Well, we all know that our hostess's city was attached by gay Mexicans in 2001.

Posted May 19, 2006 2:55 PM by Jon Meltzer

Attached to what? A fabulous plate of nachos, I hope.

Posted May 19, 2006 3:11 PM by Chris Quinones

I'm going to go out sometime with a camera and do 'introduction to LA' with some of the more, um, diverse signage. (I know a strip mall where there's a pizzeria, a Korean restaurant, and a taqueria. It isn't the only one that runs to international eating.)

Posted May 19, 2006 3:26 PM by P J Evans

Cheezit -- if we didn't have immigrants come by regularly to the States, we'd be eating snackfoods and industrial waste.

Oh, we do, already. But still, different pairs of eyes (with different recipes and seeds from home) stop this country from wilting as a monoculture.

Posted May 19, 2006 3:38 PM by cgeye

It has been revealed: this campaign is funded by the manufacturers of American cheese and frozen fishsticks.

Posted May 19, 2006 3:41 PM by Jon Meltzer

Pshaw. You don't have *real* international eating until the Vietnamese are running the pizzeria and the Latinos are serving sushi.

Posted May 19, 2006 3:43 PM by colin roald

They learn to be Americans.

Is there any evidence that this doesn't happen in the U.S.? I know I've heard reports from Denmark saying that Muslim immigrants there have not integrated with the rest of the culture and reject Danish values of tolerance and multiculturalism. Also, everything I've heard about immigrant riots in France suggested they came about because the immigrants are excluded in pretty much every way that matters.

Are there immigrants in the U.S.A. who, by their own choice or because of the people around them, are not becoming Americans?

Posted May 19, 2006 3:45 PM by Harry Connolly

It would be surprising if there were not. I would look first at Russians and Hassidim. But their children may be another story. Those Amish still speaking German ("Pennsylvania dutch") might be regarded as very long-term non-assimilated immigrants.

What's worrying people in Europe is tha tthe children of immigrants seem in some respects less assimilated than their parents. But it's a complex story. I do know there were Swedish-language newspapers in parts of the midwest up until about 1950.

Maybe the word you're looking for is not "assimilation" but "conversion" -- if America is regarded as a religion, which can be differently inculturated into differeing ethnicities, then there is a melting-pot model which is different from, and likely to be more successful than, the obvious European one.

Posted May 19, 2006 3:52 PM by Andrew Brown

Me, Harry? I came here by choice. And I became a citizen because Bill became Prez, thus showing that there was indeed some sanity in the country. Of course, these days, some people become citizens because there is no sanity in the country and they want it back in.

Posted May 19, 2006 3:55 PM by Serge

Well, that was certainly an insightful look into the problem of illegal immigration. NYC is not LA, as you pointed out. But that also refutes your own argument. NYC has a completely different makeup of immigrants. Myb y shld stck t dtng fntsy.

Maybe a fence is a stupid idea, maybe we should worry about WHY immigrants from Mexico aren't doing so well in this country, especially after the first generation. (It's probably understandable that they don't want to assimilate.) But look at some demographic data nd vn ltrry typ cn fgr t tht we've got a problem brewing in a few decades if nothing changes. Ignoring what is a mounting social problem nd smply pttng yrslf n th bck fr bng sch n nlghtnd "prgrssv" rlly isn't the answer, either.

t's nfrtnt tht th nly dbt rght nw sms t b btwn th sl plr ppsts f th fr rght nd th fr lft. Ppl thr wnt t mltrz th brdr r chnt kmby rnd cmpfr.

Posted May 19, 2006 3:57 PM by Jonathan Birge

I get the feeling it's harder to not become mixed with the local culture here than in much of Europe. I'm not really sure how to articulate why, though.

Portland has a lot of Asian grocery stores with a Mexican food aisle, and probably some of the reverse, too. I like this.

Posted May 19, 2006 4:01 PM by Audrey

There's a Chinese-Peruvian restaurant in Chatsworth (and there was one in Eagle Rock some years back). I think it's related to 'comidas chinas y criollas'. Does that count?

Posted May 19, 2006 4:02 PM by P J Evans

colin roald: We have Chinese running a Mexican take-out place. And this is a suburb, not a real city.

Posted May 19, 2006 4:03 PM by Mary Aileen Buss

Teresa,

This sentiment doesn't generally come from cities, though, does it? Isn't it a suburban/rural sentiment, generally? If that's the case, then telling someone from Sugarland, Texas or Tarrytown that NYC is more urbane than Houston doesn't really change their opinion.

Posted May 19, 2006 4:08 PM by Michael

Jonathan Birge: I think maybe you should have written "Myb y shld stck t dtng fnts."

Posted May 19, 2006 4:08 PM by Xopher

Wow, get a load of Jonathan Birge there! Srsly dmb. Have you divined without looking that that's his first post to Making Light?

Xopher: My thought exactly.

Posted May 19, 2006 4:24 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

As for Birge's not wanting to assimilate: one of my co-workers, an immigrant, got mad at her school district administrators because they insisted on putting her children in bilingual education. She wants them to be fluent in English; they get enough Spanish at home. As far as I can tell, the immigrants want their children to assimilate, at least enough to not stand out as 'foreign'. [In the 1920s and 1930s, 'early California' was a romantic sort of ideal and we got the Ramona pageant, Olvera street (it was rebuilt, although the buildings are genuinely 19th century), and the tile-roof-remodels and street renamings in Santa Barbara (Quinto was originally 5th). The people who did that are the parents and grandparents of the English-only, no-immigration activists now.]

Posted May 19, 2006 4:25 PM by P J evans

You go, girl. Speaking as a lifelong city dweller (New York, Cleveland, Chicago, San Francisco) -- I am so down with that.

I live in the San Francisco East Bay now. Some people might call the town I live in a suburb. It is totally mixed, ethnically, culturally, religiously -- and yeah, we have great restaurants, too. I lived in Berkeley for about 13 years; we used to say that local cuisine of Berkeley was Thai, because it had so many Thai restaurants and markets.

I can't recall where the info was posted, but I have seen at least one poll which suggests that places with large, quite visible, politically active immigrant groups have less anger about illegal immigration than places in which the immigrant population is smaller and more furtive.

Posted May 19, 2006 4:28 PM by Lizzy L

You know, you're wonderful.

Out here on LI, one of the sushi chefs where I go for lunch is, I'm fairly sure, Central American (the other is the owner).

Posted May 19, 2006 4:28 PM by Dave Weingart

Lurker cheering from Midtown East, on a block that pretty well reflects exactly what you've described. If any of these rural wimps wants to come take the tour I'll be more than happy to point them to the taqueria across the street.

Posted May 19, 2006 4:32 PM by Sternel

I miss kosher Chinese places. And Chinese-Cuban places. Although here in Baltimore, we do have a kosher Italian place that I'm dying to try.

Jon Meltzer: so you're saying the pro-Semi-Homemade with Sandra Lee faction is sponsoring the anti-immigrant campaign? IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW.

(Seriously, has anyone ever seen this show? It's train-wreck bad. Jaw-droppingly-awful bad. And because Mystery Science Theater 3000 is no more, I can't stop watching every weekend. Chicken-fried steak made with ranch dressing seasoning packets! The craptascular "tablescapes"! The beer mixed with Kahlua! The raw meat hands all over the entire kitchen! Joy!)

Posted May 19, 2006 4:32 PM by Chryss

Thanks, Dave.

Okay, you skiffy crew. Anybody want to explain the trouble with straight-line extrapolations to Mr. Birge?

Posted May 19, 2006 4:34 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Disemvoweled on the first post. Man.

Posted May 19, 2006 4:36 PM by Jon Meltzer

Maybe you should stick to editing fantasy.
...even a literary type...
patting yourself on the back for being such an enlightened "progressive"
chant kumbaya around a campfire.

