Are New Immigrants Assimilating?
I was off to NYC on Monday to meet with our beloved patron and editor, and while I was there attend an interesting-sounding conference on the question “Are New Immigrants Assimilating?” put on by the Manhattan Institute. Unfortunately, on the train ride over, I caught a wicked 24-hour bug and thus have been out of commission and unable to comment on it yet. (Although I was thankfully roused back to health by reading Bill Kauffman’s review of Ron Paul’s book.)
I was shocked, though not particularly surprised, to observe that while I lay in repose, the study presented at the conference, written by the capable Jacob Vigdor of Duke, was misrepresented in a fashion that can’t be explained by “liberal bias”—I think outright lying would be closer to the mark.
Take for instance, the opening line of the Washington Post’s report written by N.C. Aizenman:
Immigrants of the past quarter-century have been assimilating in the United States at a notably faster rate than did previous generations, according to a study released today.
The conference was an invitation-only affair, and when we arrived, we were presented with professor Vigdor’s white paper and a list of all attendees; Aizenman was not among them. The Post hack could have always downloaded a pdf of the study, but then this might have been a bit too demanding. If Aizenman had gotten past the executive summary, he would have come across this paragraph and graph on page 11:
Figure 11 shows that between 1900 and 1920, a period when the immigrant population of the United States grew by roughly 40%, the assimilation index declined substantially, from an initial value of 55 to 42. After 1920, as more severe restrictions were placed on immigration, the index rebounded somewhat, to a level surprisingly similar to that observed in 1980, the beginning of the modern era of immigration. By this index measure, which is based for purposes of comparison on only the information available in early Census enumerations, the drop in the assimilation index between 1980 and 1990 was more precipitous than that depicted in Figure 9. The period between 1990 and 2006 continues to be marked by the lack of a net trend in assimilation.
One could conclude that assimilation is not declining as precipitously as it was between 1980-1990, although the current composite index of 30 out of 100 is not exactly anything to brag about. The only unequivocal “good news” from the study is that as immigrants spend more time in the country, they become more assimilated (duh).
David Weigel reproducedAizenman’s reportage on the study’s “findings” over at Reason and proudly announced, “Could Tancredo have been … Wong?” to the glee of his colleagues, no doubt.
Weigel didn’t, however, reproduce what even Aizenman couldn’t keep out of his report, the fact that the largest immigrant group, Mexicans, are by far and away the least assimilated, particularly in comparison with Canadians and East Asians who quickly reach levels of income and civic engagement equal to the natives.
But the real issue (which almost everyone has ignored) is one of terminology—what exactly is “assimilation”? Vigdor has a very PC version of the term, assuring us that he’s not talking about adherence to an ideal type—the “real American”— but instead the degree to which the diversity of new immigrants reflects the diversity of the country as it is. One “assimilates” not simply by learning English and registering to vote but by committing crime and having out-of-wedlock babies at current levels as well. Lawrence Mead, who offered the strongest criticism of the report at the conference, pointed out that this kind of index basically compares immigrants to immigrants. That is, the study asks whether new, mostly third world immigrants reflect a population that has received a massive influx of third world immigrants over the past 30 thirty years. The more substantive question would be to ask whether new immigrants resemble the American populace of, say, 1960. Such a question would also give us a hint of the degree to which the country has been transformed since the ’65 immigration act. A critical look at Vigdor’s index also basically wipes out the one piece of “good news” from the study (that assimilation is no longer in decline): obviously, Mexicans are going to more closely resemble American society as American society includes more and more Mexicans. Thus, what’s truly remarkable about Vigdor’s findings is that even with a rather generously conceived index, new immigrants, well, aren’t assimilating.
Comments
Interesting. I wonder if there is an inverse relationship between assimilation and
abandonment of the Catholic faith. Maybe we can ask Tancredo that question.
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Great post, Richard.
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A very good post on a vital issue.
