a threat to our republic, and it’s insulting to believe our country is so fragile that a few people who are a little different will destroy us. It’s pathetic.

[BrainGlutton]

@Lemur866

Y’know, my grandfather’s grandparents were german immigrants. They lived in a german speaking town here in the US, where everyone spoke german, they couldn’t really speak much english, so they lived in one of the ethnic enclaves that existed all over the US at that time.

That’s why Lawrence Welk spoke English with an accent. He was born in Strasburg, North Dakota – where, at the time, everyone spoke German. He didn’t even learn English until his teens. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Welk

I also recall a story about a Chinese laundryman who, in the early or mid-20th Century, spent a decade in a Chicago neighborhood, learning the language from his neighbors. When he went to apply for citizenship he was astonished to find that he did not speak a word of English, but was fluent in Polish. (I read that in *
Don’t Make No Waves, Don’t Back No Losers,* an account of Chicago machine politics by Milton Rakove – http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0253202027/sr=8-1/qid=1144704375/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-1964943-3726312?_encoding=UTF8.)

Sometimes assimilation takes longer than you might expect, but the republic still seems to keep ticking along.

[Zoomer]

@Lemur866

And I don’t think there are any examples of Latinos born in the US who don’t speak english. Well, there might be 4 of them. But there is no evidence that Latinos born in the US refuse to learn english. Such people don’t exist, even if their immigrant parents can’t speak more than 20 words of english. The same pattern that my g-g-grandparents experienced is still occuring. And the only thing that could stop it from happening is to intentionally isolate the children of immigrants from english speaking, like separate school systems.

Come to Nogales AZ … I will introduce you to 4 hundred of them. All students in the Nogales school system. All 2nd and 3rd generation residents.

They live in a community where English is the second language. Their friends, families, teachers and community leaders all speak Spanish. The Nogales High School lives in very real fear of having a major portion of their student body fail the AIMS testing for graduation.

They do exist.

[XT]

I’ll second Zoomer…I personally know more than 4 people who are 2nd or 3rd generation Americans who don’t speak english…or who speak it so brokenly that they would be hard pressed to order a slurpee at the corner 7-11 unless the clerk is bi-lingual.

Hell, there might be 4 people in my extended family (cousins and such) who don’t speak english after being in the country through several generations…

-XT

[Anne_Neville]

@Lemur866

Our country and culture and language is very strong. I’m tired of arguments that the United States will pop like a soap bubble if we don’t immediately address some perceived threat. That some people are speaking spanish and eating tortillas and following soccor is not even close to a threat to our republic, and it’s insulting to believe our country is so fragile that a few people who are a little different will destroy us. It’s pathetic.

Yeah- tell it to the French that English is so vulnerable to one immigrant group that isn’t assimilating. I’m sure the Academie Francaise will be happy to hear that all they need to do is to send a bunch of French-speakers to settle in the US and refuse to learn English.

@xtisme

Why do so many immigrants cling to spanish?

They probably think it’s an important part of their cultural heritage, kind of like the French think about the French language, or like the Pilgrims thought about the English language while they were living in the Netherlands. Some Native American groups have described language as “the soul of a nation”. People who have distinctive cultures from the majority in a country often want to preserve at least parts of those cultures- that’s probably been true ever since there has been migration from one cultural area to another.

That desire doesn’t mean that the immigrants won’t at least assimilate to the point where they can participate fully in public life in their new country. Jewish immigrants in the early 20th century had Yiddish newspapers and theatres. Their descendants aren’t doing so badly now, at least for the most part ;j

[Lissa]

I live in an area which has a large population of Amish-- and I’m not talkin’ about the people who wear long dresses while they sell souvineers, but the real honest-to-God Amish.*

You don’t see much of the “real Amish”. They don’t mingle with the “English” if they can help it-- you won’t see their daughters working in shops for the tourists, and nor do they run bead and breakfasts bringing outsiders into their community. If they have to, they go through an intermediary to do buisness with the English. In some areas, they have their own system of dirt roads. They do their own doctoring, grow all of their food, and their children attend an Amish school. They speak German as their primary language.