Mr. Birge: forgive me for not responding to the substance of your post -- I couldn't find it. Comments such as the above are not generally considered polite discourse on this site, and attacking the hostess is going to get you bounced out of the party so fast it'll make your head spin. You can go out, knock, and come in again civilly, and then we will be happy to engage you. Otherwise, may I suggest you find another place to be rude.

Posted May 19, 2006 4:36 PM by Lizzy L

No, Teresa, but you could possibly introduce him to East LA's Edward James Olmos? A word of warning though... The latter seems quite handy with boxing gloves.

Posted May 19, 2006 4:37 PM by Serge

During the 1930's, racist fckhds were talling us we had a looming problem with immigration, and it would come due, oh, about 40 years ago. Then during the 50's, and the 60's, and so on. They kept pretending to be concerned citizens, but anyone paying attention knew they were racists. The same thing is ahppening today.

And we still have no catastrophe. And no catastrophe from immigration is really looming. It's all a ploy to distract Bush's swaying base back to approving of him and his fellow conservatives.

That's *all* it is. We need remember that. Fogetitng it, and engaging the debate as if this were a real catastrophe lets Bush (and Rove, who's behind all of this) dictate our fight. They *know* a large number of the racist nutbars who voted for them are dropping out because of Iraq, the economy, Katrina, etc... and they *have* to get these people back.

So, immigration. As long as they can look a little bit more appealing to conservatives who're afraid of a Mexican/Latino/brown skinned Spanish speaking America, they win.

This is a ploy to boost poll numbers. What they're trying to do is to get a few high profile Democrats to look bad enough on the issue that Bush's poll numbers will go up.

Posted May 19, 2006 4:40 PM by Josh Jasper

If immigrants are so overwhelmingly scary and unassimilable, how come they look exactly like a large number of the residents of my city, to the point that I doubt our volunteer border "defenders" could tell the difference.

Unfortunately, the so-called minutemen are many of them locals, too. And they are scary, and just may be unassimilable.

Posted May 19, 2006 4:54 PM by Janni

I live in Kodiak, Alaska, which has about 6,000 people inside city limits, 11,000 people on the road system, and 14,000 people on the entire archipelago, which is the size of Connecticut. But local programming and public service announcements are aired/printed in English, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin, Russian, Tagalog, Alutiiq, Cambodian, Korean, Thai, and Laotian. We also have a lot of Samoans and Guamanians, but they all speak English already.

The City of Kodiak is 30 percent Filipino. There are so many Filipinos that the immigrants from one political division (province? state?) even have their own benevolent association. The Catholic church has regular services in Spanish. A Korean family runs the Japanese restaurant upstairs and the Chinese/American eatery downstairs; at lunchtime on weekdays, they'll combine the two and you can have a plate of cucumber rolls with won ton soup on the side and an ice cream shake for dessert. (Don't knock it till you've tried it!) (The owner, BTW, says that the lightest, most delicious chicken broth for Beijing-style cooking is Swanson's.)

We're stuck with each other out here in the Gulf of Alaska. "Those people" are on the school board . . . on the city council . . . running the post office, for heaven's sakes! You can't go anywhere without overhearing conversations you can't understand!

And yet, somehow, life goes on.

BTW, we also have the best potlucks in the United States.

Posted May 19, 2006 4:57 PM by Jenny Islander

What I wanna know is - did the ancestors of the "border defenders" enter this country with proper papers?

I'd bet my French Canadian ancestors who wandered over the border into Vermont in the 1880s didn't.

I'd bet my English sea-faring/merchant-ancestors who helped to settle Massachusetts in 1642 didn't.

OTOH, even though most of my ancestors have been in this country longer than most of their ancestors, I like a melting pot. Anyone who wants to work is welcome here so far as I'm concerned.

I remember starting to write a story called "The Wall" in the late 1980s about an America that built a wall on the Mexican border. I stopped writing it because I thought it was too illogical. *feh*

Posted May 19, 2006 5:01 PM by Laurie Mann

Well, people complained about the Batman "No Man's Land" storyline. Not because it involved someone dressing up as a giant bat - that was believable. But the US government abandoning a major city and having police block refugees from leaving? No way.

Posted May 19, 2006 5:08 PM by Jon Meltzer

As far as I know your city can't kick my city's ass. I would not live in New York on a bet.

Even though I am a city loving gay guy I find New York to be one of those weird loves like Kill Bill. I don't hate that it exists but I do not understand why sane human beings enjoy it.

Also in lots of measures Denver metro beat the pants off New York metro. More parks per person, more library books per person, more readers, more college educated people, less crime, less grime, and more friendly people. Not that I want anyone else to move here or insist that everyone's tastes should match mine. I just do not think it is so apparent from your example that lots of immigration is a good thing. Look at LA, it has lots of imigration as well, would you argue that it is a model for what America should be like? And even if lots of immigration is a good thing it needs to be legal immigration rather than the gray market in day labor that now exists.

Posted May 19, 2006 5:16 PM by Mishalak

Teresa: Okay, you skiffy crew. Anybody want to explain the trouble with straight-line extrapolations to Mr. Birge?

We don't have to. PNH already Sidelighted the explanation.

Or do you think the irony will be too hard for him to understand?

Posted May 19, 2006 5:20 PM by Xopher

him == Mr. Birge, not PNH.

Posted May 19, 2006 5:22 PM by Xopher

I don't think anyone has asked this question yet, but has anyone thought of putting pressure on / giving aid to other countries, e.g., Mexico, to make their citizens' lives sufficiently tolerable that the citizens don't feel that migration is their best and only strategy? Admittedly, this country's treatment of its own poor is getting worse and worse, but if America is going to spend billions of dollars duplicating the Great Wall of China, it might behoove its legislators to see if there isn't a better use for the money.

Posted May 19, 2006 5:26 PM by Jonathan K. Cohen

I want to play devil's advocate for a moment. It seems to me that, without being a racist idiot, one can make an argument that uncontrolled immigration creates some problems which need to be dealt with. A couple of examples: 1) A friend of mine lives next to a guy who pours concrete for a living. That guy was laid off some years ago by an employer who then went out and hired illegal day laborers at $6 an hour. The employer's not a bad man. But he can do much more business with four day laborer employees than he can with my friend's neighbor, whom he had to pay $22 an hour plus benefits. He doesn't have to pay their benefits and he doesn't have to deal with their union. 2) The ER of my local hospital -- the one I take my mother to when she she has a medical crisis -- is often jammed with immigrants, some of whom are surely illegal. Many of them have no insurance, but of course they cannot be turned away, so the hospital eats the cost and this factors into the degradation of the health care system. 3) In my local school, the first grade teachers often have over 30 kids in the class room, 15 of whom don't speak English. Of those 15, 6 speak Spanish, 3 Vietnamese, 1 Hmong, 1 Nigerian, 1 Farsi, 1 a Chinese dialect, 1 another Chinese dialect, and 1 is deaf and signs.

So how do we deal with this? Not by trying to deport 12 million people, nor by passing resolutions to make English the "official" language of the country. Any thoughts? Should immigration be controlled? Or do we simply accept everyone and deal one at a time with the issues that arise from their coming? Who pays for this?

Posted May 19, 2006 5:30 PM by Lizzy L

Is it just me, or does the 'down with immigrants' rally seem especially stupid when delivered by a non-first Nations person?

In my city, the bank machines offer a choice of four/five languages - and those languages change by neighborhood.

Posted May 19, 2006 5:32 PM by Chris S.

Jonathan Cohen: I think the same people who want the wall/fence/minefield are the same ones who want the UN shut down (or at least not in the US, and the US not in the UN) and want us to not spend money on aid to, you know, ungrateful furriners. or, to be really nasty about it, the isolationist racists.

Posted May 19, 2006 5:32 PM by P J Evans

When come across "I'm Going to NY, What Should I Do?" threads, I often suggest taking the 7 train to the end of the line (Flushing) and walking around a bit.

