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Alexander Steffler: From Salad Bowl to Pressure Cooker?
Share / Recommend - Comment - Print - Wednesday, Jun 07 2006, 9:04PM
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Do we really know where we are in the immigration debate? We sure haven't figured out the economic dimensions yet, as John Tierney pointed out yesterday in discussing border security's relationship with opportunities for legal migration.
As it turns out, we don't know much about the cultural or ethnic facets of immigration to the United States, either. In her 2002 book World on Fire, Yale Law professor Amy Chua points out that free-market democracies often have the unintended consequence of encouraging sectarian strife when small minorities exercise economic domination over much larger majorities (i.e. the United States vis-a-vis the rest of the world). Her point exists in a larger sense: the movement of people has an under-examined cultural/ethnic component to it, too.
What Bush is doing with an insistence on a guest-worker program is implicitly relegating a very large and, as we saw during the April 10 immigration rallies, increasingly influential group of people to second-class citizenship. Germany tried it, and what that country now has is strong tensions with its Turkish immigrants, who were originally guest-workers.
Still, it's better than the House's rhetoric, whose divisive, anti-American xenophobia does no one any good.
What I'm afraid of in all of this, whether it's in the short-term from such rhetoric or the long-term when the "guest-workers" start demanding more equal rights, is that we come across as greedy and intolerant. The United States has consistently been sending the message that we are happy to have cheap labor move in with us, but we don't want anything beyond that. We can't have it both ways: if we want the economic prosperity that cheap labor brings us, we have to be able to accept the cultural implications of that as well, without telling immigrants to renounce their culture when they come to the United States.
Still, we are progressing in generally the right direction in all of this. What is left to do is hammer out the contradictions by allowing people from other countries, particularly Mexico, to come, live, and work without obstacle. We've already seen how this benefits the U.S. Anything less risks increased tensions with the rest of the Americas and cementing the inequalities that are already a problem with current "illegal" immigration.
Alexander Steffler is a student at the George Washington University. He is currently in Argentina researching Paraguayan immigration to Buenos Aires.
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Posted by Carroll, Jun 08 2006, 4:44AM - Link
One word..Ridiculous.
Second word...Naive
Posted by jonst, Jun 08 2006, 5:56AM - Link
Mr. Steffler wrote: "....if we want the economic prosperity that cheap labor brings us"....
Define "us". I don't see "economic prosperity" for the shrinking middle class.
Posted by Alexander Steffler, Jun 08 2006, 8:48AM - Link
Ouch.
Well, the economic prosperity I'm referring to here is the kind that happens because of the availability of cheap labor -- which in fact brings prosperity to the middle classes by new job creation "because the presence of uneducated immigrants actually increased the earnings of more educated workers." To put it crudely, how many native-born U.S. Americans does it take to manage low-skilled immigrants? Cheap labor allows domestic industry to grow.
I disagree that increasing opportunities for legal immigration beyond a guest-worker program is naïve or ridiculous. With less incentive to cross our border illegally -- and cross the border they will as long as there are available jobs in the U.S. that are better than those in the countries of origin -- we can shift our resources on the border to apprehending real criminals.
Furthermore, and this feels like a re-hash of what I've already written here, I think the guest-worker program favored by Bush and the Senate will cement already-existing divisions in the U.S. between the "immigrant community" and native-born U.S. Americans. At the same time Bush is promoting assimilation -- why doesn't he realize that temporary, transient guest-workers would have no reason to assimilate?
Thanks for your reaction. I'm new to the blogsphere.
Posted by Pissed Off American, Jun 08 2006, 10:16AM - Link
It cracks me up how some of you define "real criminals" as those that violate the laws that YOU want to see enforced, while those that break the laws you disagree with are treated as poor innocent victims. Guess what buddy, the laws were not intended to be "selectively" enforced. Break the law, you're a criminal. Pretty simple shit, really. Besides, if we REALLY wanted to go after the "real criminals", three quarters of Washington DC would be in irons.
Posted by b, Jun 08 2006, 10:38AM - Link
Germany tried it, and what that country now has is strong tensions with its Turkish immigrants, who were originally guest-workers.
Writing from Hamburg, Germany from a friendly part of the city where there are some 20% Turkish/Kurdish, I wonder if there are any facts you can pull up for that statement. From my experience it is simply wrong.
For the rest of your piece quite some bullshit.
Immigrants make the middle class rich? Why not for a moment care for your lower class compariots. Immigration puts downward pressure on wages. Real wages in the U.S. and especially for the lower class have been stagnant to sinking for years.
Really benefitting from the immigration are the rich.
Posted by Alexander Steffler, Jun 08 2006, 11:33AM - Link
I didn't say it was prolific -- just an acknowledgement that Germany's experience with their guest worker program should teach us something. As recently as a few days ago the NYT published an article (here - http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/04/sports/soccer/04racism.html) about racism in Germany ahead of the World Cup, mentioning a recent attack on a German-Turkish politician. My point wasn't to imply that Germany is seething with violent racism, but rather to make the connection that creating a new category of citizen partly has resulted in tensions with that group of people.
I was responding to the original comment questioning my statement that immigration is good for the U.S. economy and the middle class in particular. However, the affect on the lower classes is a big concern. (Have a look at this study if you're interested. http://www.nber.org/papers/w11281) Among many others, one of the findings of that research is that immigration pulls down wages for high school dropouts. However, it doesn't take into account benefits, such as cheaper goods. Nor does it point out the increasing number of people who do complete high school and college, whose wages are in fact pushed up, and the business that is allowed to exist because of the availaibility of cheap labor.
I'd like to think your comment is mostly saying "this debate is complicated," and I agree. What I'm saying is that we need to recognize that cheap labor provides benefits on the whole to the U.S. economy, and we need a better way to reconcile that reality with the simultaneous need to figure out where immigrants fit in to our society.
Thus: if we want what immigrants provide the economy, we shouldn't marginalize them through a guest-worker program.
Posted by Marky, Jun 08 2006, 4:25PM - Link
The WashingtonNote has become
The KoffeeKlatch for les Bourgeoisies Gentilhommes.
I can't take this self-satisfied twaddle anymore.
The only posts reading anymore are the comments of Valdron.
I'm off to join Blackton's Marauders.
Hasta la vista.
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