And just think, that implies that there will someday be a third generation of Latinos!
And, it turns out, that this second generation of Mexicans isn't doing all that well. Who could have possibly predicted that? Doesn't it say on the Statue of Liberty that all immigrants will rapidly join the middle class?
Struggles of the second generationI realize that nobody in the East ever heard of Mexican-Americans before recently, but there are actually more than two generations in the U.S.
U.S.-born children of Latino immigrants fight to secure a higher foothold
By N.C. Aizenman
Javier Saavedra slumped his burly frame into a worn, plaid couch in the cramped basement room he shares with his girlfriend and their 2-year-old daughter, his expression darkening as he ticked off all the wrong turns that had gotten them stuck below the economy's ground floor.
Raised by Mexican immigrant parents, Saavedra was a gang member by 13, a high school dropout by 16 and a father by 21. Now 23, he has been trying to turn his life around since his daughter, Julissa, was born.
But without a high school diploma, Saavedra was unable to find a job that paid enough for him and his girlfriend, Mayra Hererra, 20 and pregnant with their second child, to move out of her parents' brick home in Hyattsville.
Even the dim, wood-paneled room piled with baby toys and large plastic bags of clothing was costing them $350 a month.
"I get so upset with myself," Saavedra said. "I should have a better chance at a job [than our parents]. I want to be helping them with their bills, not them still helping me."
Millions of children of Latino immigrants are confronting the same challenge as they come of age in one of the most difficult economic climates in decades.
Whether they succeed will have consequences far beyond immigrant circles. As a result of the arrival of more than 20 million mostly Mexican and Central American newcomers in a wave that swelled in the 1970s and soared during the 1990s, the offspring of Latino immigrants now account for one of every 10 children, both in the United States and the Washington region.
Largely because of the growth of this second generation, Latino immigrants and their U.S.-born children and grandchildren will represent almost a third of the nation's working-age adults by mid-century, according to projections from U.S. Census Bureau data by Jeffrey S. Passel, a demographer with the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center in Washington.
Not since the last great wave of immigration to the United States around 1900 has the country's economic future been so closely entwined with the generational progress of an immigrant group. And so far, on nearly every measure, the news is troubling.
Second-generation Latinos have the highest high school dropout rate -- one in seven [sic] -- of any U.S.-born racial or ethnic group and the highest teen pregnancy rate. These Latinos also receive far fewer college degrees and make significantly less money than non-Hispanic whites and other second-generation immigrants.
The UCLA sociology department tracked first through fifth generation Mexican-Americans, parents, children, and grandchildren in LA and San Antonio from 1965 through 2000. Edward E. Telles and Vilma Ortiz reported on the results in their 2008 book Generations of Exclusion: Mexican Americans, Assimilation, and Race. They found that education progress stopped with the second generation, and that the fourth generation (whose grandparents were born in America) was particularly unaccomplished:
"Sadly and directly in contradistinction to assimilation theory, the fourth generation differs the most from whites, with a college completion rate of only 6 percent [compared to 35 percent for whites of that era]."
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
"Not since the last great wave of immigration to the United States around 1900 has the country's economic future been so closely entwined with the generational progress of an immigrant group. And so far, on nearly every measure, the news is troubling."
ReplyDeleteSounds like someone at the Washington Post has been secretly reading Jared Taylor!
Anyway, it's once the mostly White Baby Boomers retire that the economic inefficiency of Hispanics will really put the American Economy on a pathway to Hades.
I'm going to need a lot more Jewish perspective on this issue before I decide just what is what.
ReplyDeleteProbably take at least 10-15 more years before I make up my mind. Maybe twenty.
Maybe society should adopt a more inclusive concept of 'success'.
ReplyDeleteDo old-stock African-Americans do better than 4th generation Mestizo Americans?
ReplyDeleteIf so that would indicate that their higher charisma, female work ethic, and possibly white guilt benefit African-Americans more than their IQ advantage and lower crime rate benefits Mestizos.
"a father by 21"
ReplyDeleteGod bless him. Everything else is fixable.
Well there were Mexicans in south Texas that were in the United States before the area they were living in became part of the US, it was conquered by US armies. The US at the time sensibly opted not to take more Mexican territory because it would have meant absorbing more Mexicans.
ReplyDeleteThe mainstream media looks at immigration in the frame of Eastern Europeans getting off the boat at Ellis Island, which has never come close to being a good way to view Mexicans entering this country.
Ahhhooogggaaa!
ReplyDeleteGesundheit!
I think our elites like the Latino cohort precisely because the Latinos are non-competitive in SWPL areas.
ReplyDeleteHispanics is such a wide term, an open ended term. SOME Hispanics look Asiatic with the eyes and face shapes. Many Hispanics look White, with light skin/dark/eyes. The later category(light skin ones) identified with White European Americans.
