ARTICLES
January 2006 ARTICLES
Contents © 2006
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
Be Thankful They're Not Moslems
Thoughts on Immigration
BY THOMAS STORCK
Though overshadowed by political scandals, Supreme Court appointments, natural disasters, and controversy over a man-made disaster, the Iraq War, the issue of immigration reform has gotten some media play in recent months. Whether President George W. Bush's proposed guest worker program or his opponents' (among them California Republicans) policy of stricter enforcement at the borders prevails, Californians will be among the first to feel the effects of Washington policy.
Catholics are as confused as other citizens on the subject of immigration. What are we to think of it? What immigration policies should we support? I do not intend to offer a plan for dealing with the entire immigration issue here. Indeed, on certain aspects of it I do not have a firm position. But I want to set forth certain principles and facts and some suggestions which seem to me to follow from these. I hope these might help frame the debate over immigration, especially for Catholics.
We should be thankful that the immigrants who are coming into this country are mainly Catholics. I am not saying that Latinos are all exemplary Catholics, but probably by and large they are as good Catholics as North American Catholics are. And most importantly, they are not Moslems. If we lived in Europe, then truly we would have something to fear from immigration.
Secondly, despite what some say, including some Hispanics themselves, Latin America is part of Western culture. It is absurd to think that when Spain and Portugal, European nations, established the first cities, churches, universities, and printing presses in the New World, they were not extending Western civilization. It is true that most immigrants are not of Spanish blood, or at least not entirely so. But that was the great achievement and glory of the Spanish empire: to extend Christendom to native Americans and give them their religion, language, and culture.
A story related by the Spanish scholar and diplomat, Salvador de Madariaga, shows how this consciousness of being Spanish had sunk deep into the Latino psychology. "I was once walking," wrote de Madariaga, "along the winding, pleasant streets of a garden suburb in California when I noticed that the gardeners who were tending the flowers were all Mexican Indians (How far mestizo? Not much anyhow). I stopped by the nearest one and, in Spanish, asked him what his nationality was. 'I am a Spaniard,' he answered."
Would Mexican gardeners of mostly Indian blood answer the same today as when de Madariaga wrote these words in the 1950s? Perhaps not. But if not, I think some of the blame must lie with those who have restricted the concept of Western civilization until it seemed to comprehend only the Anglo-Saxon nations. And of course, much of the blame must also go to the fashionable promoters of multi-culturalism who, themselves having only a partial understanding of Western culture, exaggerate its vices while minimizing those of other cultures. In this way they have managed to make many hate what they suppose to be Western culture, identified by them more or less with post-Protestant industrialism. But while I would concede that under the best of circumstances the average Latin American is not a perfect representative of Christian Western civilization, neither is the average North American mall shopper and TV viewer. Myself, I would take my chances with the former.
If this is true, then mass Hispanic immigration is in principle little different from the mass European immigration of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, except that the numbers are greater.
Something, too, which is often forgotten is that Hispanics were in the southwest before Anglo-Saxons were. It would seem that, especially where Hispanics dwelt in considerable numbers, such as northern New Mexico, they should be allowed to continue to have some sort of public and social life based on their own culture and language. In many countries of the world, language rights, for example the right to an education in one's own language, are conceived of as fundamental human rights. We tend to think that it is sufficient if one is allowed to speak a language at home. But to relegate language, one of the most important aspects of culture, to a merely private role is seriously to damage the particular culture the language expresses.
If we want to know why Latin Americans are coming to the U.S. in such numbers we would do well to look at our foreign policy and at the conduct of our corporations, as well as those of Europe and Japan. Often the low wages paid by these corporations in their Latin American factories and the other ravages, both economic and political, which have afflicted Latin America, have made it impossible for people there to live and support their families. Many do not want to immigrate here. They, like most of us, would prefer to stay with their families in surroundings that are familiar to them. But they often undergo great risk to come north, traversing other Latin countries and crossing our border only to face the risk of being exploited here and then deported. The best thing to slow immigration would be to work for economic justice for Latin America -- not free trade pacts such as NAFTA, which benefit mainly the rich and powerful, but viable local economies which offer jobs with fair wages. [The Houston Catholic Worker, (P.O. Box 70113, Houston, Texas 77270; www.cjd.org) often details the hardships of the journey here, which can include even death.]