That is as much New York as Times Square.

* * *

I found this thread inspirational. Guy from Georgia and his SO plan a trip to NYC. Sounds like they started off making some terrible mistakes, flying into LGA and renting a car to take to a cheap motel near the Newak Airport. Argh!

After a lot of suggestions -- including my 7 line one -- he was on his way. Took his sweet time getting back with a report. I imagined the poor guy lost in Newark, never finding Manhattan.

He had a blast as it turned out. And took some amazing photos.

Posted May 19, 2006 5:36 PM by Stefan Jones

Here's my question: have there been any recent big changes in the quantity of immigrants or the permeability of the border? Because if there haven't, if this is the same set of admittedly difficult problems we had last year, why is this suddenly blowing up?

Posted May 19, 2006 5:38 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Chryss, that chick is super scary. If I surf through and she's on, I get outta there faster than I do Rachel Ray. (We call it "Semi ho-made" in our house...)

Posted May 19, 2006 5:38 PM by Paula Helm Murray

Mishalak: According to this, of US cities with over half a million people New York is the fourth safest, while Denver isn't even in the top 10. Nothing against Denver. I'm just sayin' is all.

Posted May 19, 2006 5:39 PM by Jon Sobel

Teresa: I love you.

Lizzy, you said: In my local school, the first grade teachers often have over 30 kids in the class room, 15 of whom don't speak English. Of those 15, 6 speak Spanish, 3 Vietnamese, 1 Hmong, 1 Nigerian, 1 Farsi, 1 a Chinese dialect, 1 another Chinese dialect, and 1 is deaf and signs.

I don't doubt the makeup (my kids go to San Francisco Public Schools which have high percentages of immigrant enrollment--YG's school is 53% Latino, 42% Chinese, and of the remaining 5% there are Indian, Vietnamese, African American, Samoan, Filipina, and--at a whopping .17% of the population, white. Easily 2/3 of the student body are English language learners).but--I thought state law required a 20-student maximum from K-3rd grade? Which isn't to say that the things required of a grade school teacher in this state make it remarkable that any teaching goes on at all.

Posted May 19, 2006 5:44 PM by Madeleine Robins

if this is the same set of admittedly difficult problems we had last year, why is this suddenly blowing up?

It is the same set of problems.

And the answer is, (tah-dah) politics. Polls. We're losing the war in Iraq and the war on drugs, so we need a new enemy. Let's rile up the base and at the same time see if we can't scare some percentage of those we've lost into voting for us on the grounds that we can deport those illegal immigrants faster than the wimpy immigrant-loving Democrats.

These people make me want to _________! (Fill in the blank.)

Posted May 19, 2006 5:46 PM by Lizzy L

Madeleine -- poetic license #56748.

Posted May 19, 2006 5:48 PM by Lizzy L

Lizzy --

The employer is a bad man.

Mishalak --

New York has been one of the great cities of the Earth for at least a hundred years, one of the exemplary transit-cored metropolises. Denver, whatever present glories it enjoys, was a cow town in living memory. (Same thing with Toronto, which became a substantial city only fairly recently.)

I like to think that Toronto is getting it right; the greed-head businessmen haven't got a majority or unrecoverable amounts of political power yet, the idea that proper response to strangers is fear hasn't managed to get too far, and the efforts to exclude newcomers from access to the economic power structure haven't worked to the extent that there are going to be riots and mass stupidity. (Not that those measures didn't do a lot of damage, but sanity is getting a chance to prevail.)

But I won't know until I'm an old, old man if Toronto really will manage to be a major city or not; same with Denver. It takes four whole human generations to tell if the thing will live and breathe and last, or if the bright season was a human season and not the city's.

Posted May 19, 2006 5:53 PM by Graydon

Johnathan wonders:

"I don't think anyone has asked this question yet, but has anyone thought of putting pressure on / giving aid to other countries, e.g., Mexico, to make their citizens' lives sufficiently tolerable that the citizens don't feel that migration is their best and only strategy?"

It is not a matter of us providing them aid.

Mexico has OIL for cripes sake. The country gets billions of dollars in remitances from workers abroad.

Why these resources have't been used wisely is a question of, um, political culture.

Posted May 19, 2006 5:53 PM by Stefan Jones

"why is this suddenly blowing up?"

Because it is useful for it to blow up now.

Posted May 19, 2006 5:54 PM by Stefan Jones

Britain for the British!

Angles and Saxons Go Home!

Posted May 19, 2006 5:56 PM by Dave Bell

That was just beautiful, Miss Teresa.

It has been revealed: this campaign is funded by the manufacturers of American cheese and frozen fishsticks.

Well, you do know that Mrs. Paul is a member of the Trilateral Commission, don't you?

Chryss, the people over at Television Without Pity call Sandra "Ol' Puddin' Cups," because a) she used Jell-O pudding cups to make tiramisu; or b) something to do with her boobs.

Or maybe it's both.

Posted May 19, 2006 5:57 PM by hamletta

I live happily in an LA neighborhood that's the intersection of Thai Town and Little Armenia, with a populace that seems to be divided equally between white, hispanic and armenian folks. I have no idea what the immigrant status of any of my neighbors is and as they pay rent and taxes (well, I'm guessing) and go to work and school, walk their dogs, do yardwork, enjoy music and have BBQs with friends and family on weekends I see no reason why I should give a rats ass whether they've been here for two weeks or two generations, let alone whether they have or need a green card.

While I suppose it's true that our immigration policy is wacky (hey look - It's a serf class!) I have avoided most discussions about it because I find the rhetoric surrounding the issue breathtakingly racist. Maybe it's because I live here and have lived in NYC that I just don't find a group of people who speak a different language and don't look like me inherently scary.

Unfortunately, my otherwise liberal parents seem to have an obsession with "the mexicans" - and who can blame them, with Schaumburg, Ilinois' whopping 5% Hispanic population (according to the offical Schaumburg website) Mariachi bands may soon be outnumbering Polka bands 2-to-1.*

Dad forwarded me some anti-immigrant claptrap from Bill Frist a couple of weeks ago, and I deleted it without response. Not since the Arnold Friberg Incident of 2002 have we so obviously failed to see eye-to-eye.

* in the interest of full annoying music disclosure, I enjoy bagpipe music, and have no ethnic excuse to do so.

Posted May 19, 2006 5:59 PM by nerdycellist

Chryss: ...pro-Semi-Homemade with Sandra Lee faction is sponsoring the anti-immigrant campaign? ... Seriously, has anyone ever seen this show? It's train-wreck bad...

O.M.G.

And the question I have is... she is constantly shoving this processed -- oh, sorry, semi-processed -- crap down her cake hole and yet she's got a body like one of those stick insects.

And don't even get me started on her "tablescapes"...

Let's see... I'm in Hell, my punishment is to look at horrifying images for the rest of eternity, and Satan gives me a choice between looking at Sandra Lee's "tablescapes" and watching videotaped beheadings...

"I'm thinking, I'm thinking..."

Posted May 19, 2006 6:01 PM by Michael Weholt

Dave Bell: Godsdam horseriding CELTS!!! Go home to Hungary where you came from, you Indo-European swine! Britain for the...um...for the...shortswarthyblueeyedpeoplepossiblyakintotheBerbers WHO BUILT STONEHENGE!!!!!

REUNITE GONDWANALAND!!!!!

Posted May 19, 2006 6:04 PM by Xopher

In Oakland there's a restaurant downtown that has signs in front advertising its cuisine, which includes "Teriyaki" and "Grits."

Here's what I want to know -- where did this 11 million or 12 million number come from? If they're undocumented, how do we know how many of them there are? Are these all Hispanic, or are some of them from other countries? Could that nice English person living next to one of these racists be illegal, and what does the racist think about that?