Now *that’s *a group that doesn’t assimilate-- one which actively *resists *assimilation. Why does the idea of Mexicans not assimilating worry us more than the Amish? Why should it bother us more to have Hispanic neighborhoods in which all of the people use Hispanic businesses than to have the Deutch doing the same thing?

• That’s not their technical name, of course, but the one most people know. I used the most common appellation for that reason.

[even_sven]

I just read an interesting statistic today. There are 20 to 30 times more languages in the world than countries. It is nearly statistically impossible for a country to be monolingual. Just be glad we don’t live in New Zealand, which has 1,109 languages.

[Rodgers01]

@RickJay

By “Northern Europe” I meant Scandinavia, which got a pass from these criticisms (For the most part) despite rather obvious evidence that the Scandinavians didn’t assimilate any better than anyone else. But they’re the whitest of the white, and that’s really what this is all about.

There’s no doubt that the immigration policy in this country used to be racist, but it’s grossly unfair to just write off the whole current immigration debate to racism. I honestly believe that if blonde, blue-eyed Swedes were pouring into our country instead of Latinos, we’d be having exactly the same debate.

@Lemur866

Y’know, my grandfather’s grandparents were german immigrants. They lived in a german speaking town here in the US, where everyone spoke german, they couldn’t really speak much english, so they lived in one of the ethnic enclaves that existed all over the US at that time. Their children, my great-grandparents, of course could speak english, but they spoke german at home. When my grandfather was five, his parents decided that they shouldn’t speak german at home any more. So my grandfather pretty much lost all his german, he’d only occasionally sprinkle his speach with germanisms, like kaffeekuchen instead of coffee cake.

So we go from German-only first generation immigrants to bilingual second generation, to English-only third generation. And I don’t think there are any examples of Latinos born in the US who don’t speak english. Well, there might be 4 of them. But there is no evidence that Latinos born in the US refuse to learn english. Such people don’t exist, even if their immigrant parents can’t speak more than 20 words of english. The same pattern that my g-g-grandparents experienced is still occuring. And the only thing that could stop it from happening is to intentionally isolate the children of immigrants from english speaking, like separate school systems.

I think the major difference is that your grandparents didn’t have multiple German language channels to choose from basically anywhere they went in the States, or the realistic expectation that they could find sizable communities of German speakers just about anywhere in the country they wanted to live. They weren’t able to call back home to Bavaria whenever they felt like it, and they almost definitely didn’t have much chance to visit their homeland after they moved to the US. Plus, at a certain point German immigration to this country slowed to a trickle, and the number of new German-speakers dried up. (The same will presumably eventually happen to Hispanic immigrants here, but not for the foreseeable future.)

None of the above is to say that a basically similar assimilation process won’t happen to the majority of Latino immigrants in this country, but modern technology has probably slowed the process. Modern sensibilities have too – you mention that the one thing that could slow the integration process for new immigrants is separate school systems; poorly planned bilingual education programs could well achieve just that.

@Lissa

I live in an area which has a large population of Amish-- and I’m not talkin’ about the people who wear long dresses while they sell souvineers, but the real honest-to-God Amish.*

You don’t see much of the “real Amish”. They don’t mingle with the “English” if they can help it-- you won’t see their daughters working in shops for the tourists, and nor do they run bead and breakfasts bringing outsiders into their community. If they have to, they go through an intermediary to do buisness with the English. In some areas, they have their own system of dirt roads. They do their own doctoring, grow all of their food, and their children attend an Amish school. They speak German as their primary language.

Now that’s a group that doesn’t assimilate-- one which actively resists assimilation. Why does the idea of Mexicans not assimilating worry us more than the Amish? Why should it bother us more to have Hispanic neighborhoods in which all of the people use Hispanic businesses than to have the Deutch doing the same thing?

