August, 2006

Counterintuitive: Take Two

by Douglas S. Massey

August 31st, 2006

I’m afraid much of the debate will be counterintuitive, if not Orwellian, to most Mexicans. The U.S. is not in that bad shape (forget the disaster in New Orleans, the tainted elections in Florida and Ohio, the record deficit, skyrocketing inequality, and the record number of Americans in poverty); that a militarized border is [...]

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Counterintuitive, at Least

I am afraid much of the debate will appear counterintuitive, if not Orwellian, to most Americans of the Southwest: Mexico is not in all that bad shape (forget the near insurrection in Oaxaca, or the drug badlands along the border; or that one in ten Mexicans have abandoned their country); border enforcement leads to more, [...]

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Tie Up NAFTA’s Loose Ends

by Douglas S. Massey

August 28th, 2006

So the debate is not emotional? See how quickly it degenerates into ad hominem attacks. The facts, however, are these:
The United States has received significant Mexican immigration since 1907, when U.S. employers began recruitment in Mexico following the termination of labor migration from Japan.
The U.S. government sponsored its own labor recruitment programs in [...]

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How Do We Control Illegal Immigration?

by Stephen J. Trejo

August 27th, 2006

Doug Massey is right. The debate about Mexican immigration easily turns emotional, and it often aggravates Americans’ feelings of insecurity that are not directly related to immigration. September 11 and subsequent events have intensified these emotions, but sizeable immigration flows to the United States have always provoked similar responses, both in modern times [...]

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What Does Any of this Have to Do With Iraq?

I don’t find those who worry about illegal immigration necessarily rawly emotional, much less volatile, racist, nativist, or all the other slights thrown their way from abstract thinkers. After all, there are some 11 million people here illegally, largely from Mexico and/or Latin America. Aside from the social, economic, and ethical issues, there is the [...]

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Getting Emotional About Mexicans

by Douglas S. Massey

August 25th, 2006

The thing that stands out in the debate on Mexican immigration is its emotional content, and the exchange on Cato Unbound is no exception. A lot of people are very upset about the issue—angry, fearful, resentful, suspicious, and often vindictive. The raw emotion on display has less to do with the management of [...]

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The Intergenerational Assimilation of Mexican Americans

by Stephen J. Trejo

August 22nd, 2006

How well are Mexican immigrants and their offspring assimilating? In his contribution to this month’s discussion, University of Texas economist Stephen J. Trejo lays out the latest findings. According to Trejo, “Mexican Americans are not too far off the path of intergenerational assimilation traveled by previous waves of European immigrants. During their first few generations in the United States, Mexican-American families experience substantial economic and social mobility, and their actual progress is probably even greater than what we see in available data.” However, a slow rate of educational attainment remains a “critical problem” that may delay the full integration of Mexican Americans.

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Seeing Mexican Immigration Clearly

by Douglas S. Massey

August 20th, 2006

In his reply to Rodriguez, Douglass Massey, the Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs and co-director of the Mexican Migration Project at Princeton University, writes that “Mexican immigrants are routinely portrayed as a tidal wave of human beings fleeing an impoverished, disorganized nation who are desperate to settle in the United States, where they will overwhelm our culture, displace our language, mooch our social services, and undermine our national security… This profile, however, bears no discernible relationship to the reality that I know as a social scientist.” Massey, drawing on his decades of research on Mexican migration, argues each element of this picture is false, and has exacerbated the problems of Mexico-U.S. immigration.

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Richard Rodriguez’s Stream of Consciousness

Victor Davis Hanson recounts the proposals from his book Mexifornia, and sets out a biting, detailed reply to Richard Rodriguez’s lead essay. “Here he has sadly advanced no real argument,” Hanson writes, “but instead offers only a mélange of ethnic vignettes, and, for some reason, ad hominem attacks of the very sort he used to deplore.” Hanson charges that Rodriguez, writing from his tony San Francisco haunts, offers only a cartoon version of his and others’ work, and fails to directly face the troubling economic and social consequences of unlawfully resident Mexicans in America evident to Hanson in the San Joaquin Valley.

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Mexicans in America

by Richard Rodriguez

August 14th, 2006

In the lead essay to this month’s Cato Unbound, celebrated essayist Richard Rodriguez offers a provocative meditation on the place of Mexicans in the U.S. economy and consciousness. “I retain my belief in the necessity of a common American culture,” Rodriguez writes, “But I am lately appalled by voices raised in this country against Mexican migrant workers.” Arguing that the question of Mexican immigration “might better be asked of a theologian, than an economist,” Rogriguez considers the religious and cultural character of Mexicans, and the role of Mexico as a repository of American sin, and American fear.

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Coming Monday: Mexicans in America

Tune in Monday for the August issue of Cato Unbound: “Mexicans in America.”
Richard Rodriguez, author of the celebrated Hunger of Memory and, most recently, Brown: The Last Discovery of America, leads off this month’s issue with a provocative meditation on the role of Mexico and Mexicans in the U.S. economy and consciousness. Hoover Institution [...]

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