I'm not too rational about this subject myself -- my family's history includes fairly recent illegal immigration. (Now legal -- if anyone from INS is reading this!)

Posted May 19, 2006 6:06 PM by Lisa Goldstein

Well, speaking as a non-American (as in, not from continent on that side of the Atlantic): the lack of integration in European society is, I think, a complex issue. I'll just offer a few comment, in case anyone's interested.

First of all, many refugees do not particularly want to be here. They were forced to flee their home countries, and would often prefer to go back once the problem is removed (one of my colleagues wants very much to go back to Iraqi Kurdistan). Their view of the country where they live is often positive, but they still don't want to live there.

Secondly, immigrants and refugees to Scandinavian countries (where I live) meet a culture which is often relatively monolithic and not expressed in words: it's very hard to learn the codes because no one can/will tell you about them. You remain an outsider. Typical of this is the appalling term 'second-generation immigrants' (speaking as a linguist, I'd like to throw that word into the sea and drown it) - even if you were born here, you count as an immigrant.

Posted May 19, 2006 6:07 PM by lalouve

Xopher: Last seen grooving in a cave with several species of small furry animals?

Posted May 19, 2006 6:11 PM by Clifton Royston

*catches breath* Um...who, Clifton?

I meant Pangaia.

Posted May 19, 2006 6:15 PM by Xopher

TNH: have there been any recent big changes in the quantity of immigrants or the permeability of the border? Why is this suddenly blowing up?

I've wondered that, too. Illegal immigration has been a constant problem for the last 30-plus years. Why is it suddenly a big deal in Spring 2006?

My guesses:
1) Conservatism is always looking for a new enemy. Gay panic has reached the limits of its ability to move voters, so they need a new bogeyman.
2) Bush's weakness. This has been a growing movement within the Republican party for more than a decade (CA Gov. Pete Wilson tried to ride it to the White House). Bush and Rove have tamped it down, because it's not in the interest of the business interests that they take their marching orders from, and because they realize that securing the Latino vote is critical to the GOP's long-term success (Pete Wilson, again). Bush/Rove could suppress the nativists when he flightsuiting around at 73% in the polls. Now he's a lame duck at 29%, and they don't have the leverage to keep the lid on.
3) There's a lot of free-floating hate-the-dark-skinned-other energy in the body politic, carefully stoked by the administration and its media since 9/11. But the great crusade against islamofascism has thrown an engine rod, and is no fun anymore, so all that energy has been searching for a new outlet.
4) The working classes have been getting squeezed economically without relief for six years now. Flat wages, offshoring, rising medical and energy prices, cuts in government programs (student loans, etc.), a lack of good jobs being created. There's a sense of getting screwed by the system (while the upper 2% award themselves federal contracts and tax cuts). It seems natural that they're hunting for a scapegoat for why The American Dream seems so out of reach - and they've found it, in the form of illegal aliens who steal jobs, drive down wages, commit crimes, and leech off the welfare system.
5) Nativism, including well-organized political movements at the national party level, is a recurring American phenomenon (KKK, "know-nothings", etc.). Maybe it's just the pendulum come swinging around again.

So take your pick.

I've been struck by how concern over illegal immigration is strongest in parts of the country (like rural Tennessee) where it has the least cultural and economic impact, and I'm also struck by how smoothly and effortlessly the various rabblerousers of the right (Malkin, especially) have turned away from rah-rahing the Iraq War and are instead flogging this immigration issue.

Posted May 19, 2006 6:18 PM by FMguru

Back in December I posted this sign:
Mom's Teriyaki
Mexican-American Food

It seems to be relevant here.

Posted May 19, 2006 6:19 PM by P J Evans

I know I've heard reports from Denmark saying that Muslim immigrants there have not integrated with the rest of the culture and reject Danish values of tolerance and multiculturalism.

That is a beautiful sentence.

Posted May 19, 2006 6:25 PM by Euphonia Nelson

colin roald: The head sushi chef at my favorite local sushi bar is Mexican; is that close enough?

Chryss: I've never liked any of the kosher Chinese restaurants I've been to.

Posted May 19, 2006 6:36 PM by Seth Breidbart

TNH wrote: have there been any recent big changes in the quantity of immigrants or the permeability of the border? ... why is this suddenly blowing up?

That's easy. Fascists rule by fear, uncertainty and doubt. That means they like waging wars to keep the populace scared and the FUD level high. The "war" on drugs isn't as trendy as it was. The "war" on terror is a shambles. They're not sure about whether to invade Iran yet. So, they "need" a war with someone, and illegal immigrants are an easy target.

As to the topic itself, there is way too much generalisation going on on both sides. Immigrants, legal or otherwise, might be desirable or not. Legal ones at least you have some control over. Illegal ones you don't. On a basis of fairness, I'm all for throwing the illegal ones out. Why do you want people who prefer to break the law than to apply through the correct channels?

Over a decade ago, when it was easier to get into Australia, we had legal immigrants from some countries who had a higher employment rate than the average ... and immigrants from some other countries who were 90+% unemployed after 12 months! The latter type typically brought in their whole extended family and lived off social security, because that was a much better lifestyle than they had at home. They didn't assimilate very often, and were disproportionately involved in the drug trade. That is a very good excuse for vetting those who are trying to come into your country, rather than allowing open slather.

Posted May 19, 2006 6:39 PM by Craig Macbride

1) Chris Q: Not only the nachos, babe...pernil, escabeche, bistek empanizado, bistek palomilla, arroz con camarrones, etc.

2) Yeah, my city can kick the ass of the homogenous ones, because we are stronger for the variety of people we have! NOTE: I am typing this from an internet cafe, and the row I am in is me (NY Jewish), a Hispanic man, a black man, an Indian woman, and a Korean man. GO DIVERSITY!

3) I do not understand what these jackasses are so afraid of. What, they might be forced to learn about some culture other than their own? They might have to reexamine their stereotypes and prejudices? They might have to accept that the immigrant kids pay more attention in school than their Neanderthal brats do?

I work in an "inner city" school. Every day I see immigrants, both kids and parents, who are trying to survive in what to them is a completely foreign culture, much the way my great grandparents did when they came to America. And these kids work against tremendous odds. Why do those in our government forget that their when their own ancestors came here it might not have been leegally? Why do they refuse to extend the same courtesy to others? Is it, perhaps, because many of the emigres in this wave have "brown" or "yellow" skin? Is it because many of those in other parts of the country than the southwest may be of Muslim descent?

Thing is, I don't really give a damn why. Stupidity is stupidity. Besides, isn't it their own Bible that tells these folks that the only person who may cast the first stone is "he who is without sin"?

Posted May 19, 2006 6:45 PM by otherdeb

TruthOut has an article about illegals paying taxes that, while I'm not sure how to confirm, seems right from what I know about procedure. How are they supposed to leech off of the system if they need a SocSec number not to mention 18mo worth of prior employer info to get the unemployment check in the first place? For 26 weeks. At an average of $150/wk.

Baka.

Posted May 19, 2006 6:45 PM by Dolloch

Not long ago, someone wrote a letter to the editor of our local newspaper complaining about how the city has grown so much in the eleven years since he moved here that it's hardly livable any more, what with all the newcomers moving in and all the new construction.

Someone else wrote in stating the obvious: look, bud, you're one of "those people" who moved here and increased the population.

The same phenomenon is operating on the national level. A century ago, my own great grandparents immigrated from Bohemia at a time when Eastern Europeans were among the "them" group that "someone should do something about." Shortly after they came over, Ellis Island opened up.

Now we're entirely accustomed to Eastern European names, but many among us shudder when we hear Hispanic names or hear Spanish spoken in various accents. A brown-skinned family moves down the street, the kids play ball in the streets, and someone is sure to say (or at least think), "Geez, here they come. There goes the neighborhood!"

