Immigration Debate: Kaus takes on Horwitz

Over at Slate, Mickey Kaus doesn’t “understand the argument behind Horwitz's Sunday NYT op-ed essay.” (See Horwitz's original article here). To summarize, Kaus argues that the Spanish role in US history, rather than supporting immigration, makes “Mexican and other Spanish-speaking immigrants profoundly different from previous immigrants. Unlike other immigrants--Italians or Irish or Koreans--they do not necessarily think they are in a foreign land. . . . Unlike other immigrants, Latinos have a powerful rationale for challenging, at the very least, the current common language.” Kaus fears that immigration will lead to “Quebec style separatism or Kosovo-style irredentism in the Southwest.”

Here’s what Kaus misses. By pointing out the continual role of Spain and Spanish in the development of the US, Horowitz and others show that the nation need not fear Latino influence. In fact, that influence has been instrumental in shaping the nation we live in today. Those who are against immigration on cultural grounds fear the destruction of a mythical Anglo culture (in fairness, unlike many immigration opponents isn’t a complete Anglophile but logic of their arguments is the same). This ignores the essential point Horwitz makes: the values, culture, and even the idea of the United States are the product of diverse influences. The United States, rather than being a static, monolithic entity born fully formed from some Puritan womb, has evolved over time, incorporated different peoples and changed as a result. Ironically, the society Kaus and others fear we might lose by allowing immigration is already a society profoundly marked by immigration and Spanish/Latino influences. To exclude immigrants by erecting new xenophobic structures in an attempt to preserve some narrow version of “our American culture” would truly be a fundamental change the values of our nation.

The rest of Kaus’s argument is mostly what I can only call an unjustified fear. Where are the Spanish speakers who are refusing to learn English, particularly among the children of immigrants? Every Spanish-speaking immigrant I have met would love to learn English. Every young immigrant I have met who has been here for more than a few years does speak English.

If the fear really is a balkanization of the United States, from a more pragmatic standpoint, I would also ask: which of these two situations is more likely to create a separate class of people that might be alienated enough to seek a social partition?

1. A large illegal, marginalized population segregated from mainstream society
2. Immigrants who are able to work, get driver’s licenses, and generally participate in public life; immigrants whose children are able to attend public schools and universities.