I don’t think you can really compare at most about 200,000 Amish (link) to the millions of Spanish-speakers. Apples and oranges.

Personally, I think it’s important to national unity and identity that we all speak the same language. (And no, that does not mean I think we should all be monolingual – ideally by the time they graduate from high school students should have some degree of bilingualism, though there should be a MULTITUDE of second languages.)

My solution? I say we vastly diversify our source of immigrants. Instead of letting one group (be it a linguistic, cultural, or other group) dominate so heavily, we don’t allow any one group to make up more than, say, 10% of the immigrant pool. So in one year we might have a tenth of our immigrants each coming from, say, Mexico, Brazil, Russia, Vietnam, China, Poland, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Germany, and Haiti. These more diverse immigrant groups will still understandably form ethnic enclaves and be slow to assimilate at first, but since each group is relatively small it won’t be able to form a large, permanent network and will feel more pressure to assimilate relatively quickly. Frankly that makes the most sense to me.*

*And I thought we were supposed to already have something like that in place with our green card lottery – that it was supposed to adjust to pretty evenly represent the entire world. Yet even looking at just legal immigrant figures, Mexican immigrants still heavily dominate. Why so?

[suezeekay]

@Giles

But many are moving to states like California, New Mexico and Texas which were historically Spanish-speaking, and only changed to English after the Unites States Americans moved in. There always have been large minorities soeaking Spanish in those states.

I grew up in California and unless these people were living in caves, it is not true that there were large numbers of minorities speaking Spanish. I never heard Spanish spoken except in the orchards. I never saw a Spanish-language ATM or loan documents, voting instructions, ad infinitum. And it was not until illegal Mexican immigrants who ran the border started building up in the U.S. and became a problem in the schools that the teachers actually had to learn how to teach English to Mexican children and Spanish to American children so they could communicate. My mother taught in the Vallejo schools and I remember her going to Spanish classes starting around 1975. And the west coast did have a population before the Mexicans migrated up there. I don’t understand why this issue about Mexico being in line just before the U.S. took it as their territory. This has happened as long as there have been humanoids; land has gone back and forth throughout history. The last ones to have it before the next ones took it over don’t have any better claim than the people that lived there before them. Constantinople was the largest, most modern city in the ancient world, and it was taken over and over, back and forth by Christian and Muslims. If there were any Aztecs left they might still be trying to claim their land that was taken from them by Spain. This is a non-issue.

[drachillix]

@suezeekay

I grew up in California and unless these people were living in caves, it is not true that there were large numbers of minorities speaking Spanish. I never heard Spanish spoken except in the orchards. I never saw a Spanish-language ATM or loan documents, voting instructions, ad infinitum.

Try looking around a little closer in ag heavy areas. Towns like Tulare, Selma, Madera, and Watsonville, CA (these are just IME). You will sometimes find strip malls with very little english signage. I grew up in Watsonville, CA 65% hispanic last I heard. Invariably most full time residents understand english just fine but many are far more comfortable with spanish. I went to school with alot of the children of farm workers.

[suezeekay]

@drachillix

Try looking around a little closer in ag heavy areas. Towns like Tulare, Selma, Madera, and Watsonville, CA (these are just IME). You will sometimes find strip malls with very little english signage. I grew up in Watsonville, CA 65% hispanic last I heard. Invariably most full time residents understand english just fine but many are far more comfortable with spanish. I went to school with alot of the children of farm workers.

I’m sure I’m a lot older than you are. The way you describe things was not the case when I grew up in the Fairfield area where they grow fruit. Twenty-three years ago I worked counting pear bins, picking tomatoes, cutting apricots, and even picking grapes in Napa, and the only Mexicans I saw were in the fields and living in the small sleeping quarters provided by the owner; the only store they went to was the local convenience store because they were afraid of being picked up by INS. There was nothing in Spanish. That came later. Now Fairfield is basically a Mexican town. I think it started after the amnesty when they were all made legal. I only know personally what an ex- relative by marriage did; he got fake papers from his employer saying he had been in the country five years because of course his employer didn’t want to give up the cheap labor. So,…that worked well didn’t it?

