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To: Celtjew Libertarian
There is a crucial difference between the Hispanic immigration of our time and other immigration waves, even present day immigrants from Asia. Hispanics, especially Mexican Americans, are a classic instance of an adjacent nationality with a grudge against the neighboring nation due to past military defeats. For over 60 years, the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party), organized as the result of a leftist, anticlerical revolution in Mexico, held a one party monopoly in that country. Anti-Americanism was a staple in the PRI's rhetoric. One of the PRI's first presidents nationalized foreign (mostly American) held oil and natural gas interests in the 1930s. American oil producers, including the father of William F. Buckley, and conservative elements in the Catholic Church regarded the Mexican Revolution as communistic, due to the nationalization and anticlerical activities of the PRI governments. (Not until recently could Mexican Catholic clergy legally wear identifying clothing, such as the Roman collar, in public.) In fact, oil men and conservative Catholics unsuccessfully lobbied the Hoover and Roosevelt Administrations for American military intervention in Mexico.

Irredentism can be a powerful force in politics. Hitler used it as an excuse to annex Austria, the Sudetenland, Alsace-Lorraine, and parts of Poland. Stalin, though theoretically an internationalist, strove to restore the boundaries of the Tsarist Empire in Eastern Europe. While there is a lot of anti-Americanism in Canada, the Canadians and British successfully repulsed American invasion attempts during the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. OTOH, Mexico was humiliated by the loss of Texas, and later of the rest of the Southwest, in the 1830s and 1840s. American response to Mexican incursions was swift and forceful in the 1910s, when the U.S. Navy captured Vera Cruz and the U.S. Army invaded northern Mexico to stop Pancho Villa's cross-border raids.

It is self-evident that the American government and people do not have the will to resist that their predecessors did. Starting in 1965, immigration laws were liberalized, and the 1986 amnesty program essentially forgave a past generation of illegal immigrants. Mexicans and others have recognized the softness on the part of the United States. Cities like Los Angeles and areas like the Rio Grande Valley that were once more mixed ethnically have become more and more Hispanic. When a population becomes sufficiently large that they have their own cultural and media infrastructure and little contact with outsiders, there develops little desire for assimilation. There is precedent for long standing non-English speaking communities in America. Some farming communities in Pennsylvania and the Midwest settled by Germans remained German speaking until well into the last century. Additionally, Cajun communities remained French speaking until after World War II.

Much has been made about how Italians, Poles, Jews, Greeks, etc., who arrived in the 1880-1920 immigration wave became Americanized, as of course they did. However, an important reason for their assimilation was the restrictions placed on immigration following World War I. With the flow of immigration ended, there were no new immigrants who would keep their predecessors current on the culture and politics of the old country. Additionally, the immigrants in question had arrived legally and by having this status, they did not enter the country already at odds with the authorities.

The immigration from Latin America, especially Mexico, is more like what happened in Kosovo where Albanian immigrants became a majority in the last century. By the 1990s, rather than submit to the Serbian authorities, they rebelled and established their own government, expelling the remaining Serbs. Continued unchecked immigration will cause a similar situation to develop in the Southwest.

Instead of engaging in a multitude of activities, the vast majority of which were never intended by the Founding Fathers, the Federal government must engage in its Constitutional duty in protecting our borders by whatever means necessary.

179 posted on 03/31/2006 10:30:20 AM PST by Wallace T.
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To: Wallace T.
There are some points there... thing that bothers me, is that their just variants on what was said about other immigrant groups. The Irish would make Catholicism respectable in America it was said -- and they did, but it didn't turn out to be that bad. They'd be controlled by the Pope and, as a group, they haven't. (And imagine what a Know-Nothing Party activist of the 1850s would say about a modern St. Patrick's Day parade with the Irish flag waving.)

The Jews and other central and eastern European immigrants would bring Socialism, it was said -- and perhaps, given the socialism-lite welfare state, they did -- but they were similarly assimilated.

Point is, the fears at the time of the immigration waves did not pan out or turned out not to be bad.

Irredentism could be a concern, but there is one major difference here, compared to the European examples you site. The U.S. offers the Mexicans a significantly better life than they would have in Mexico. For them to remake the U.S. in Mexico's image does not strike me as something they are likely to want to do.

Perhaps I put too much faith in the power and appeal of American Materialism, but it has worked to assimilate other generations of immigrants; I see no particular reason for it not to work again.

196 posted on 03/31/2006 12:52:22 PM PST by Celtjew Libertarian
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