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Richard,
Enjoyed your essay. Perhaps some of the “chirping sectaries” over on the Lew Rockwell
libertarian site who favor “open borders” should take a look at your data. For (some of)
them, apparently, there are only two distinguishable elements in society: man
and the state, no intermediary bodies. The community apparently doesn’t exist, and it
certainly doesn’t have a right to interpose itself between individuals and the state. It is
no wonder that seven popes have formally condemned economic and social liberalism.
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I’m one of those chirpers who frequents LRC. First of all, at LRC, there are a good share
of closed border types there.
“The community apparently doesn’t exist...”
Well there are some of us “open border” types who recognize community, continuity, and tradition.
Just look at all the border towns with artificial lines drawn by none other than the modern
nation state, particularly along the Mexican border. I posit that the Medieval world would have
been more accepting of a more open situation between El Paso-Juarez, Nogales-Nogales, and San
Diego-TJ. Let’s not forget that the Mexican war did its share to obliterate community, as
with the Gadsden Purchase [Santa Anna and the modern Mexican state did its share as well.]
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Of course, there are frequenters at LRC who understand the organic role of the community,
of tradition and custom, and ethnicity; but there are also many others who do not, who,
rather, posit the primacy of (laissez-faire) economics as the chief moral principle in life. This is a one-dimensional view of life, and has been rightly condemned by the Church.
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The issue is not immigration but the welfare/warfare state.
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“The issue is not immigration but the welfare/warfare state. “
I urge all Americans to visit the southwest before commenting on the effects of immigration. People who visit Southern California ought to include a tour of Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles to understand the American future.
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It’s unsurprising that the Washington Post would skew this report to reflect benignly on our current border policy, which keeps immigrant inflow - virtually all of it illegal - at open-floodgate level. Long ago, interests controlling the American information industry opted to help fill this country with cheap labor as a means of controlling inflation, obviating unionization and sustaining the egregious enrichment of the already-rich.
Americans have chafed in silence as this undeclared open-borders policy replaced them with laborers willing to toil long hours at microscopic wages, under conditions approaching the mayhem of 19th-century industrial workhouses. At the same time, they’ve seen rollbacks of trade policy and workplace preferment defended as “progressive,” and their own growing alienation dismissed as backward… even racist.
There is a common concurrence in American politics and media that anyone favoring measured, limited immigration be tarred as “anti-immigrant.” In this context, there’s apparently no allowance for any condition “illegal.”
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“Mexicans are going to more closely resemble American society as American society includes more and more Mexicans.”
Of course. There’s no such thing as assimilation, it is a comfortable myth told by both left and right (the left to lull their victims into complacency, the conservative establishment to avoid a conflict with the cultural powers over the issue of race that might threaten their positions and incomes). There is only amalgamation. The mass influx of Europeans during the industrial age radically altered the politics and society of this nation, the new influx will alter it even more. “Diversity” isn’t strength, it is the death of what existed before; the left wouldn’t support it otherwise. Post ‘65 immigration policy is a classic example of political change through racial colonialism, and killing the assimilation myth among conservatives is a necessary step toward forcing them to publicly face that reality.
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While I’m riding and beating this dead hobby horse, or at least until some of this site’s more diligent arch-politico/theologians try to cut me dead with the minutiae of obsolete political categorization, I’d like to point out that some segments of our illegal immigrant population assimilate to the degree that they are able to successfully game our system. They access “free” (i.e. taxpayer-funded) medical care, assemble political bases to battle gabacho “racism”, cavort on a judicial merry-go-round that routinely releases them from custody to chronically commit crimes (usually entailing alcohol, driving or fists), and, up until recently, nest in deluxe homes until their bad credit is depleted.
...I’d head north, too.
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The delectable irony of neo-know-nothings bewailing the ransacking hordes and their lack of assimilation into the august realms of the noble resident culture....while most the descendants of the resident culture have themselves assimilated to some kind of never-never land of ennui and hee-haw stadium cheering ...well, this is almost to rich to bear.
It’s Taco Night at the Grange Hall, how alarming.
Perhaps Reconquista is the highest form of flattery but in case anyone is wondering, the cows fled the barn a long time ago.
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