ReplyDeleteAs something of an aside, I have long noticed - and detest -- the tendency, seemingly so prevalent in the left-leaning media, of making news anecdotal. Any 'news' story that begins with a Joe Schmoe tale should be cast into the copy writer's hell.
ReplyDelete"Won't somebody think of the children?' - Maude Flanders
But without a high school diploma, Saavedra was unable to find a job that paid enough for him and his girlfriend, Mayra Hererra, 20 and pregnant with their second child, to move out of her parents' brick home in Hyattsville.
ReplyDeleteI thought what latinos lacked in other areas they made up for with a solidly, religious, pro-family values culture.
Excuse me, but the chosen sound effect has distinctly anti-semitic overtones as its subtext is a reference to the Model-T FORD. Thank God the Ford Foundation has subverted its founder's ideas and as thought-leader to the mid-Atlantic elites, helped to destroy the American white middle class character lest it fulfill Henry Ford's dream of a thousand year Reich!
ReplyDeleteThe Census Bureau has just reported that about half of the American population will soon be non-white or non-European. And they will all be American citizens. We have tipped beyond the point where a Nazi-Aryan party will be able to prevail in this country: We [i.e., Jews] have been nourishing the American climate of opposition to bigotry for about half a century. That climate has not yet been perfected, but the heterogeneous nature of our population tends to make it irreversible — and makes our constitutional constraints against bigotry more practical than ever.
-- Earl Raab executive director emeritus of the Perlmutter Institute for Jewish Advocacy at Brandeis University. He is also a columnist for the San Francisco Jewish Bulletin. Among other works, he is co-author, with Seymour Lipset of The Politics of Unreason: Right Wing-Extremism in America, 1790-1970 (Lipset & Raab 1970), a volume in a series of books on anti-Semitism in the United States sponsored by the ADL.
My late father left his father's Iowa farm and volunteered to go fight the Nazis before Perl Harbor after reading press reports of Lindbergh's Des Moines speech. I certainly wouldn'nt want his patriotic commitment to his country to have been in vain!
The most recent generation of Americans (whose ancestors have been in America a lot longer than most Latinos) are a Sad Sack bunch so it shouldn't be any surprise that Latinos are even worse.
ReplyDelete"But without a high school diploma, ... unable to find a job ... and his girlfriend, Mayra Hererra, 20 and pregnant with their second child."
ReplyDelete"Latino immigrants and their U.S.-born children and grandchildren will represent almost a third of the nation's working-age adults by mid-century"
"the fourth generation differs the most from whites, with a college completion rate of only 6 percent"
That's a bright future we are facing.
This is a travesty! We as a nation should feel a sense of deep shame. How could we let this happen? We need to vote more bleeding heart liberals into office so as to prevent this from ever occurring again.
ReplyDeleteThe personal disgust and guilt I feel over such a tragedy is literally ineffable. I'm going out right now to hire a pack of our valued "citizens" from south of the border to do some totally unnecessary, ornamental work on my yard. And when they're done with that, I'll pay them to do spackling and painting that I could easily do myself. You can bet I will encourage everyone to do likewise because, DAMMIT, it's the right thing to do for our country!
i mentioned this to steve a few years ago. when i looked at human accomplishment, it was glaring that mestizos and american indians from mexico were doing almost nothing, in any field.
ReplyDeleteit's one of the main reasons i left them completely out of my magnum opus post - US mestizos make barely any noteworthy music, even though there are more of them than black americans in the US now. steve also posted about how they don't appear in video games - nor are they involved in making video games, either. or films. or anything.
they're a black hole, and they're the future of the US, which must still go up against huge, high IQ china. huge india. and a vast, rapidly growing, 2 billion strong population of muslims.
noting the "black hole" properties of not only mestizo and american indian groups, but also south asians in massive nations like indonesia and pakistan which produce virtually NOTHING despite their enormous population size, was one of the first things that made me question the ideas of lynn and rushton.
So he's 23 and he has two children? For Christ's sake, don't these people use birth control??
ReplyDelete"Despite her pregnancy, Hererra had continued to take classes toward a business degree at a Northern Virginia vocational college. Now 21, she hopes to graduate next year and get a job in human resources.
ReplyDeleteSaavedra had subscribed to an online course to work toward a high school diploma. His plan was to do a lesson a week on the computer next to his and Hererra's bed in the basement.
But Saavedra ended up whiling away his time updating the Street Nations Web site and chatting with other members on its message board -- 'your Twitter,' Hererra called it."
She's gonna leave him not long after she gets a job, at the absolute latest. I see this a lot with black couples as well where a baby comes along, and the mother gets her act together but the father continues to act as though he has no responsibilities in the world. That's why black women say "I can do bad all by myself". This guy will fart around starting and stopping his GED course, have a few more kids out of wedlock, and live off the kids' moms before they throw him out. He'll work sporadically, develop a drinking problem, if he hasn't already, and end up dying is his 50s or early 60s of alcohol-related issues. This is assuming he doesn't go back into gangs.