Same darn thing all over again. It's, "I've got a right to move wherever I please, and now that I'm here, let's keep those others out!"

Posted May 19, 2006 6:59 PM by Writerious

FMguru noted: I've been struck by how concern over illegal immigration is strongest in parts of the country (like rural Tennessee) where it has the least cultural and economic impact,

Tennessee has had one of the largest percentage increases in Hispanic immigration in the US since 1990. I won't speculate, because I don't see how it's possible to do so with any accuracy, how much is legal vs. illegal. While much of this doesn't hit the smallest towns, even smaller county seat towns like Lewisburg, which is near the Alabama border, find it worth while to carry a decent Hispanic-foods section in the grocery stores--Abuelita-brand chocolate, Mexican sodas, and other items well beyond a few cans of refried beans and boxes of taco shells made in Wisconsin. In an area which has been largely monocultural for generations*, even a small cultural effect is a Big Thing.

Immigration in recent years (Hispanic and other, legal and illegal) has had an economic effect all over Tennessee. Some of this is good; many smaller communities benefit from having an immigrant physician assigned to work there through the medically underserved areas program; goats are suddenly a profitable livestock item as more immigrants who enjoy this meat move into the area, and so on. However, there are quite a few people who feel, justly or not, that they, or people like them, have lost work opportunities to Hispanic immigrants; the building trades here in Nashville are now heavily Hispanic, and many other areas of unskilled or low-skilled work show the same effect. Also, the scandals over Tyson's knowing importation of illegal workers, and similar accusations about other businesses in the south, like Mohawk Carpets, just south of the Georgia line from Chattanooga, give some support to the feeling that locals are losing out. (Why, yes, the open-shop/right to work [AKA right to starve] status of the labor force in many southern states doesn't help; funny about that.) In the 1960s and 1970s, the introduction of light manufacturing made an immense difference to the economic base of small communities across the southern US; these factories are now closing right and left, along with the older textile mills, as the jobs go overseas, and when the threat of competition from immigrants is added to that, people do become very anxious. The actual negative impact of this sort of thing may well be less than people perceive it to be, but perceptions do not have a negligible effect on reactions. Also, southerners, both black and white, are well-trained to suspect they're in danger of losing out to a group of Others; the blacks through well-documented history, and the whites because it's been the goad the wealthy classes have used to drive the poorer ones in whatever direction they find useful.

*Yes, I meant to use that word.

Posted May 19, 2006 7:13 PM by fidelio

It has nothing to do with assimilation, aculturation, mitigation, or rational thought. First it was the Savages, then the Welsh, the Irish, Catholics, Dutch, Spanish, Blacks, Germans, Irish again, Chinese, Jews, Canadians, Gays, Volvo drivers, well, pretty much everybody. It's not personal, some people need somebody to hate, somebody to scapegoat. It's the ignorant mind rising.

Everybody sing!
"You have to be taught
Before it's too late.
Before you are six or seven or eight
to hate all the people your relatives hate.
You have to be carefully taught."

South Pacific? Anybody?

Same reason why practically every cable station had a program "Debunking the DaVinci Code" or "Those Terrible Freemasons" last night. Don't make me think, don't make me reason, I have my hate and my hate makes me strong. Add to that mix xenophobic political groups, and the stupidity grows strong enough to move mountains.

Cry my beloved country.

Posted May 19, 2006 7:21 PM by Steve Buchheit

I like Molly Ivins’ suggestion:

[S]hould you actually want to stop Mexicans and OTMs (other than Mexicans) from coming to the United States, here is how to do it: Find an illegal worker at a large corporation. This is not difficult -- brooms and mops are big tip-offs. Then put the CEO of that corporation in prison for two or more years for violating the law against hiring illegal workers.

Posted May 19, 2006 7:27 PM by Max Kaehn

Fidelio - Good points. It's just that there are places where Latino immigration (legal and illegal) has had a much larger effect on the local economy and culture (the Southwest, big cities, Florida, etc.) and they are most assuredly not the places where anti-immigrant sentiment is running high - which shows that this whole thing is driven by fears and not by actual economic changes. If illegal immigrants were causing all the horrible effects that their detractors claim, the citizens of CA and NY and TX would be the loudest in demanding sweeping action. But they aren't (as Pete Wilson learned to his considerable regret).

I'm reminded of the breakdown in concern over terrorism - the people who live in rural flyover country are much more afraid of terrorism and supportive of Dear Leader's maximum efforts to protect them than the people who live in big cities, even though city-dwellers are much more likely to by victims of a terrorist attack than the citizens of Mule Neck, Arkanasas.

Posted May 19, 2006 7:41 PM by FMguru

I live in Pittsburgh. We -- okay, I -- would like some immigrants, please. Our population is dropping. And frankly we need more interesting restaurants.

Posted May 19, 2006 7:41 PM by Jim Kiley

A potpourri of responses -- or perhaps, a tablescape...

1) Chris Q: Not only the nachos, babe...pernil, escabeche, bistek empanizado, bistek palomilla, arroz con camarrones, etc.

Dammit. I was just craving escabeche, now you have to go taunt me? Grrrr.

[I also haven't had a good adobo in a while. Time to stock up, I guess.]

Jon Meltzer: so you're saying the pro-Semi-Homemade with Sandra Lee faction is sponsoring the anti-immigrant campaign? IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW.

I've always thought, in my more mercurial moments, that SHSL was a dire attempt to show us what we'd all be eating if it weren't for immigration. Reminds me of my mom's anecdote -- apparently completely true -- that she didn't know broccoli was a green vegetable until she went to college. *shudder*

Chryss, the people over at Television Without Pity call Sandra "Ol' Puddin' Cups," because a) she used Jell-O pudding cups to make tiramisu; or b) something to do with her boobs.

Also "Wal-Martha Stewart" (tm Keckler, I believe), which still makes me giggle whenever I read it.

Posted May 19, 2006 7:46 PM by Anarch

My hometown was 98% white. San Francisco, not so much. Oakland, also not so much, in a different way. I love it here. Please send more immigrants! I am hungry and I am bored with Ethiopian, Thai, Indian, Italian, German, French, Spanish, Vietnamese, Japanese, Chinese, Mediterranean, and Swedish (hello, Ikea-next-door-to-work!).

Okay, I'm not really bored with those things. But hey, send me some new things anyway!

I love my trilingual signs on the Muni trains in San Francisco. I love the fact that there are Chinese-immersion programs at San Francisco schools. I love my thoroughly mixed Lakeshore neighbourhood in Oakland (with the Grand Lake theatre).

It's a little weird to get included in the "we" of racists when you're, you know, an immigrant yourself. The unspoken assumption that white people are innately more important or more real than non-white people comes through very strongly in those cases, especially when they say "them", "those people", "rid ourselves", "problem", or "we have to".

But that's not nearly as weird as one of the chief cheerleaders of this newly-rekindled hating of brown people being of Filipo-American background. That just astonishes me every time I consider it.

Posted May 19, 2006 7:50 PM by Jacob Davies

South Pacific? Anybody?

That, yeah. But the first that came to my mind (back a long while ago now) was "Only a Pawn in Their Game."

Posted May 19, 2006 7:59 PM by cmk

Vietnamese are running the pizzeria and the Latinos are serving sushi.

Oh, you've eaten in my neighborhood?

This "Illegal Immigration is a Danger" shit is an outright lie. It is the new Southern Strategy, and is going to lose the Republican Party California, Arizona, New Mexico and hopefully Texas, Nevada, and Colorado for generations to come. I know persons of questionable documentation. They come here and work not just harder and cheaper than those already here, but often BETTER (read Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential and the relevant chapter in A Cook's Tour about South-Mexican and Isthmus-American immigrants (of documented and dubious status both) being behind EVERYTHING you eat in the best restaurants). These are the new know-nothings warning against Rum Romanism and Rebellion (really -- "The Pope Is Sending His Mexican Minions" was the topic of an op-ed recently), and it's stupid and sad and I wish it were laughable, but we're putting fucking TROOPS on the fucking MEXICAN border.

