THE HISPANIC CHALLENGE TO AMERICA (S. Huntington)-REPOST-(Very Long Good and Required)

Foreign Affairs ^ | March 2004 | Samuel Huntington

[Cacique]

The persistent inflow of Hispanic immigrants threatens to divide the United States into two peoples, two cultures, and two languages. Unlike past immigrant groups, Mexicans and other Latinos have not assimilated into mainstream U.S. culture, forming instead their own political and linguistic enclaves—from Los Angeles to Miami—and rejecting the Anglo-Protestant values that built the American dream. The United States ignores this challenge at its peril.

[Cacique]

I posted this article two years ago. It seems someone pinged me to the old one, but in the interest of having a wider readership I am reposting it.

My comments on the old thread at the time were:

As someone the census bureau would classify as Hispanic. I think that I can speak with confidence that there are those of us who came here to be Americans and adopt American values. We abandoned our former countries because they were failures culturally, economically and politically. Unfortunately there are others who are here not as "immigrants" but as "colonists". They want to bring their failed culture and failed ideas to America and impose them here. Unfortunately there are panderers on both the left and the right that will play into those sentiments and help accelerate the Balkanization of America.

You can find the old thread with the complete article and it's interesting comments HERE.

[Zacs Mom]

[HawaiianGecko]

A Freeper posted this a couple of weeks ago and I believe it is apropos today.

Theodore Roosevelt's ideas on Immigrants and being an AMERICAN

"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American. "

• There can be no divided allegiance here.
• Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all.
• We have room for but one flag, the American flag.
• We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language.
• And we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.

Theodore Roosevelt, 1907
 

 

 

[eleni121]

PING to me for later read. Thanks for posting this.

[Smocker]

What would you think of people with dual citizenship? Wouldn't that also mean an individual has loyalties to a country other than the US?

[wardaddy]

BTTT

[wardaddy]

I would defend the Cubans and South Americans and Nicaraguans who fled the Sandies.

They vote right mostly (unlike most other Hispanics) and once outside Miami, they do tend to assimilate.

In Miami, they simply don't have to.

PS....I fear Brasilians may vote left too...and I have children that carry that passport too...as I once did.

[monkeywrench]

Bttt! Excellent article, and great comments.

[DumpsterDiver]

Hi, Cacique,

I still have the same gripe as I did when you first posted this. I agree with most of what Huntington says, but I dislike the words Hispanic and Latino because I'm never sure just who the author (not just Huntington) is talking about.

The persistent inflow of Hispanic immigrants threatens to divide the United States into two peoples, two cultures, and two languages.

The majority, though not all, of Hispanic immigrants may speak Spanish, but that does not mean that they share the same culture.

Unlike past immigrant groups, Mexicans and other Latinos have not assimilated into mainstream U.S. culture, forming instead their own political and linguistic enclaves...

Who has the definitive list of the Hispanics who are also considered to be Latinos? And would it take the FOIA to get a copy of it? :^)

[diamond6]

bump for later

[pax_et_bonum]

bttt to read later

[satchmodog9]

I don't mind the immigration. it is the failure to assimilate that needs to be cured. No more Spanish in schools. We didn't have Italian in schools when my parents legally came here and worked shit jobs. We learned to speak English and now we are fiercely loyal Americans.

[Travis McGee]

The amount of historical idiocy and fallacies surrounding this subject is staggering, chief among them the "Aztlan" fairy tales. What's the truth? How did the Spanish Europeans conquer the Southwest? The "conquistatores" (that means "conquerers" did it with the lance, and the lash.

For example, in 1541 Coronado entered present-day New Mexico searching for "cities of gold," and one of his first actions on meeting the natives was to burn 100s of them alive in their dwellings, for not handing over suspected horse thieves. This is how Spain conquered the natives of the present US Southwest--not nicely! It was certainly no love-fest between long-lost brown-skinned soul-mates, as it is often portrayed today by the Aztlaners today!

By 1821, Mexico City was strong enough to overthrow even more decrepit and ineffectual Spanish rule. However, the distant provinces of the current US Southwest were far beyond the reach of the authority of independent but strife-torn Mexico. These distant northern provinces received neither military assistance nor needed levels of trade from the south. For example, Comanches ran rampant in the 1830s in this power vacuum, burning ranches that had been around for a hundred years and massacring their inhabitants. Mexico City could neither defend nor keep the allegiance of its nominal citizens in these regions. Nor could it provide needed levels of trade to sustain the prior Spanish-era standard of living.