In Al Gore's new book, pages 224 to 241 deal with population, but
ReplyDeletethere are only a few brief references to immigration. One of them does seem insightful.
"When populations of impoverished migrants move into areas that are already home to peoples with different cultures, traditions, belief systems and languages, the potential for conflict and violence increases."
However, he is referring to Africa, not California.
He makes the legitimate point that "the impact of the climate crisis,--particularly in nations suffering the harsh effects of higher temperatures and soil moisture evaporation--magnifies the pressure to migrate."
However, he doesn't look at the other side brought up in Steve's column last week, that successful migrants inevitably increase their carbon footprint with more cars and more kids.
Sorry to sound cruel, but their having two kids probably wasn't the brightest move, given their circumstances.
ReplyDelete"Shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves in three generations."
ReplyDeleteYa know what would be great: Comparing the progeny of Mexican immigrants with that of Asian immigrants.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure there wouldn't be any difference at all!!
Oh wait. That whole values thing. Well then, let's look at transracial adoption data and middle class black families.
Oh they're still doing worse? Well Pioneer Fund, Pioneer Fund, Pioneer Fund, I'm not listening!!!
[For a concise algorithm of arguing like a liberal creationist see this: Liberal Creationism.]
Well, they DO know about Puerto Ricans out East. I guarantee they do. And the PRs have had a similar patttern of failure to thrive, gang activity, and persistent stupidness.
ReplyDeleteThe elites know what they are doing. They are packing flyover country with people that the elites in their own countries don't want to break the kulaks. (That's us.) When we are done for the pest browners will be dealt with summarily.
America's future looks BROWN and BLEAK.
ReplyDeleteThere was already a significant cohort of Puerto Ricans in NYC by WW II. They were the bottom of the barrel then. They are the bottom of the barrel now. They did not assimilated, have not assimilated and never will assimilate. Second generation, hah. Try sixth generation.
ReplyDelete"There was already a significant cohort of Puerto Ricans in NYC by WW II. They were the bottom of the barrel then."
ReplyDeleteBut many are good-looking.
Jody says: "US mestizos make barely any noteworthy music"
ReplyDeleteIt's odd how little impact Mexican-Americans are having on music these days. Back in the 1980s, I would have rated David Hidalgo of Los Lobos, graduate of Garfield High School in East LA, as the finest all-around musician I'd ever heard at any rock concert.
Middletown Girl says:
ReplyDelete"Many Mexicans arrive dirt poor and ignorant like illiterate Southern Italians and dimwit Poles who arrived long ago."
While probably a little, er, unfair - you raise the interesting question ,why are Italians not considered "latinos"? To us Europeans the gap between Italians, Portuguese and Spanish is paper thin...
"US mestizos make barely any noteworthy music"
ReplyDeleteIf you go by pop charts and mainstream tastes, this may be true. But, I prefer Mexican music to rap and much of American pop music. Christina Aguilera and Justin Timberlake, anyone? And, is much of country hillbilly twangy stuff any better than Mexican music?
Mexican music can be fun. Walk by a public park, and I'm sometimes delighted by the sight of huge Mexican families having a good time together and playing/singing that hearty, friendly, and blissful music. It aint Wagner or Beethoven but it's pleasant and welcoming enough. It reminds me of the scene in the Wild Bunch where the guys ride out of Angel's village and all the Mexicans are singing. Good music, not bad at all. It's certainly not hip or cool, but that's its charm. It's unapologetically, sentimental, happy, warm, old-fashioned... like Polka music or German Beer drinking music. Love them too.
This doesn't mean I welcome illegal immigration which is indeed out of control. And, too many unassimilated Mexicans will turn US into an extension of dysfunctional Mexico.
Besides, what does it mean to be assimilated these days? It means listening to Rap music and watching too much TV. Indeed, assimilation into American culture happens all over the world as Hollywood and American pop music are everywhere. And what does it amount to? Kids in all five continents trying to be 50 cents, Eminem, or Will Smith.
There was a time when American pop culture used to mean John Ford westerns, Gary Cooper, Frank Capra, James Stewart. And, black contribution to American music used to be more dignified, magnificent--jazz, soul, r&b. But, American pop culture is mostly garbage now, and becoming American now means becoming trashy.
I think many Mexicans and PRs who did successfully assimilate to the American mainstream, also ended up intermarrying and losing their identity as Mexicans. I have many friends from college who have a Hispanic parent or grandparent. Perhaps these Mexican descended folks were not tracked in the study.