This is flyover politics, and it just makes me sad.

Posted May 19, 2006 8:08 PM by BSD

Yeah, Molly Ivins has it right.

Why don't the Minutemen get imaginative and start making "citizen's arrests" of companies that hire illegals?

Instead of paunchy guys with binoculars in lawn chairs, it will be unmarked vans and camcorders with zoom lenses.

A lot less dangerous, and way more effective, but of course a lot less effective a way of getting a hit of self-righteousness endorphins.

And after a few weeks, the Chamber of Commerce crowd will be griping about the rubes and hicks who are making it impossible for them to do business.

Posted May 19, 2006 8:23 PM by Stefan Jones

The Chamber of Commerce crowd, for once, are already on the right side of this - at least in public.

Again, employment enforcement without amnesty (or whatever workaround you want to give that avoids That Word) is no good either, and no good leftist should support it any more than they support arresting immigrants themselves.

Losing your ability to work may not be quite as bad as being arrested & deported, but it's getting there.

And it's not just that, but what happens when you come down like a ton of bricks on anyone employing illegals is that brown-skinned US citizens can't find work - hey, why take the chance that those papers are forged? Just hire white people instead!

Unintended consequences, and all that.

Posted May 19, 2006 8:35 PM by Jacob Davies

It is the new Southern Strategy, and is going to lose the Republican Party California, Arizona, New Mexico and hopefully Texas, Nevada, and Colorado for generations to come.

Oooh, I hope so.

Graydon, I strongly disagree. (Lizzy -- The employer is a bad man.) A case can be made that he has done a bad thing. A case can also be made that given the cost of gas, the cost of health care, the cost of living in California, he made a smart economic decision. But not even the man he laid off wants to see him in jail.

Posted May 19, 2006 8:37 PM by Lizzy L

Comment variety pack:

- I'll go out on a limb here: This whole manufactured immigration stink is Karl Rove's parting gift to the White House. There's no way GWB would back off his whole "viva Mexico" schtick unless Turdblossom told him to.

- I too know a great Mexican sushi chef here in the Ohio valley. His Japanese boss developed "the Mexican roll" (temaki with tuna, quacamole, quail egg, and tomatillo salsa) in tribute.

- Regarding whether this is a rural or urban issue: Cincinnati's racial politics are pretty much stuck around 1910, so it's not necessarily indicative of anything national. But the recent Mexican and Guatemalan immigrants have encountered tremendous prejudice, obstacles, and abysmal public services in the city. Meanwhile, the relatively rural towns of Northern Kentucky just across the river have been much more welcoming and supportive. A few years ago, in the same week I heard another report of anti-immigrant violence in Cincinnati's Price Hill (a mostly Appalachian neighborhood), the public library in Bellevue, Kentucky (basically, a double-wide trailer) had a big sign out front: "¡Nuevo - Libros en espanol!" And of course, all the best new taquerias are in Kentucky as well.

- Ah, music: I've got a 1909 recording of a quartet singing a musical tribute to immigration -- "If you're Irish, Dutch, or Dane, they will treat you just the same, In the Good Old United States." The quartet is The Model Minstrels, a blackface minstrel act. You know when irony died; now find out when it was born.

Posted May 19, 2006 9:07 PM by HP

In the words of Octavia Butler:

"But in real life, what would make us more tolerant, more peaceful, less likely to need a UN Conference on Racism?

Nothing.

Nothing at all."

It's like Steve Buchheit said, we learn from childhood to hate, we expect to hate. And although we are taught that setting ourselves in hierarchies that puts brown skin below yellow skin below white skin (or chose whichever hierarchy you wish) is wrong, we do it anyway.

Here's Octavia Butler's short essay on the topic. It's a sobering read.

Posted May 19, 2006 9:08 PM by AliceB

I don't think anyone has asked this question yet, but has anyone thought of putting pressure on / giving aid to other countries, e.g., Mexico, to make their citizens' lives sufficiently tolerable that the citizens don't feel that migration is their best and only strategy?

yes, actually. then the US Congress decided that they were just a bunch of brown people who weren;t worth worrying about and passed NAFTA.

and teresa, interest in this (stupid non-)story has only spiked very recently, according to this nifty new tool. sounds like an election year "rile up the racists" by karl rove.

Posted May 19, 2006 9:26 PM by almostinfamous

Lizzy, is there a difference between "bad people" and "people who do bad things"? Is there a limit to how many bad things a person can do before they become bad? Can you be a bad person and not actually ever do any bad things?

I always assumed that "X is a bad person" is just rhetorical shorthand for "X does bad things." I don't see how someone can be essentially good or bad independently of their actions.

Posted May 19, 2006 9:29 PM by HP

I suspect that Hawai'i is equally as diverse as San Francisco, although perhaps less so than NY. We have every imaginable kind of Asian cuisine here, from the mom and pop saimin shop to the very upscale dining rooms. The Safeway I patronize every day has an entire 50-foot aisle of "oriental foods" and half an aisle of "hispanic foods" (regrettably mostly the mass-produced taco shells, salsa and refried beans).

The recent pro-immigration day march here drew a small crowd but one comprised of every color/shade/language imaginable, even a few downtrodden immigrant haoles. The letters pages in the papers have a few of the loudmouths who don't know their own history and/or are incapable of recognizing their own hypocrisy, but mostly the attitude here seems to be "Huh? What's this immigration hooha all about?"

Posted May 19, 2006 9:29 PM by Linkmeister

Jim Kiley - don't you ever go to Oakland or the Strip? Yeah, you won't find the ethnic variety of restaurants you'd find in DC or New York, but Ali Baba's, the various Indian places and especially Spice Island are all wonderful.

(Also in Western PA, but now way out west past the airport)

Posted May 19, 2006 9:33 PM by Laurie Mann

colin roald: Pshaw. You don't have *real* international eating until the Vietnamese are running the pizzeria and the Latinos are serving sushi.

Oh, definitely. The best-known Italian restaurants in Honolulu are indeed run by a Vietnamese family. And, though I don't want anyone to think that it's good fusion cuisine, the other day I saw that Honolulu's 7-Elevens sell a sloppy joe manapua.

Linkmeister: The Safeway I patronize every day has an entire 50-foot aisle of "oriental foods" and half an aisle of "hispanic foods" (regrettably mostly the mass-produced taco shells, salsa and refried beans).

On the other hand, some NYC ethnic groups are severely under-represented in Honolulu. As a kid, it took me years to figure out what "kosher food" was and who actually ate it. And it wasn't until after I'd left the islands to go to college that it occurred to me that my high school classmate Billy Cohen must have been Jewish.

Posted May 19, 2006 9:58 PM by Eric Sadoyama

Oh, Eric, ain't it the truth. I'd kill (well, grovel, anyway) for a decent pastrami sandwich out here on the Leeward side.

Posted May 19, 2006 10:01 PM by Linkmeister

Max etc: I admire Molly Ivins, but she sounds like she's forgotten whatever she knew squat about the law. No company with fixed assets hires people to do its dirty work; instead, it hires a contractor, which gives them what we learned to call a cut-out during the Reagan administration (if not before). Hiring a contractor also relieves the company of all responsibility for conditions, hours, ...; legally, the suits are proof against anything. It would be nice if the body of law supporting this could be overturned, but I don't see it happening.

Contractors do get fined occasionally, but AFAIK it's never enough to make them stop a lucrative business. Jail time? Right....

Posted May 19, 2006 10:07 PM by CHip

This evening I passed a building being reconstructed after a fire. 'Coming Soon: Samala Thai-Japanese Restaurant!'

Amstel Light has a billboard out: Asian Fusion Is Not A Welding Technique.
I think I'm seeing it live.