Meanwhile, a growing America was making great inroads, via ships into California, and via wagon trains of trade goods over the Santa Fe Trail from St. Louis. The standard of living of the SPANISH in these states subsequently increased enormously, which is why they did not support Mexico City in the 1846-48 war. In fact, the Spanish-speaking inhabitants of the Southwest NEVER considered themselves "Mexicans" at all, ever. They went, in their own eyes, from SPANISH directly to AMERICAN.

So how long did Mexico City have even nominal control over the Southwest? 25 years, during which they had no effective control, and the area slipped backwards until the arrival of the Americans. Since then, how long has the area been under firm American control? For 150 continuous years.

And now, we are supposed to let any Mexican from Chiapas, Michoacan or Yucatan march into the American Southwest, and make some "historical claim" of a right to live there? From where does this absurd idea spring?

At what point in history did Indians from Zacatecas or Durango stake a claim on the American Southwest? Neither they nor their ancestors ever lived for one single day in the American Southwest. The Spanish living in the Southwest in 1846 stayed there, and became Americans by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

No current inhabitants of Mexico have ANY claim on even one single inch of the Southwest! They are criminal invaders and colonizers, pure and simple.

[Cacique]

I frankly don't know, I am classified as a hispanic by the census bureau simply because of where I was born. Latino is an old term that has been around forever and is a derivative of "Latin" which at one time also meant Italians as derivative of the langauge they spoke.

It is much easier for ignorant people in bureaucracies to classify people. Also, keep in mind that today modern migrants or "colonists" are a cheap plane ride away from their native countries and don't feel compelled to settle in culturaly or otherwise into their new country. The advent os foreign language television and papers and the entire market economy that comes with it makes it unnecessary for someone to assimilate. Coming to America is no longer the one way trip as it was a hundred years ago.

[raybbr]

Unfortunately there are panderers on both the left and the right that will play into those sentiments and help accelerate the Balkanization of America.

I never thought of Bush as deliberately balkanizing America but rather through a misguided belief he fails to see the consequences of his policies.

We are now one of the largest Spanish-speaking nations in the world. We're a major source of Latin music, journalism and culture.

Just go to Miami, or San Antonio, Los Angeles, Chicago or West New York, New Jersey ... and close your eyes and listen. You could just as easily be in Santo Domingo or Santiago, or San Miguel de Allende.

For years our nation has debated this change -- some have praised it and others have resented it. By nominating me, my party has made a choice to welcome the new America.

As I speak, we are celebrating the success of democracy in Mexico.

George Bush from a campaign speech in Miami, August 2000.

You can read the speech here.

Here is an excerpt of a good critique of that speech:

In equating our intimate historic bonds to our mother country and to Canada with our ties to Mexico, W. shows a staggering ignorance of the civilizational facts of life. The reason we are so close to Britain and Canada is that we share with them a common historical culture, language, literature, and legal system, as well as similar standards of behavior, expectations of public officials, and so on. My Bush Epiphany By Lawrence Auster

[amihow]

We, who know the facts about illegal immigration MUST keep pushing for a SOLUTION.

If you agree, push the following:

First, employer sanctions in big numbers.

Second and at the same time, Secure the borders.

Third,an immigration policy that balances the need of America with the needs of potential immigrants.

Fourth, fix the economies of the broken countries, especially Mexico.

Ask yourself and your politicians, why it is that the huge populations of the Mexican cities on the border are not jumping the wire to get here. Is it because it is not as bad over there as the MSM and the pandering politicains would like to have us believe?

Who's coming? Is it the single male who is in the vast manority?

Do we want this all over America? Check out the link to the Pima County jail and see if the proportion of Hispanic surnames to other surnames is equivalent to the proportion of Hispanics in Tucson, 24%.

http://www.pimasheriff.org/inmate/roster.html

[Zacs Mom]

Hmmmmmmm ... I wonder if that is a pic of some of those "poor kids" in Ennis who had to miss their prom 'cause they were supsended for skipping school to join in the protests?!

[Das Outsider]

And now, we are supposed to let any Mexican from Chiapas, Michoacan or Yucatan march into the American Southwest, and make some "historical claim" of a right to live there? From where does this absurd idea spring?

Right. The Southwest definitely belongs to Mexican people, or so the thinking goes--which people is not so definite.

The Aztlan movement--as much as I am reluctant to draw the comparison--does depend on race myths similar in form to those of Adolf Hitler and his ilk.

[GSlob]

You are right. Hispanity is best left south of the border.