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 know alot of Hispanics, since I've lived most of my life in the southwest, and now live in S. FL. I think their politics seem to cut across socioeconomic rather than racial lines. Most of the Hispanics I have known who were upper middle class and upward were more conservative. The poorer ones were more democrat supporting. Of course, since illegal aliens are by and large poor, I don't see how we can win them over, unless of course the money you suggest we spend is in social welfare....
And no, I'm not racist. I'm realistic.
susie
If you really believe Catholics don't have abortions, I have a bridge you might like to buy... ;)
susie
As was said in another post, Hispanics are not one monolithic group. I am fairly certain that the S. FL Hispanic group voting more conservatively is the Cuban contingent.
susie
It's better if it's muddled, since then you can call people xenophobic racists!
susie
bump
But they are doing jobs Americans won't do, right?
For the most part, although even the Cubans are not a monolithic bloc -- the younger Cubans are on the whole not as conservative as their elders. Similarly, the more recently arrived Cubans (who arguably fled Cuba just as much if not more so for economic reasons as they did for political reasons) tend to be less conservative as well.
Also, you have a significant conservative Nicaraguan contingent who fled when the Sandinistas took over in 1980.
Beyond that, there are the South Americans -- primarily Colombians and Venezuelans -- who are hard to read on the political spectrum. I have a Venezuelan friend who has had her permanent residency for some time and is about to embark on the citizenship process. She comes from a well-to-do family in Caracas and talks about Chavez as if he were the devil incarnate. You'd think she was conservative, but she spews a lot bile about Bush and conservative Republicans in Congress as well.
In any event, and it is a class thing, I suppose, the Hispanics here in South Florida cannot be lumped in with the Mexicans most here seem to be complaining about. Other than perhaps their speaking Spanish (though it should be noted their offspring as a rule all prefer to speak English).
OK, drugs, alcohol, and gambling. I don't blame Mexicans. I do blame illegals for undermining the Constitution, with the help of the President and Congress.
I don't know any Hispanics here who do not speak English, but then again, all came from well to do families in places like Guatamala and Venezuela. And they are at least as conservative as I am.
susie
That's true -- the Cubans always go 70+ percent GOP. But Bush also won among non-Cuban Hispanics in FL in 2004.
The real bottom of the barrel in Mexico are the unemployed drunks who don't come here.
"Latin Conservative tidal wave" was one of the dumbest thoughts of all time. We are importing Mexistinians.
Eeew. Condescending snot !! You can always tell when a Republican is scared of mowing his own lawn.
If there's anything that the illegal alien issue has taught us, it's how bloody patronizing these elistist country-clubbers feel about average, Joe Sixpack conservatives.
How many pol parties does the average Latin country have?
What if they start their own party? Wouldn't that be a kick in the head...!
It might open the door for conservatives to have their own party, the Republicans, and let the likes of Kudlow form the Golfing Party.
The assumption is that the Conservative, well grounded ones will be the ones coming over as illegals
Indeed. Luckily for them they only need to dirty themselves among the conservative hoipoloi during election time.
On the bright side I don't think we'll be hearing much about 'jobs Americans refuse to do' from the primaries thru Oct 2008.
Ah, the ol' "eeeeeeeeeevil racist Republicans killed their hispanic support by passing Prop 187" excuse. Perhaps you can explain why all the "socially conservative" hispanics in Illinois vote ULTRA liberal when no such statewide referdum was passed. In fact, the reason why Illinois is totally Dem now is the last RINO governor openly pandered to illegal aliens and was caught taking bribes and handing out drivers licenses to non-english speaking unqualified drives in exchange.
Illinois has one congressional district specifically germandered to elect "Hispanics". It's CD#4, drawn in 1990. CD#4 has the LOWEST percentage of Republican primary votes in the state, based on the weighted vote of Illinois State Central Republican Committee members (CD#4's delegate gets 0.72% of the GOP primary vote among the state's 19 congressional districts)
A few election cycles ago, the residents of that district had to choose between far-left, abortion-loving, terrorist sympatherizer Luis Guiterrez and "moderate" Marty Castro in the Dem primary. Both candidates were hispanic Dems. Guess who overwhemingly won the primary and the "hispanic" vote? That's right, the abortion-luvin' commie. He got about 70% of the "socially conservative" hispanic vote.
Oh, and Republican candidate in the general election (who was ALSO hispanic, BTW), that was Tony Lopez-Cineros, who was a geninue conservative. I think he got about 20% of the "hispanic" vote.
The Illinois General Assembly recently lost it's lone "minority" on the GOP side, hispanic Frank Agular (R-Cicero). He was mysteriously defeated by a paper candidate (Michelle Chavez) on the Dem side who didn't even campaign. Did Frank "alienate" his consitents by pushing for a crackdown on immigration? Nope, quite the opposite. Agular was very RINOish on immigration and openly pandered to illegals. Guess they figured between Dem-lite and Dem they'd take the geninue article.
Would you like to guess what share of the "hispanic" vote Kerry got in Illinois? How about Govenror Blagojevich? Barack Obama? Dick Durbin? I can gurantee you the Republican share of the "hispanic" vote in those races was NOWHERE near 50%. In fact, I'd be shocked if any Republican running for statewide office in Illinois managed to get over 35% of the "Hispanic" vote lately, no matter how much they try to out-pander the Dems.
And no, it's not just the Chicago vote. The suburban Dems loves commie Democrats just as much.
LMAO! Mexico's previously "conservative" President was a Bill Clinton clone who was well to the LEFT of Bush. If Vicente Fox is Mexico's idea of "conservative", there are no conservatives in that country. The new guy would have to be about 10 times as conservative as his predecessor Vicente Fox just to qualify for "moderate Republican" here.
What's Calderon's position on the WOT? Does he support building up the laughable Mexican millitary? Will he send troops to Iraq? How does he feel about gun rights and self-defense and the lack thereof in Mexico? Does he care more about the "rights" of convicted killers than the unborn, like his predecessor did? Does he even support life in prison for dangerous murderers? (the previous "conservative" President was so liberal on crime he didn't even support that) How's he feel about the welfare state? Assuming he's well to the right of Bush, he'll be perfectly happy if he cut off all government aid to his citizens sneaking into our country, right? How's Calderson feel about the UN? Will he send someone to the UN who tells Kofi to STFU? How's he feel about Cuba, does he support severing ties with the commie government in Cuba and enacting an embargo? How does he feel about traditional marriage laws? Did the new "Catholic" president object to his predecessor marrying his hot young secretary when his first marriage was still official?
Calderson would have to adapt solid stances on all the above issues just to EQUAL Bush's "conservativism". Since I doubt he's adopted a conservative position on any of the above, perhaps you can explain what makes him "well to the right" of Bush.
You oversimplify everything. Republicans haven't done anything to win Hispanics -- or anyone else for that matter -- in Illinois, so it's little surprise. Bush was blown out there, he had no campaign, and he got 23 percent support among Hispanics. But you're also dealing with urban-dwellers, who are more liberal.
And you should read more carefully. I didn't say that all Hispanics are "devout Catholics," or that supporting amnesty would help win the Hispanic vote -- I don't believe that at all.
But just showing Hispanics some respect and asking for their votes has already worked for Republicans in Texas, Florida, New Mexico, and Arizona. Republicans aren't winning huge Hispanic majorities (except in FL), but in key states they are taking them away from the Dems as a large bloc vote, which has to happen if Republicans ever want to win another election in many of those places.
Plenty of them around here!
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