Posted May 19, 2006 10:22 PM by P J Evans

HP: Is there a limit to how many bad things a person can do before they become bad? I don't know. I suspect that after X number of bad things done, one loses one's sense of how to do good things. Just as taking certain drugs changes the way your brain works, so doing bad things changes you so that your sense of what is "good" and what is "bad" becomes warped, misshapen. Or perhaps what we refer to as the conscience simply becomes inaccessible. I'm not sure how it works. But the value of X is probably different for every human being. Can you be a bad person and not actually ever do any bad things? I don't think so.

Good people can do bad things, be sorry for having done them, do their best to make amends, and try not to do them again. Bad people can do good things. But perhaps I should not have said "The employer is not a bad man," since in fact I don't know him.

Posted May 19, 2006 10:23 PM by Lizzy L

Harry Connolly: Are there immigrants in the U.S.A. who,
by their own choice or because of the people around them,
are not becoming Americans?

I speak as a resident alien Canadian of 45 years,
born in Canada, living in the US since I was 5.

My understanding is,
that to become as US citizen,
I would have to 'renounce' my Canadian citizenship.

I have not been willing to do that.

Why renounce?
Canada isn't Nazi Germany or Communist China...

Influenced by people around me?
My parents remain Canadian.
My dad chokes on this same issue of 'renounce'.

One of his complaints,
is that he first has to renounce his previous citizenship,
but the citizenship he is granted in return is 'provisional';
and could be withdrawn . . . leaving him stateless.

Granted, he has never done or would do anything
that would rise to that level of retribution;
but the idea behind the principle
is still bothersome . . .

My understanding is that
as far as the Canadian government is concerned,
I could renounce my Canadian citizenship
to satisfy the American government,
and they will look the other way . . .
that I would remain a Canadian citizen
as far as they were concerned.

It's a notion I don't want to test;
in the future, they might change their rules . . .

I realize I'm reading the word renounce
in a manner which gives emphasis to one of its meanings.

What can I say? I'm a literal person.
I like to say what I mean,
and mean what I say.

The word is what it is.

In my later years in high school
(during the waning years of the Vietnam war)
I had to register for the draft
(resident aliens were not exempt).

However, at the same time,
I was denied a scholarship and loan aid
because I was not a citizen.

And yet, graduating from high school,
awarded a 'citizenship' award from the local American Legion!
I like to think I'm making my contribution . . .

Considered joining the Air Force
( passed the exam and the physical ),
but instead was able to work and save some money,
and went to college in Toronto for a couple of years
( where I was not eligible for scholarship or loan aid
  because I was not a resident . . . ).

The Canadian opposite number of a 'resident alien'
is a 'landed immigrant'.

I found that an American 'landed immigrant'
( any landed immigrant ) in Canada
was not denied any loans or scholarships
that Canadian citizens were eligible for.

In fact, at the time (1977),
Americans citizens going to colleges in Canada
were paying the same fees that Canadian citizens were.

At that time, the Canadian government
was in the middle of changing those rules;
American citizens made no tax contributions
and it was felt this was unfair.

But when they changed the rules,
American citizens attending Canadian colleges
were 'grandfathered' in.

I believe they had been allowed to complete a 4 year program
under the original rates.

AFAIK, resident aliens in America are not allowed guns
( obviously, never a passion with me;
  or I would have become a citizen . . . )

Resident aliens are not allowed on juries
( this may be the only dodge left . . . )

Can't vote
( this is obvious, but I can argue
  to influence my friends votes . . . )

One of my jokes is
that I retain my Canadian citizen
so in the worse case scenario
I can plea bargain my way down to deportation.

It's a joke;
I'd just as soon not test it . . .

Canadian doesn't quite qualify as an ethnicity;
no one is talking about going to the new Canadian restaurants.
But still, it's an idea. That might be the crux of the issue.

If you go to Canada,
one of the things they're emphatic about
is that they are not Americans.

Posted May 19, 2006 10:47 PM by Rob Rusick

Jim Kiley: I live in Pittsburgh. We -- okay, I -- would like some immigrants, please.

Hey, I got here as fast as I could.

And frankly we need more interesting restaurants.

On that I'll agree. Moving from Austin to Pittsburgh was something of a shock on the cuisine side of things. Where's the brisket? Where's the cheap Mexican corner restaurant where I can get two good breakfast burritos for three dollars? And there's not nearly enough sushi available on the low end of the price scale in this neighborhood.

I spent most of my childhood being a foreigner. Not even an immigrant trying to assimilate, only the child of people from another country living there long-term. The most populous people in that country were all immigrants, tromping around on ancestral lands of disenfranchised people who'd been there first. Having felt the Very Small Minority issue from the other side of things, I far prefer diversity to monocultural areas, and I'll admit that, having barely looked at the numbers, illegal immigration as such doesn't bother me. What, like my ancestors asked permission nicely of the local inhabitants when they first came to the United States? And I was only born here by chance. Why should I, barely an adult and contributing very little so far, have more claim to this country than anyone else?

I remember reading in history class that once a person's religion was considered as set as one's nationality: you were born into a religion, grew up in it, died in it, and you were Christian because your parents and your grandparents and your king were Christian. (Or any variation on Christian, for that matter. Denominations denoted by geographical accident of birth.)

This is probably a simplification of facts. Nonetheless, I find it interesting the idea that some day nationality might be as freely swapped between as religions (theoretically) currently are. We could be as loyal to our nations as we wanted, but because we chose to belong to them, not because we were born into them and confronted with massive legal and financial difficulties to move to any other.

(No, no, I don't think this will ever happen. But I like it as a way of looking at patriotism, when I'm considering immigration issues.)

Posted May 19, 2006 10:53 PM by Fade Manley

Graydon: But I won't know until I'm an old, old man
if Toronto really will manage to be a major city or not; same with Denver.
It takes four whole human generations to tell if the thing will live and breathe and last,
or if the bright season was a human season and not the city's.

Jane Jacobs had a chance to make her mark;
we can hope for the best.

Posted May 19, 2006 11:00 PM by Rob Rusick

Pshaw. You don't have *real* international eating until the Vietnamese are running the pizzeria and the Latinos are serving sushi.

No, it's not *real* until the Latinos are *making* the sushi and it's being served by Jamaicans. Or, you have Russians serving the Jamaican cuisine.

Posted May 19, 2006 11:09 PM by Rich

TNH asked two questions that are even more interesting when taken together:

Here's my question: have there been any recent big changes in the quantity of immigrants or the permeability of the border? Because if there haven't, if this is the same set of admittedly difficult problems we had last year, why is this suddenly blowing up?

and

Okay, you skiffy crew. Anybody want to explain the trouble with straight-line extrapolations ...?

It's entirely possible that there is some sort of non-linear reaction at work: that a country that can cheerfully cope with 11,000,000 (or whatever) illegals very suddenly starts going bazooey when it reaches 11,000,001. Or, more likely, public perceptions reach some tipping point.

Obviously, what we're seeing here certainly seems to be a top-down hysteria; but, if one were so inclined, one might make a case for the theoretical possibility of some sort of phase shift.

One thing that needs to be said about the current "crisis" is that this country has been here before, and quite recently: just twenty years ago, the Reagan administration had a remarkably similar immigration crisis. The solution? The Republican administration issued a widespread amnesty, and threatened to punish employers. Curiously, they totally forgot about the "punish employers" part of the solution, and immigration accelerated.

Funny how that worked out.

Posted May 19, 2006 11:19 PM by Bob Oldendorf

I come from a teeny town in Texas, and went south to college in the middle of sheep country, an hour and a half drive from Del Rio/Ciudad Acuna. My roommate's parents were both illegal at one time, and absolutely the hardest working people I've ever known personally. Her dad *built* their house, works for both the county and the city, and runs a repair business out of his garage. All three of their children have served in the armed forces. So there.
Mmmm, barbacoa....
Sorry. I miss Tex-mex cooking so much. And I miss seeing signs for Mexican/Lao food out in the middle of freakin' nowhere. There's a lot of Nowhere in Texas.

