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.
I believe you are correct in this. Also, it's not a new thing. I know hardly anyone, young or old, who really understands or believes in our classical liberal original ideals. I mentioned them once to my 74 year old fishing buddy who is a great guy, mentioned individual liberty and limited government; he looked at me and laughed, as if I had spoken of something that was either irrelevant, or left behind long ago. Everyone is focused on the issue of the day, but without the guidance of the underlying principles needed to form a proper opinion. It's like trying to install a lock before one hangs the door (to use a Hispanic expression). This is even true of our presidents this century - Reagan is probably the only one who cared for our founding principles in the last 100 years.
RE the Hispanics, I really can't say, but most of the ones I meet here in Miami are died in the wool conservatives. 'Course, Miami is a special case, as mentioned by another poster.
Golly, has anyone told Karl Rove?
"The Myth of the Redemptive Hispanic?" I wish I had thought of that.
We must be psychic or something on this site. Haven't we been pointing out the annoying facts highlighted in this excellent post for what ... 3, 4, 8 years now?
But maybe "redemptive" means the GOP planning to use our otherwise unwelcome illegal aliens to redeem Social Security?"
I think most of the Cubans and a goodly number of the native-born Hispanics are conservative. The question is, how will the illegals vote if they are naturalized?
Ah, for the good old days, when the true conservatives of America, all 11 of them, would meet on the poop deck of the old Cyrano for cocktails while Fernando Valenti harpsichorded his way through some Bach and Corelli.
Unfortunately, in order to win an election or two, the Republicans had to reach out to some mighty unfashionable folks, most of whom clearly used to be Democrats. That would be it for GOP "outreach," and who could blame them?
Nowadays, if one wishes to join Republicans, one must figure it out for oneself and seek them out. So far, the only outreach to Hispanics has been to let them know in unspoken ways that their illegal entry to the country is welcomed. Once they're here, of course, the only people who'll talk to them are the Democrats, who promise, and deliver, the moon.
Surprise, surprise! They vote 70% Democrat, a whole lot of the time doing without the legal nicety of citizenship.
What this very sad article points out is that arrival in the US is eroding whatever values these lower-end folks may have had and putting them right on the old Democrat plantation.
No matter what Karl Rove tells me, I don't believe they are going to save the Republican Party.
What this very sad article points out is that arrival in the US is eroding whatever values these lower-end folks may have had and putting them right on the old Democrat plantation.
No matter what Karl Rove tells me, I don't believe they are going to save the Republican Party.
Gee, I wonder why hispanics are seen as the number one type of illegal?
Gee, someone figured it out. A lot of illegas are the bottom of the barrel in Mexico. Coming to the USA doesn't make them something better.
Both parties seem to be banking on their ability to buy those votes. I have the feeling that there's only gonna be one winner, though, and it ain't going to be us.
There are alot of different immigrant groups in South FL, the entire Caribbean and much of South America is represented. Some came here to escape political oppression, some fled economic devastation, some want a chance at the American dream, some even came for handouts. But most came to work. I know that Cubans tend to vote rightwards, but I'd be fascinated to see how some of the other groups tend. Which party is favored by the many Jamaicans here, for instance? Or the many Colombians? Do immigrant groups vote along racial lines, as do Americans, or do they follow another path?
I think they're going to the Dem plantation too, but most of 'em aren't afraid of work, which is not really how the Dems normally view their subjects, so at least there is one point of divergence, for whatever that may be worth.
I do have respect for the author of this piece.
I agree that it wasn't the Prop per se, it was the insulting rhetoric that accompanied it and that the Calif. GOP continues to engage in -- mostly RINOs like Pete Wilson and Brian Bilbray. They can create majorities for now, but the day is coming when that whole state is lost for good, if it isn't already.
But I should point out that if you're so confident of Hispanic support of Prop 187, you should explain why you think these people are Marxists who come here to undermine our way of life. I think you're contradicting yourself.
