Why we need immigrants!
In one meaty item in my last Irish Stew post, I reflected on the abysmal proficiencies of our high school grads: 28% in math; 34% in reading. In that same post and in comments to it, possible reasons for this were listed. One commenter pointed out that maybe it’s because parents just don’t care anymore. That’s one reason we need immigrants. Many immigrant parents care about education. They want their kids to have a better life than they had or even have now. Moreover, they take pride that their children excel.
After World War II, many parents of baby boomers exhibited these same attitudes. That’s one reason that era in U.S. history was golden, except for the scourge of Communism. Parents or grandparents who suffered through the hardships of the Great Depression and a terrible war had their priorities straight. Without being immigrants, they had that immigrant attitude. And there were many postwar immigrants too, ones who reinforced that attitude. There was also social upheaval, because baby boomers wanted more than just the good ol’times—they wanted a better world, thinking that their own kids would benefit. They did and became the generations where too many think that life owes them everything, including a living—or, at least, their parents owe them that. There are many exceptions, of course; many of these exceptions are children and grandchildren of immigrants.
There are stats to back this up. For example, examine lists of recent winners of the Intel Science Talent Search (it used to be known as the Westinghouse Science Talent Search). An eyeball estimate using last names (as a writer, names are important to me) tells me that about 50% of them are probably children or grandchildren of immigrants. These kids are smart, but they’re also highly motivated and work their butts off to learn too, in order to make their parents proud. That’s in science and technology, of course, but kids like this also dominate other fields. Just consider the top kids in the national spelling bee every year. They aren’t all going to be scientists, by any means.
Too many non-immigrant Americans think life, or the government, owes them a free ride. Some even rail at Corporate America, whining on Facebook and Twitter and other social media sites about how evil American Corporations exploit workers worldwide. Admittedly, there’s much truth to that, because one-percenters—and any corporate CEO is in that class, along with other members of the corporate power structure—are exploiters by nature. They want to get rich at the cost of everyone else. (That mantra isn’t exclusive to the rich elites thoug.) But laziness or non-productive whining accomplishes nothing to create the necessary cultural change. We don’t need people to point out these problems—we know they exist. And we certainly don’t want to give them a free ride to become parasites of society as professional agitators.
The immigrant viewpoint is that most Americans just don’t know how bad it can be. The children of baby boomers are often more provincial than their parents because they’ve lived lazy and privileged lives inside American suburbs, shielded from the slums of the Third World and even the war-zone poverty of America’s inner cities. Even my own kids, who were born in Colombia, were shielded from Latin American slums during their childhood and only saw American inner-city strife if it trickled out to suburbia (that’s a criticism against me, not my kids, by the way). Immigrant parents don’t whine—they buckle down and work toward a better future for themselves and their kids. And they know a practical education where skills and trades are emphasized over debunked ideologies and sociological theories has value.
I found many things of interest in Michael Lewis’ recent expose of high frequency trading, Flash Boys, but two items relevant to this post stand out. First, the Asian leader who initiated the clever sleuthing is probably the son or grandson of immigrants. Second, he’s Canadian, coming to the land of one-percenters and New York’s Wall Street via the Royal Bank of Canada. The first is key. He isn’t a techie, but he was curious and upset, and did something about it—no one can call him lazy or greedy. The second point is also important. Canada’s middle class is better off than the U.S. middle class. There’s a demographic bias, of course—the U.S. has to feed more mouths than Canada—but there’s a cultural difference too. In all my trips to Canada, I was impressed by the can-do attitude of Canadians. They’re motivated to succeed and they work hard. Ergo, I assume that their immigration policy is saner than ours.
Because some people start thinking their government, big business, or society in general owes them a free ride, immigrants are necessary to show them the value of hard work. That doesn’t mean we should allow them to be exploited, which often occurs. I saw plenty of that growing up in the agricultural region in California surrounding my hometown—it wasn’t pretty. Working toward a better life for all through hard work and education, formal or within the job, is the true American dream. It’s a dream more powerful than one-percenters on one hand and ineffective, parasitic activists on the other. Highly motivated people get things done, even social reform. Lazy people waste their lives bickering about how cruel fate is and wringing their hands over society’s ills, often donning the mantle of some debunked ideology or cult and blaming everyone but themselves. Whatever you’re trying to create, invent, or do with your life deserves to be attacked with a strong and energetic work ethic. Immigrants know this, God bless’em.
