Hmm. As someone who doesn’t know where he stands on this issue, I’d like to ask folks like BrainGlutton and tomdebb a question: are laws that restrict immigration a bad thing? Should they be repealed?
I just want to clarify that point.
I do not come to the discussion with a claim that no nation should be able to control external forces on its population. (In an ideal Libertarian world, all such borders and movement would be open, but we do not live in such a world.)
My primary interest, here, is seeking evidence that the current immigration is substantially different than earlier immigration. In these discussions, over the years, I repeatedly see the claims, (won’t assimilate, refuse to learn English, lowering the standards of American life, changing American culture, higher crime and poverty) that were used to contest the earlier waves of immigration, but the evidence I see does not seem to support claims that the current wave is substantially different than the earlier waves.
Sure, but I thought the issue here was the dilemma of what to do with folks who’re here illegally? Does your focus on the mentioned claims mean that if they’re behaving themselves, they should stay, and have all the tax-funded benefits the OP was complaining about them having? Or is this a divergence from the OP?
Well, it is not strictly in line with the OP, but when false arguments are presented, they are always open to challenge.
Upset is much to strong a word. If you look at my response to this part of your post I don’t see how you read “upset” into it. Could you please point to what in my response lead you to that conclusion. I did, however, think it unfair that you ignored the sentence that was attached to the one you cited. To recap, you said:
Here is the complete passage, of which you chose to focus on the first half only.
"But the large population coming in from the south are NOT assimilating. At least not at a rate that surpasses the new influx to make their isolated communities grow larger and larger."(new emphasis)
Because I did not have proof of the notion I was putting forth I qualified it. Now, if you wanted to, you could have asked for support for the second part of my statement, which had no qualification. And I didn’t include one because I thought that even you would grant that as fact.
Again, let’s try to be fair. There were two anecdotes, with two examples in each. One half of one of them could be classified as you have described, in that it did not support my position. I was offering it to demonstrate that I understood the desire for some to not assimilate as I had personal experience with one of my grandmothers. Also, I made it clear that they were merely anecdotes and, like any and all anecdotes, do not in any way offer proof of my or any other position. I then further clarified this point in my subsequent post, which you also chose to ignore.
I’ll try this again. This time I’ll annotate: See above. (Meaning, there are words in this post that address this question, as you’ve raised it twice. In this specific case I would ask you to read everything I’ve previously stated in this post.) I hope that helps.
I don’t know. I didn’t look for it. If I did know where it was I would have included it. Again, that is why I qualified my statement. Why is it that you repeatedly refuse to ignore that fact? And, in case you’re wondering, I didn’t look it up because I had spent quite some time providing support and background for my positions to BrainGlutton, who had requested it. Thus, I qualified my statement.
When said mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, was involved with MEChA at UCLA in the 1970s that slogan, along with other extremely racist language was part of their platform. Here it is in full.
[QUOTE=tomndebb]
(Ever notice how the only people who seem to use that phrase are the racists attacking M.E.Ch.A. and that you never see it in any M.E.Ch.A. literature?)[?QUOTE]
So, I use their phrase—their old slogan—and I’m a racist?! I strongly object to that characterization. (I am also surprised that you’d resort to the ad hominem.) I’d appreciate an explanation and/or an apology. And I don’t think the use it simply because they realized that it was backfiring on them, allowing the gringos to see how racist they were.
I was not aware that this was a common practice with immigrants of old. Are you aware of what percent of immigrants at the turn of the century went back to their native countries? I understand that it was somewhat high for Ireland, but I do not think it was common overall. But this is just a guess. Do you have any support to the contrary. Also, do you have information as to how much money was sent back to the home countries. I’ve supplied a number indicating what current illegals send back to their native countries in remittances. What makes you think that the the amount sent back by immigrants of 60-110 years ago was similar? After I provided the number I did you stated that the practice was similar with older immigration waves. On what did you base that assertion?
Here’s what you said:
If you didn’t mean all (which is entirely understandable) what did you mean? Most? Some? One? What percent? On what data do you base your claim?
Well, that’s easily disproven. In fact, your statement is contradictory. I am not the child of immigrants, I am the grandchild of immigrants. Now, I don’t mean to niggle, but how do you mean “children of immigrants”? Do you mean it literally? Or figuratively, excluding the entire population of the US other than Native Americans? I won’t insult you by assuming you’ll attempt t weasel into the latter definition. So I’ll ask you: do you mean to say that there are no people whose families have been here, say, 150 years, that might agree with me? I’ll skip the obvious request for a non-existent cite and simply ask: are you a betting man?
Fair enough. But you didn’t answer Leaper’s question. I’m sure he, and others, would appreciate being able to understand your position better. I know I would.
I did not ignore it, and I do not see how it is made more true by being displayed in boldface instead of being supported byt evidence.
The whole issue of immigration is one that keeps resurfacing on this board and others. I am open to persuasion that we need to do something to change our current policies. However, whenever these discussions come up, I keep seeing the same assertions made over and over with no evidence to support them.
Interestingly, the unsupported assertions are the same ones that were advanced in the last century and earlier. I do not see that they were true, then, and see no reason to belive they are true now.
The same claim that immigrants could not (or would not) assimilate and that they were entering too swiftly and breeding too quickly to be incorporated into the country were lodged against the Irish, then the Russian Jews, then the Italians, along with a number of other groups. We can see in the historical record that it took several years, but that they did assimilate. So why should I “grant that as fact” when all I see is the same tired and unsupported claims advanced in 2005 that were advanced (incorrectly) in 1850 and 1895 and 1915?
That is why I found your anecdotes odd: you were begging the question that there was a problem with assimilation, then followed it up with anecdotes demonstrating small examples of failed assimilation. I guess if you really believe that those claims were self-evident, then the anecdotes were nothing more, but since I find the claims of failed assimilation to be not merely not self-evident, but wildly overblown and probably false, I was expecting to see some support for that claim.
Actually, that is not the platform of M.E.Ch.A. It is the platform of Aztlán. The platform of M.E.Ch.A. (a student organizing group) is El Plan de Santa Barbara (still pretty intense, as student movements tend to be, but carefully focused on the notion of student organization with no calls for ¡Por La Raza Todo, Fuera de La Raza Nada!).
I see striking parallels in trying to get politicians in the 2000s to “renounce” their student activities and the efforts in the 1950s and 1960s to hunt down and expose people who flirted with communism in college in the 1930s. (If we can go along and not make a president renounce his youthful cocaine habit, I see no reason to compel similar renunciations of political activites.)
Read my comment again. I said nothing about you being a racist. I pointed out that people who present it as current (as your sources seem to have done) appear to be racists. Note that the CU Denver chapter includes the El Plan de Aztlán as literature to be studied. Note that the chapter constitution at CU Denver is the typical boring charter that one would expect from any student group. And here is their subversive philosophy.
I suspect that you have heard the criticisms of Villaraigosa and the condemnation of Aztlán (and the repitition of the old slogan) from people with their own agendas–and those people are willing to repeat in inflammatory ways ancient student rhetoric as current.
About 1/3 (minus a few native-born Yanks who wandered off to Australia or South and Central America, along with Henry James who went to Europe).
Comparison of Immigration vs Emigration in the 20th century. (This is a Google™ cached synopsis of a table that the INS used to provide before they were bundled into Homeland Security and had all their web sites destroyed.)