I’m afraid this amnesty idea will spawn the same thing all over again. False statements from employers or even fake ones will be as easy to acquire as they were before.

Sorry, didn’t mean to go on.

[JThunder]

@Lissa

Now *that’s *a group that doesn’t assimilate-- one which actively *resists *assimilation. Why does the idea of Mexicans not assimilating worry us more than the Amish?

I think it’s because the Amish live in their own, mostly self-sufficient communities. If they scarcely interact with the outside world, then it’s no big deal.

In contrast, if you get into a car accident with someone who scarcely speaks a word of English, it IS a big deal. I can understand why people would perceive this as a problem. As Rodgers01 said, it’s important to national unity and identity that we all have a common language.

[JThunder]

@Lemur866

There’s nothing wrong with people choosing to speak spanish if they wish, just like there’s nothing wrong with russian, latin, esperanto, chinese, klingon, yiddish, or lakota. It’s a free country. What’s the big deal?

Nobody says that people should be prohibited from speaking Spanish.

[suezeekay]

@BrainGlutton

In threads on U.S. immigration policy, someone always argues that Latinos are different from other immigrant populations in that they are less likely to fully assimilate to American culture. Why would that be so bad? Worst-case scenario, we end up like Canada without the secessionism. Like Canada, we’ll have a substantial ethnocultural minority of people who do not speak English at home and never will, but most of whom can speak it perfectly well as a second language. Unlike in Canada, those people will not have any particular state or region they can regard as “theirs” and potentially independent. If the Latino population of the Southwest were twice its present level, the idea of an independent “Aztlan” would remain as laughable as it is now. Most Latinos wouldn’t want that anyway. They came to this country to get in on it. They just want to work and make money and be good citizens. So why is it so important that they “assimilate”?

Okay. I think when foreigners come to this country they should assimilate because otherwise, on a greater level, the country loses it cohesiveness; on a smaller level, the fact that Mexicans stare at your boobs and crotch when you walk by really bothers me and I think that someone would have to be stupid not to at least try to emulate the behavior of the natives. So, it must mean they are stupid. It is so offensive I can’t tell you. The women of this country have struggled long and hard from when I was young to be respected and to have this kind of behavior in men is disgusting. You see, in their culture, women are apparently “classified” into children, married women, modest young women, mothers’ and whores. So, to them, most of our young women, as well as some older ones, are whores. When I was younger I went to a polka dance; there were some Mexicans there and one of them asked me to dance and throught apparently because I was alone it was okay to try to rub up against me while dancing; I think he thought that I was available for money. So, you can see where cultural differences can cause real problems. Ugh.

[John_Mace]

@even sven

I just read an interesting statistic today. There are 20 to 30 times more languages in the world than countries. It is nearly statistically impossible for a country to be monolingual. Just be glad we don’t live in New Zealand, which has 1,109 languages.

There are something like 5,000 - 6,000 languages in the world. And I think you meant Papua New Guinea, not New Zealand.

[Banquet_Bear]

@even sven

I just read an interesting statistic today. There are 20 to 30 times more languages in the world than countries. It is nearly statistically impossible for a country to be monolingual. Just be glad we don’t live in New Zealand, which has 1,109 languages.

…Kia ora, Talofa lava, Kia orana, Malo e lelei, Fakalofa lahi atu, Nisa bula vinaka, Taloha ni, Fakatalofa- Atu, Greetings!

[Lissa]

@JThunder

In contrast, if you get into a car accident with someone who scarcely speaks a word of English, it IS a big deal. I can understand why people would perceive this as a problem. As Rodgers01 said, it’s important to national unity and identity that we all have a common language.