Of course, revolution in society, peaceful or otherwise, can’t be achieved on an empty stomach. But old, debunked ideas like capitalism, communism, or even Communism (Putin’s nostalgic dream?), have to be replaced with truly new, creative, logical, and progressive ideas. Those are created by an educated mind, not a lazy, whining mind burdened with mantras from some ideology. Immigrants know that too. In fact, most immigrants have their priorities set much better than the average American. They probably find it amusing that some children of baby boomers protest against nefarious corporate interests, yet organize those protests with the internet, laptops, smart phones, and other technologies. Where do these children think the technology comes from? Not from a commune in Vermont (as much as I like Bernie Sanders as a wily old grouch, he’s naïve and immature, in spite of his age).
In fact, in many ways these kids are as delusional as the Taliban or al Qaeda, employing technologies produced by a system or way of life they abhor in order to attempt to tear down that system. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you! I was impressed recently by a Sixty Minutes episode that featured the Tesla and Space-X CEO (the company’s reusable payload capsule recently returned from the ISS) . Here’s an immigrant who’s making and will truly make a difference in this world. No whining or wringing the hands; just imagination, creativity, and hard work—and putting teams together with those qualities to solve problems. We can’t all be him, of course. But there are many productive and creative niches in American society…and highly motivated immigrants and other similar people will fill them, not the lazy, uneducated, or spoiled. ‘Nough said.
And so it goes….
May 20th, 2014 at 10:39 am
WOW. I don’t even know where to start here.
How many liberals does it take to change a light bulb? None, because changing it isn’t “practical” enough. Maybe if the mighty boomers hadn’t contributed to the destruction of our economy (I blame most of it on the inevitable results of capitalism’s development, read some Lenin) and perpetuated a parasitic economic system, their children wouldn’t be upset. The Class of 2014 has the highest student debt, EVER. There aren’t jobs like there were when you got out of college. Three-quarters of minimum-wage workers are age 20 or older. Minimum-wage workers are better-educated today than ever before, but they are paid less than they were thirty years ago. The share of workers at or below the federal minimum wage who had some college education increased from 19.5% to 33.3% between 1979 and 2011. Low-wage jobs comprised about 35% of jobs lost in 2008 and 2009, yet they accounted for 76% of net job growth in 2010. The “golden years” of the 20th century were bound to come to an end and there is no going back. The supposedly progressive boomers often adhere to “Disneyland liberalism” (or as myself or any other radical would say, liberalism). An afternoon at the progressive theme park of social issues before hopping back on the Hedge Fund Highway doesn’t make one progressive and will not solve anything. That’s sad considering they were once graced with the presence of real leftists like Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr, Stokely Carmichael, Huey Newton, etc. That brings me to my next point.
This dislike for radical leftist activism and agitation that you seem to be expressing is absurd. Who do you think got the 8 hour day, weekend, ended child labor, etc.? It wasn’t corporate apologists who think that the Democratic Party is going to make everything better. It wasn’t merely handed down to workers by nice friendly bosses or sympathetic politicians, it was seized and fought for. People died for those rights (Example: Haymarket Affair). To say otherwise is historical revisionism. Eugene Debs, Mother Jones, etc. were socialist agitators. The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) certainly weren’t moderates. Their silly little ideologies (Marxism, anarchism, etc.) are the reason America isn’t as bad as it could be. Who do you think most of the prominent activists of the 60s/70s were? Certainly not capitalists! A simple Google search will show you that the overwhelming majority of people we see in history books when examining the Civil Rights Movement adhered to a left-of-liberal ideology, whether it’s some variant of communism (Maoism was popular), democratic socialism, anarchism, etc. Angela Davis, for example, used to run for President on a CPUSA ticket. The earliest advocates of integration were all communists and anarchists. In the early 1900s, they were told that their ideas were silly and unrealistic. *I should clarify that unlike a right-winger, I say “radical” with a positive connotation and with pride.
