Posted on 07/24/2006 6:36:23 AM PDT by Tancred
The myth of the redemptive Hispanic is finally cracking. For years, conservative open-borders advocates have touted Hispanic “family values” as a prime reason to increase immigration. Hispanic immigrants, these conservatives say, will save America from itself. At a time when Anglo and black families are disintegrating, when society is becoming increasingly atomized and alienated, Hispanics will bring the traditional values that the country so desperately needs. In a classic iteration of the theme, Larry Kudlow wrote on NRO last May that Hispanic immigrants would “become a much-needed churchgoing blue-collar middle class . . . that is crucial to a healthy America.”
The truth is now supplanting the fiction. Last Friday, the New York Times ran an editorial, “Young Latinas and a Cry for Help,” that laid out the real state of the Hispanic family. A quarter of all Latinas are mothers by the age of 20, few of them married, reported the Times. This out-of-wedlock teen-birth rate is three times that of white teens, and significantly more than that of blacks as well. The Hispanic dropout rate is also the highest in the country — the Manhattan Institute’s Jay Greene puts it at 47 percent.
There is simply no way to square the facts about Hispanic family breakdown with the myth of the redemptive Hispanic. Talk to any social worker and she will tell you that illegitimacy has become completely normalized among her Hispanic clients. And the usual explanation for this epidemic of illegitimacy — an unresolved culture clash between young people and their traditional parents — is equally bogus. The mothers of teen mothers are themselves completely on board with single parenting, say the social workers, having often been single parents themselves. And they have no qualms about hooking their daughter and grandchildren into the public-benefits apparatus: “It’s now culturally OK for that population to be served by the welfare system,” says a case manager in a Santa Ana, Calif., home for teen mothers.
Far from exercising a brake on the erosion of traditional values, as conservative immigration advocates claim, the growing Hispanic population will provide the impetus for more government alternatives to personal responsibility. Advocates for young unwed mommies in the South Bronx are agitating for more day-care centers in high schools to accommodate the students’ children, reports El Diario/LA PRENSA. Demand for the 18 day-care slots at Bronx Regional High School, for example, far outstrips the supply, an 18-year-old Hispanic mother who attends the school told the paper. A bill has been introduced in Congress, the Latina Adolescent Suicide Prevention Act, to channel $10 million in federal funds to “culturally competent” social agencies to improve the self-esteem of Latina girls and to provide “support services” to their families and friends if they contemplate suicide.
For the New York Times, of course, the inevitable expansion of the welfare state is the glowing silver lining to this cultural catastrophe. With the usual melodrama that accompanies the pitch for more government services, the Times designates young Latinas as “endangered” in the same breath that it discloses that they are one of the fastest-growing segments of the population. “The time to help is now,” says the Times — by which it means ratcheting up the taxpayer-subsidized social-work industry.
It strains credulity to think that conservatives will fend off this push to meet social dysfunction with bigger government. Since the open-borders advocates have yet to acknowledge the facts of Hispanic family breakdown, there is no way of knowing what their solution to it is. One in four women in the U.S. will be Hispanic by the middle of the century, reports the Times — in states like California, they will be the majority. Unless Hispanic illegitimacy is stemmed, it is hard to see how the American family will be in a stronger state in future decades than it is today.
Conservatives, including open-borders conservatives, market themselves as the party of realism and common sense. A recent manifesto for immigration amnesty and liberalized entry rules in the Wall Street Journal bragged: “Conservatives have always prided themselves on acknowledging, in the words of John Adams, that ‘Facts are stubborn things.’” More stubborn still, however, is the unwillingness of open borders proponents to acknowledge social facts that undercut their cause.
You are right.
With a little more education, and a willingness to assimilate and become Americans, many of those coming across the border probably would be good additions to our country. But its impossible to sort the wheat from the chaff, so "Build a Wall, already!"
Surely the opposite is true. :)
http://www.neoperspectives.com/Amnesty_From_Government.htm
This "Hispanic" vs. "White" terminology has me buffaloed. Isn't a white citizen of Mexico, white? Isn't an Afro-Cuban, black? Isn't a Guatemalan Native American, an Indian? Is the King of Spain an "Hispanic?"
Not all "Hispanics" belong to a distinctly identifiable group, being of multi-racial stock. The Federal government is no help ... not offering Affirmative Action, for example, to a Chilean or Argentine ... who I guess would not be brown enough?
IMHO, this is a unhealthy fascination with skin shade.