Posted May 19, 2006 11:30 PM by J Austin

[Ill-tempered post deleted by its author. What Jon Sobel said. The claim that modern Denver has less crime than modern New York is false by every demographic measure.]

Posted May 19, 2006 11:55 PM by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

By the way, what about America's most famous fictional immigrant? Think about it. The last Son of Krypton is here illegally. And he reminds us that people not born in America may be more likely to stand for Truth, Justice and the REAL American Way, unlike those who need hate and fear.

Posted May 20, 2006 12:02 AM by Serge

So true, Serge.

Posted May 20, 2006 12:06 AM by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

The anti-immigrant isolationism squad should be condemned to spend the rest of their life eating English sausage instead of bratwurst or Polish sausage or pepperoni or even your basic breakfast sausage links (which clearly owe more to the Germans, Poles, and Italians than the English, who eat something that looks similar but tastes NOTHING like your run-of-the-mill Little Sizzler).

The U.S. is a great country because of our immigrants. That was true 100 years ago, and it's true now.

Posted May 20, 2006 12:15 AM by Naomi Kritzer

Bob said: It's entirely possible that there is some sort of non-linear reaction at work: that a country that can cheerfully cope with 11,000,000 (or whatever) illegals very suddenly starts going bazooey when it reaches 11,000,001. Or, more likely, public perceptions reach some tipping point. Obviously, what we're seeing here certainly seems to be a top-down hysteria; but, if one were so inclined, one might make a case for the theoretical possibility of some sort of phase shift.

One might make such a case -- except that the country is not going bazooey. A small number of people are using this issue to make themselves appear important; politicians are using this issue to look as if they are doing something valuable (when in fact they are doing jack shit to solve a problem); the great majority of people in the country are concerned and not sure what to do -- but they know they don't want to start deporting people, setting up internment camps, shutting down the borders, or otherwise behaving like Nazis.

Posted May 20, 2006 12:19 AM by Lizzy L

Ooops. Sorry. Don't all yell "GODWIN" at once.

Posted May 20, 2006 12:21 AM by Lizzy L

Fade wonders:

"Where's the brisket?"

Murray Avenue in Squirrel Hill.

Good bagels around there too.

Posted May 20, 2006 12:30 AM by Stefan Jones

I'm agree with Miss Teresa on the don't give a sh!t about race, I'm adopted and do not know a thing about my ancestry. I do know the first time I saw a lot of people I looked like was last year in Dublin.

And my adoptive parents.... to his benefit it was after we were out of the house, but then my dad let his bigot race flag fly, enough that I actually corrected him once ("If you keep up with that I will correct you in front of everyone else and embarass you" which surprisingly made him shut up mostly) but he waited until after us kids got out of the house.

Mom had me go up to the files and make sure all the paperwork was in order and findable before he passed (like his service retirement papers). 1) HER birth certificate indicates she's Native American, MY Adoptive birth certificate says she's white. She's probably Cherokee, and likely mixed. More interesting was 2) my father's mom had a hispanic maiden name, Ruiz. The whole thing cause the one bit of total bemusement during the whole gruesome period my sis and I helped mom help him pass from this world to the next.

I know for a fact that the grandfather that gave me the Helm maiden name jumped ship in New York and ran as far away from the law as he could, in his case being a German community in Afton, OK. He'd been born a peasant in the Prussian portion of Germany, joined the Merchant Marine to avoid the Prussian infantry, and finalized his plans when they reached New York City.

Posted May 20, 2006 12:34 AM by Paula Helm Murray

I don't have much enthusiasm for ethnic restaurants, unless you are speaking of a French or maybe Italian ethnicity. (I am also aware that the main reason immigrants often gravitate into the restaurant/eating house trade is because the unsocial hours, poor returns and high risks make it unattractive.) There are doubtless many other positives to immigration, but I see plenty of negatives, too.

I don't like walking through my old neighbourhood - Campsie, in Sydney's south-west - and not being able to read the signs on the shops. My old home has become alien. But it's more than that.

I don't like Cabramatta being turned into the biggest drugs bazaar in the Southern Hemisphere. I don't like the fact that the first political assassination in Australia's history was carried out of a Laotian immigrant member of the NSW parliament by a Vietnamese crime syndicate. I don't like what's happening here, now, in the building trade. There's a resources-fuelled boom going on, and one of the local construction companies is importing workers from the Philippines. He says he can't get enough locals, but it turns out he's paying the imports $12 an hour, half the going rate. The bloke should be horsewhipped.

I wasn't at the Cronulla riot, and I acknowledge that the demonstration was hijacked by racists, but I still say that it was grounded in real, justified anger at organised thuggery by gangs of young Lebanese men. And they were Lebanese, by their own description, despite the fact that most of them were born here.

I don't like the term "second generation immigrant" either, for it's clearly a contradiction in terms, but it does attempt to describe a real phenomenon. What do you call people who were born here, but don't speak English much, have no friends outside their own ethnic community, and are themselves aggressively monocultural? And don't tell me there are no such people. I know different.

Sure, a leaven of different cultures is enjoyed by many. I am not among them, I admit, but I have no objection, within limits. Those limits stop at refusal to integrate. They stop at refusal to learn English. They stop at insulting and menacing women who walk alone. They stop at criminal cartels exploiting a rooted cultural distrust of government, police and law. They stop at social security rorts. They stop at importing ancient feuds and hatreds.

We had a cleaning lady, to whom we paid $25 ph, because I objected to paying less. She was, as it turned out, Macedonian, and spoke only a little English. She moved on, and I hope she found more congenial and remunerative work. She found me researching Alexander the Great, and asked me whether he was a Greek. I answered that he was undoubtedly a Macedonian, born and raised in Macedonia, and King of that country (she smiled) but that, like all Macedonians then, he spoke Greek, thought of himself as Hellenic, was thought of by other Greeks as Hellenic (in a country-cousin sort of way), was as much ruler of Hellas as he was of Macedon, was educated by one of the greatest of Greek scholars, and his culture, the one he spread right throughout western Asia, is still called "Hellenic" today. I'm not sure she understood all of this, though I spoke as simply as I could, but she got the gist.

She scowled. She almost spat. To her, the question was not academic, as it was to me. It involved the deepest issues of what she was. And she wasn't Australian. She was Slav Macedonian, and she hated Greeks. Alexander wasn't Greek. He was Macedonian, like her.

How long had she lived in Australia? Fifteen years. She was certainly not an illegal. I worry about what her children are being taught.

Cronulla wasn't much to compare with the Brixton, Birmingham, Oldham, Bristol and Paris race riots, but it was bad enough, and I want no more like it.

So I think it's a fine thing that our borders are formed of salt water, and I want to control our migrant intake. I have visited New York, and no doubt its citizens consider it wonderful, though its glories are somewhat obscure to me. I like it here, and I like it the way it is.

Posted May 20, 2006 12:38 AM by Dave Luckett

Humans, go home! Go back to Africa!
- the collected fauna and flora of the Nearctic, Neotropic, Palearctic, Indomalaya, Australasia, and Oceania ecoregions.

Posted May 20, 2006 12:50 AM by Dan S.

I know for a fact that the grandfather that gave me the Helm maiden name jumped ship in New York.

Paula, that reminds me about how the German name Kreinert became my wife's name of Krinard. Apparently, back in the middle of the 19th Century, great-grandpapa and some friends of his just didn't want to serve in the Kaiser's army so they took a small boat, crossed the Atlantic and voila! Hmm... Next time my Archie-Bunker father-in-law shoots his mouth off, maybe I should remind him that his ancestor was a draft-dodger AND an illegal alien.