I do see your point, but the same could happen to a new immigrant from, say, Poland. Learning English is a long process.

My husband and I are possibly going to live in China next summer while he teaches at the American-style university in Beijing. If he’s selected for the position, I’m going to learn key phrases in Chinese and try to stay in the company of people who can translate for me, but it could happen that I could be in a car accident and not be able to communicate.

@suezeekay

{O}n a smaller level, the fact that Mexicans stare at your boobs and crotch when you walk by really bothers me and I think that someone would have to be stupid not to at least try to emulate the behavior of the natives. So, it must mean they are stupid. It is so offensive I can’t tell you.

No, what is offensive is accusing an entire ethnic group of the same behavior because you’ve had a negative experience with a few members. We discussed this issue in the immigration thread, remember?

The women of this country have struggled long and hard from when I was young to be respected and to have this kind of behavior in men is disgusting. You see, in their culture, women are apparently “classified” into children, married women, modest young women, mothers’ and whores.

Yeah, American culture and Mexican culture have many similarities.

So, to them, most of our young women, as well as some older ones, are whores. When I was younger I went to a polka dance; there were some Mexicans there and one of them asked me to dance and throught apparently because I was alone it was okay to try to rub up against me while dancing; I think he thought that I was available for money. So, you can see where cultural differences can cause real problems. Ugh.

That’s why I don’t dance with strange men. You can’t trust them not to grab some booty, be they black, white, Hispanic, Asian or Eskimos.

Look, from your posts, it’s clear you’ve had some negative experiences. That’s regrettable, but it’s not an excuse for claiming that every member of an entire ethnic group of has the same negative traits. There’s a very ugly word for that.

[suezeekay]

That’s why I don’t dance with strange men. You can’t trust them not to grab some booty, be they black, white, Hispanic, Asian or Eskimos.

Okay, I get the passive-agressive thing. But, it’s an interesting remark anyway. I don’t know any white American women who would refer to men at a polka dance as “strange”. I knew hidden somewhere in all those broad generalizations in the guise of the pretense of a cogent defense, was the hint of a Persian ideology; maybe Hispanic. Not certain. The American woman raised in the states doesn’t usually express that kind of fear of men in quite that way. Some fear of her being thought badly of for her choice of men to dance with. You are blaming me for dancing with “strange” men. I was just reading about this ideology in a book about women in Egypt, where women are punished for being raped. Interesting.

Yeh, I’ve lived all over the world and had a lot of experiences. It’s human to extrapolate because one person can’t have every experience with every person. That’s how people make decisions, based on their personal experience, and the experience of others that they choose to believe. So, it’s really not an argument to disregard someone’s experience. How do you know I’m not right? Have you had every experience with every Mexican person? I suppose I could use your argument to ask you to prove your point of view. Get back to me when you have experienced everything.

It’s logical to assume that if every group of young Hispanic men a woman walks by stares at their boobs and crotch, that there’s a good chance that most of them will at all places and at all times. And of course we couldn’t function if we didn’t make assumptions e.g. the next time I push this button, an alarm will ring; or I got a rash the last time I ate strawberries, so I will get a rash the next time I eat them. Of course no one has the entire truth of the matter at any time; so we do the best we can. It’s a human process.
I’m a racist…or…whatever. That Ugly Word. :eek:

Hospitals, by the way, as of July 1, must ask patients to prove citizenship or refuse service. Sorry it had to come to this; we ran out of money. http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/04/11/us_rule_demands_proof_of_citizenship_for_healthcare/

Yeah, American culture and Mexican culture have many similarities.

Hum…so you think American men think of millions of women as whores? I really don’t agree with you there. but…if that’s your opinion. Again that hint of something…what is it? That kind of dark feeling for women; guilt. No. Well, it could just be some kind of twist from the norm, but I come down on the side of cultural.