But what of the negative aspects of immigration? It is said that immigration drives down wages here, and this might be true. But does this country have enough workers willing to do the many jobs which Latino immigrants do? In the Washington, D.C. area, where I live, most construction work, cleaning of buildings, etc. is done by Hispanics. Do Latino immigrants take these from U.S. citizens? As for wages, it is probably true that they are kept lower by the continuing immigration, but it is likely the wages of the immigrants themselves that are mostly affected.
What about the effects of Latino immigration on our culture? I cannot see great harm in continuing Latino influence in those regions originally Hispanic. Latin America does not end at the Río Grande and the southern U.S. border, but it shades off gradually throughout Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, up into Colorado.
To a great extent what we think about the effects of Hispanic immigration on American Anglo culture depends on our estimate of that culture. And in general it is in a sorry state. But never theless there are parts of this country which do contain cultures of value. I think of the small towns and villages of the Mid-West where I was raised, places that I love and ways of life which I would grieve to see destroyed. It is legitimate to want to preserve such things. But how? It is not possible, though it would be best, to concentrate Hispanic immigrants to those parts of the country with which they have some historic identification. And it is unlikely we will significantly limit Hispanic immigration as long as the economies of the Latin American nations are destroyed for the benefit of American, European, and Japanese corporations.
We ought to consider possible negative effects of immigration not only on our own culture but on Latin cultures as well. I suggested above that many, probably most, Latin Americans would prefer to stay put in their own countries. In leaving their homelands they disrupt family and community life there. Latino gangs have become a crime problem here, but reportedly some of these gang members return to their homelands, bring back their criminal ways with them, and organize gangs there. But whether here or in the Latin American countries, this criminality is largely the result of a destroyed social fabric -- mothers in the workforce, communities in which traditional ways of life have been disrupted, all in service to the great capitalist god of materialistic growth, primarily for the rich.
President Bush's proposal for immi gration reform is a guest worker program, the temporary admission of foreign workers to this country. Though presented as a kind of worker amnesty, such a program does not seem fair to the workers themselves. They might be separated from their families and communities for a period of some months, at least. Should Cath olics, who care about family life, about the preservation of chastity, support any kind of arrangements which unnecessarily subordinate family life to economic gain? And if workers' families come with them, aside from whatever negative impact that would have on family life, would it in time lead to the sad and absurd situation one finds in parts of Europe, where generations of Asian or North African guest workers live, unable to obtain citizenship, always a potential danger to the society (they are mostly Moslems), separated from their own cultures and yet unable or unwilling to fully join those of their countries of residence?
Secondly, there seems something fundamentally dishonest about the entire notion of guest workers. A nation ought to be able to provide for its own economic needs, and if it cannot do so, then it either has a wrong conception of its needs or it should scale them back to fit its resources, including its human resources. Or it should increase its birth rate so that it does have enough manpower. If a nation has work to do, then it ought to be able to provide the workers for it and to pay them fairly. But if no North Americans want to do the work that Hispanics do, even were wages increased, then evidently the work does not need to be done. To depend on foreign workers who will work for lower wages or longer hours or under conditions that native workers will not -- this is essentially to make one's country a parasite on poor countries.
Moreover, the kind of agriculture that depends on armies of temporary workers is probably not the most healthy for us either. Instead of growing a variety of crops for mostly local consumption, it encourages monoculture with the need for a costly, vulnerable, and polluting transportation system, and encourages a complexity in our way of life that is harmful to a stable, family-oriented culture.
Economic and social problems are always intertwined and a truly healthy economy will always support a healthy society and a healthy society, a healthy economy.