I've seen countless violent posts on FR recently pertaining to Hispanic immigrants that really serve no purpose and are, in fact, just stupid.
I'm not some kind of OBL shill. I support building a wall and hitting illegal employers hard -- those two measures, taken together, would cause enough self-deportations that we could effectively deport 5 million illegal aliens by actually deporting only a few hundred thousand. And I'm against forcing a guest-worker program in with the border security measure, it's an immoral abrogation of the government's responsibility to protect us from terorism.
I also don't think that any of these policy measures will necessarily alienate Hispanic voters. I don't think that, among Hispanics who vote -- legal citizens -- immigration is necessarily such a big deal.
But what will alienate them -- and what will make it a big deal -- is the kind of garbage we see every day on FR, typified by this article here and the replies that follow. Countless lies that Hispanics are lazy, they come here to have babies and go on the dole, that they encourage their daughters to get pregnant for their 15th birthday and go on honeymoons with their boyfriends (really, where do people come up with this crap?), and we should shoot them as they come over the border, blah blah blah. And I'm not exaggerating at all, I've seen that last one expressed on FR more than once in the last two weeks.
I'm against people coming here illegally, but I look forward to the day when we have the illegal alien problem under control and we can let more legal immigrants in.
White people just aren't having babies, it's a fact. We are the wealthiest country in the world and sitting at 4.6 percent (full) unemployment. Our citizens here at home are making money hand-over-fist by investing in developing countries that experience growth of 8-10 percent annually, because we have the money and the savvy to do it. So what's there to bitch about? Life is good if you're an American right now. You OWN the world.
Not only that, but our legal population of Hispanics has become more Republican in each of the last four biennial elections, and outside of California, they vote something like 50 percent Republican. Republicans cannot win in FL, NM, or AZ without them, and they can just barely win in TX without them. It is just stupid to write them off, because you can't. You're spitting into the wind, you're fighing gravity, and that means you lose.
Unless you think Congress can abolish welfare this year and push all of the freeloaders in this country into the workforce quickly, you have to acknowledge the need for more workers. Even then, there aren't enough freeloaders to do much for long.
I'd also note that the Mexicans just elected a president who is well to the Right of Bush, yet some of us here write them all off as "Marxists." Immigration isn't an easy issue, but I sure think there's a lot of intellectual dishonesty going on around here.
Very true. However, it has been my experience that when offered alternatives to the work experience over a long time period, many will take it. Worse, IMHO, is that the moral foundation of their culture is eroded, too. E.G., bastardy is not lightly regarded in any Latin culture I know of. Yet it is accepted by more and more Hispanics here, who have a skyrocketing illegitimacy rate.
Coming in large illegal numbers to an alien culture, many Hispanics, as would anyone else, I suppose, in these circumstances, gravitate toward the less worthwhile parts of it.
I would encourage everyone to look at the state exit poll results here if you think that Hispanics are hopeless, evil socialists. Republicans have made incredible progress with them since 1996, and the best research shows that we can start winning majorities if we play the cards right -- which does NOT necessarily mean amnesty for illegals: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/
Have to agree. I guess that our experience with the welfare state the last 20 years has illustrated your points very nicely.
I don't recall saying that.
It is true, though, that the immigrants who come here tend to be less conservative, at least from an economic standpoint, than natural-born Americans.
But I think that has always been the case for immigrants with the possible exception of the Scots.
I think we need more legal immigration, and less illegal immigration.
Also, it wouldn't hurt to diversify our immigration a bit. Why should Filipinos have to wait years and years to immigrate while Latin Americans just walk right in? I think a more diverse immigration policy is wiser from an assimilation standpoint as well.
Instead, I would use a financial incentive (a "resettlement grant"), combined with the promise of vigorous enforcement against employers to entice illegals to go through the legal process. A carrot, and a stick.
Let me also add that it is insulting and bigoted to assume that all Latinos are in favor of illegal immigration.
More pseudo intellectual garbage.
I don't care, you didn't read it anyway.
Well said.
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