Part of the problem is that there's less incentive (and it's probably more difficult) to assimilate as the number grows. If you are in a room with 30 people you don't know, by youserlf, you will probably eventually make an effort to meet the other people in the room. If you are in a room with 30 people you don't know and 7 friends, you will probably hang with the folks you know and not make the effort to meet those you don't. It's human nature, stick with what is comfortable and familiar.
Assimilation is the key, and the key to assimilation is biting off smaller chunks. Otherwise, people tend to bring the cultural habits that they left behind right along with them. Some of this is good stuff (foods!) and some of it is not very comopatible with conservative values (corrupt government as the norm, socialism as a way of life). I am frankly disturbed that this seems so difficult for many to grasp.
susie
Well, it could possibly have been an atypical Cuban who placed the books, though I doubt it, but you can bet that it's the Cubans in Dade County who were motivated the most about getting them removed. The article posted here on FR shows that it was a Latin family who complained about these books, and had the books removed, but the ACLU, with the help of a Jewish judge, who had them replaced.
Miami's Latins, for the most part, are markedly more conservative than our "native" population, most of whom seem to have "immigrated" from NYC. I understand that this situation is not repeated elsewhere in the US, where most of the Latins may be Mexican laborers, whom the Democrats identify as their natural prey.
I was on a road trip with my wife when the terrible events of 9/11 happened, heading down to Miami from VA; I'll never forget arriving in Miami after dark, driving down US 1. The Cubans were in the streets, waving American flags. What a beautiful sight.
I'm speaking from actual exit poll results. The information you're quoting there is mostly out of date or irrelevant. Bush won 44 percent of the Hispanic vote despite winning something pitiful like 30 percent in Calif. That's why I say I haven't done the math, but he probably got 50 percent if you exclude California.
We are creating a generation of violent criminals that are going to do us more harm than drugs ever could.
That's very debatable. I'd rather have them out at 50 than robbing me now at 25. If it wasn't drugs, they'd be finding some other way to hurt society.
Hi there, I hope we can reach out the Hispanic community. I hate to say it but there is racism among some of the folks in the anti-immigrant crowd. I now proudly have two Mexican brothers-in-law and a new Mexican newphew-in-law. Intermarriage will increase as time goes on. We need to ratchet down the rhetoric and talk to people as individuals, and as human beings.
That's not true at all. The country kids are brewing the stuff now, it's not like there's been an incursion by city folk.
I thought my point was clear. The fact is the quality of life for the citizens of my home town has been diminished by the invasion of illegal Latinos. From reading news reports it appears that is the case throughout the States. In my town, when Latinos open a business in a predominantly illegal immigrant area, they first put bars on the doors & windows. They don't do it in other areas. This tells me they have no trust in those you hold so dear. Were the Latino culture as fabulous as the open borders proponents profess, Americans would be flooding down to Mexico. The fact is, people from all Latino countries are risking their lives to come here because their system DOES NOT WORK.
If by your "family" you're speaking of illegal invaders from Latin America, this country is in bigger trouble than I thought. For you to say they would be an improvement over me, when you know nothing about me, lets me know that, to you, your race is more important than the wellbeing of this country. It also tells me that I have much work to do to stop the invasion of more of your "family".
No, the article was about the lack of conservatism amongst Latinos. Maybe this section will jog your memory.
The myth of the redemptive Hispanic is finally cracking. For years, conservative open-borders advocates have touted Hispanic “family values” as a prime reason to increase immigration. Hispanic immigrants, these conservatives say, will save America from itself. At a time when Anglo and black families are disintegrating, when society is becoming increasingly atomized and alienated, Hispanics will bring the traditional values that the country so desperately needs. In a classic iteration of the theme, Larry Kudlow wrote on NRO last May that Hispanic immigrants would “become a much-needed churchgoing blue-collar middle class . . . that is crucial to a healthy America.”
The truth is now supplanting the fiction. Last Friday, the New York Times ran an editorial, “Young Latinas and a Cry for Help,” that laid out the real state of the Hispanic family. A quarter of all Latinas are mothers by the age of 20, few of them married, reported the Times. This out-of-wedlock teen-birth rate is three times that of white teens, and significantly more than that of blacks as well. The Hispanic dropout rate is also the highest in the country — the Manhattan Institute’s Jay Greene puts it at 47 percent.
No, not all Latins are illegal. Your argument is becoming more childish. Next you'll be telling me your dad can beat up mine.
This was my first comment, which, by the way, was not to you.
To: Tancred
Anyone, who's not a complete idiot, can tell by looking at Latino countries what values Latinos will bring here.
Now, if you can name a Latino country in better shape than the United States I'll concede my error. Otherwise, I have ANTI-ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT letters to write to my congressman.
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