Speaking of historical revisionism, let’s talk about how Americans, such as yourself, seem to think that the post-1924 Soviet Union was socialist, let alone even remotely communist. The Soviet Union never even claimed to have achieved communism. They claimed to have achieved socialism and that they were actively working toward communism. Let’s forget about what they said for a moment and look at the facts. The Eastern Bloc was a complete and utter perversion from Marxism. If people ever went beyond curiously skimming “The Communist Manifesto” with their brains already pumped full of propaganda, they would know that Stalinism is hardly socialist or communist. Stalinism has been debunked. Marxism has not. Stalinism is a policy on how to construct socialism and eventually develop a communist society. State terror, authoritarianism, rapid industrialization, the theory of socialism in one country, and subordination of interests of foreign communist parties to those of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union has little to do with common ownership of the means of production, referring to a combination of state control, worker cooperatives, etc. and a truly democratic society run for and by its citizens (socialism) and the gradual transition to a stateless, classless, moneyless society (communism). A term used on the left a lot to refer to Stalinism is “state capitalism”. While it has socialistic traits economically, it maintains the social/political traits inherent to capitalism. As shown in the late 20th century and as predicted by Trotsky in the 1930s, Stalinism will inherently go from a revolutionary period, to a degenerated workers state, to a capitalist counter-revolution. That is not Marxism. Check out “The Revolution Betrayed” and other books from figures in the Anti-Stalinist left.
Anyone, left or right, who adheres to ideological orthodoxy frightens me. Whether you’re a conservative, a liberal, a leftist or anywhere in between, adaptation to modern times is essential. That innovation is essential to drive society forward and unleash new thinkers, etc. While we clearly have other disagreements, I think we can agree there.
No hard feelings,
Meghan
May 20th, 2014 at 12:31 pm
I think you missed the point, and your tirade proves my thesis: how long did it take you to write this?!
It also proves that I’ll accept different opinions in this blog.
Have a great day stewing in your ideologies…and no hard feelings.
May 21st, 2014 at 7:29 am
I think this harkens back to a previous entry where we talked about education and attitudes toward it in our country. I think it has everything to do with the attitude of parents wanting more for their kids, and I agree that you see it in immigrants more than in American citizens (generally speaking). When I got out of school I was working at the health department and we had a lot of Asian refugees as patients. Their parents were sacrificing, working menial jobs and long hours, in order to improve their children’s lot in life, and much of the time they were successful; their kids mostly went to college and many became professionals.
How much of that is the fact that we Americans don’t see hope of improvement or have had that hope taken from us? Certainly our “poor” don’t live like the “poor” of so many other countries, so they see hope when they come here. But education costs a fortune and when these kids come out they can’t make more or do better than the kid who apprenticed as a union laborer or went to beauty school or whatever.
People can complain all they want about their doctors being foreign-born but hey, you can’t have “American-born” doctors if you don’t advocate your kids making the effort, and you supporting them in that effort, to reach as high as they can and achieve the most they can, not settle for the path of least effort. Not saying it doesn’t take any effort to become a carpenter or a pipefitter or something, but it maybe isn’t as challenging in the long run. Also I’m not suggesting that “physician” is the pinnacle of achievement (though a lot of foreign born immigrants certainly see it as such), but I’m just using it as an example of something “more” to strive for.
May 21st, 2014 at 7:30 am
Spam folder with that comment, I guess…
May 21st, 2014 at 8:05 am
Hi Scott,
Sorry about the over-zealous spam folder. It isn’t quite AI yet.
Thank you for your comments. All my post was only “generally speaking.” I might be a bit biased too because I used to be in academia and pay careful attention to which students were doing what.
You’re right that college costs are astronomical. Yet I see college students frittering away their education in many ways. Many children of immigrants, strapped by loans and hours in work-study programs, don’t have time for frat parties and binge drinking–they basically work sixty-hour work weeks and have to manage their time well. Of course, other students are over-achievers too.
There’s always hope in the exceptions. Generally speaking, though, we need a cultural change.
r/Steve