The point of the article is that most immigrants come from a long way from home and because of this are more likely to assimilate, more likely to adopt the US as home, more likely to shed ties to the old country than mexicans.
If you look at the pie charts, you find essentially no difference in education or employment or homeownership between native born and immigrants from everywhere but mexico.
Further, unlike other anti immigrant articles which often argues against all immigrants or all non white immigrants, this one does not do that, but says that because the homeland is so close for mexicans, it hinders their assimlation. And while arguing against mexican immigration, the article does so without prejudice, and without malice.
Well, the Puerto Ricans who came here after WWII assimilated into American ghetto culture and tend to speak black English rather than Spanish. We have a huge wave of Mexicans in the city that most New Yorkers ignore, with the exception of the dwindling contingent of lower middle class white people who live on Staten Island or SW Brooklyn. Upper/middle class South and Central Americans tend to go out to suburbia at a faster rate and assimilate quite well. It depends on the origin of the sending country and the social class of the people before they come here.
The Southwest is not different that way, at least not where I live. There are many Americans labeled as Hispanics that have assimilated, and are very good citizens. Many of them are descendents of Spanish colonists and early Indian tribes and they don't claim this land belongs to Mexico or Aztlan or any of that bogus stuff. They are proud Americans, many serve in the military and are great people. Many are also legal immigrants, that are proud Americans. Many of these people are close friends of mine, my own family could be best classified as mutts, ethnically speaking. My son-in-law and his family are assimilated "Hispanics", which by the way- I just see them as Americans.
There are also radical hispanic US citizens who act like someone owes them something for being here. Those citizens we have no control over, just as we have no control over any other citizen that doesn't seem to be proud of this country or seems to support another country over the US. I usually call them idiots no matter their ethnic background. I personally think anyone that doesn't feel proud to be a US citizen or feels more loyalty to another country should leave ASAP, but I have no way to make that happen or Hollywood would look like a ghost town.
Illegals are another issue entirely, at least to me, I firmly believe no one has the right to enter this country illegally. I have been angry for 30 years that our country chooses to look the other way. If we really needed workers, and I am not convinced on that- but if we really needed workers from another country we should have set up a legal way for that to happen years ago. Our government should have never looked the other way on illegal border crossers. period. The fact that they have has caused chaos on the border that is spreading all over America.
My main issue of concern is the border crisis. First of all we have no control over our border with Mexico (that is the only border I am familiar with enough to speak about) I think an out of control border is a security issue above all else. When people come into the US illegally we have no way of knowing anything about them. We don't know if they are terrorists, or criminals or seeking work or what their purpose is in this country. We don't have any idea who they are or where they came from. That is really scary to me- estimates are that there are between 11-25 million illegals in this country. That's a lot of people that we know nothing about. Scary. There is also a criminal network that operates on both sides of the border involved with human smuggling, drug smuggling and who knows what else they are smuggling. That's scary to me. Crimes of stolen vehicles, false documents and identity theft flourish due to the border chaos. Many other crimes flourish in the chaos.
I would like to see the border secured. period. I think the only way to do that is to build a major fence/barrier to slow the illegal border traffic to a level that LE could manage it. Then we should address the issue of illegals in this country . Crossing the border illegally is a crime and those who have committed that crime should not be rewarded.
Unfortunately, as a teacher, my experience is that the other large Hispanic groups are not following the same course. Dominicans still speak of going on vacation to "my country". Mexicans are not even bothering to make an attempt at assimilation.
I do think that the 'my country" business is the heart of the problem. When my grandparents came from Italy in 1908 they viewed Italy as the "old country" It was in the past. That's what most immigrants of that time felt. Today the proximity of Mexico, the existence of same day travel to anywhere in the world, and an international communication network that makes any home in most parts of the world only 15 digits away makes cutting the ties to the past., not only more difficult, but undesirable.
No kidding.
I'm starting to get the feeling that a lot of things written by "conservative thinkers" these days are slightly alarmist.
It's embarrassing.
Yes I agree with you. The article is alarmist. The 2nd and 3rd generation Hispanics are much more likely to speak English and intermarriage. I believe by 2050, half of the Hispanics today will be married into black and white families.