ReplyDeleteMany Mexicans arrive dirt poor and ignorant like illiterate Southern Italians and dimwit Poles who arrived long ago
ReplyDeleteActually a lot of the Italians and Poles who arrived in the 19th century were literate. A lot of the Italians, like my great grandfather, were talented craftsmen who never planned to stay in the US until WWI intervened. My great grandmother - an Italian immigrant - read Dante for pleasure. How many Mexican immigrants can read Don Quixote? Or care to?
To jody who said:
ReplyDeleteUS mestizos make barely any noteworthy music
Like Santana and Los Lobos?
.. why are Italians not considered "latinos"? To us Europeans the gap between Italians, Portuguese and Spanish is paper thin...
ReplyDeleteOf course in the US, Italians, Portuguese and Spanish are not considered "Latino". It's a term used to describe Mestizo's - people of partial (or sometimes, complete) Amerindian ancestry.
I wonder if things might have been different if lots of Mexicans arrived in the late 19th century or early 20th century through the Eastern Coast--like European immigrants. Back then, settled whites insisted on newcomers assimiliating and taking on American values. Also, whites in the Eastern Coast were more progressive and committed to improving the lot of new immigrants--from Italy, Greece, Poland, Russia, etc.
ReplyDeleteIt would have helped some, I expect. But the reality is that the typical Mexican immigrant lacks the IQ of most of the white European immigrants you mentioned.
And what does it amount to? Kids in all five continents trying to be 50 cents, Eminem, or Will Smith.
ReplyDeleteWhat's wrong with Will Smith? His rap lyrics include no profanity or vulgarity.
Mexican music can be fun. Walk by a public park, and I'm sometimes delighted by the sight of huge Mexican families having a good time together and playing/singing that hearty, friendly, and blissful music...Good music, not bad at all. It's certainly not hip or cool, but that's its charm. It's unapologetically, sentimental, happy, warm, old-fashioned... like Polka music or German Beer drinking music.
ReplyDeleteStrangely enough, there's a pretty good chance it actually *is* German music. Apparently, during the 19th Century, there was a wave of German settlement in Mexico, and some of the German *oompah* music, in modified form, eventually became part of rural Mexican folk culture. I think it's called "Banda" music, but I wouldn't swear to it...
i guess my real question is: does this mean that my kids will have to give up their spot in college to correct this gap, or is the Washington Post willing to publicly consider that there might be another reason?
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said: "This guy will fart around starting and stopping his GED course, have a few more kids out of wedlock, and live off the kids' moms before they throw him out. He'll work sporadically, develop a drinking problem, if he hasn't already, and end up dying is his 50s or early 60s of alcohol-related issues. This is assuming he doesn't go back into gangs."
ReplyDeleteWell, he will have managed to reproduce which, in the end, is all that matters.
He has different expectations and different standards from white Americans. The structure and assumptions of our government assumes the citizens are Englishmen or act and think like Englishmen but many of our immigrants are not and most do not.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you do?
I think many Mexicans and PRs who did successfully assimilate to the American mainstream, also ended up intermarrying and losing their identity as Mexicans. I have many friends from college who have a Hispanic parent or grandparent. Perhaps these Mexican descended folks were not tracked in the study.
ReplyDeleteYes, exactly---P.O.C. is completely correct. This is the upteenth time Steve has made this ridiculous sociological error, and I've just grown weary of continually correcting him.
Your average "fifth generation Mexican-Americans" are basically Raquel Welch's grandchildren...hence not defined as "Mexican-Americans."
There is no comparison between the current Mexican immigration wave and the one full of guidos and paddies and polacks and add in your favorite slurs.
ReplyDeleteMy husband's grandparents were illiterate Sicilians; his father is a movie producer; he is a software engineer. My widowed Irish greatgrandmother was a janitor; her son was a policeman; her daughter graduated from university, raised children, returned to school for an MA; I graduated from university, attended law school but dropped out to have children.
Both our lineages stayed in ethnic enclaves as long as they could; those enclaves had very little input from mainstream American culture. We would still be living there if integration hadn't destroyed them and forced us to abandon the cities.
We are far from unusual. Neither of us has a single relative in our generation in prison, addicted to drugs, in a gang, or even any who don't have BAs. No one has children out of wedlock. *This is normal for descendants of Western European immigrants.*
We both grew up in California. We both know Mexicans, have socialized with them, been neighbors with them, sent our children to school with them, gone to church with them. Mexicans are FAR more assimilated to American norms than our immediate ancestors ever were. My mother grew up in a neighborhood where the only people who weren't Irish were Jewish. She didn't meet anyone without a strong neighborhood accent until she was in her 20s! I am four generations from the old country, and one from the neighborhood, but I still think of myself as Irish-American. How assimilated is that? Not very.
"To jody who said:
ReplyDeleteUS mestizos make barely any noteworthy music
Like Santana and Los Lobos?"
And Tito Puente!
I've been listening to Tito Puente for years...
I don't think it is going to be good Canada if the US slowly becomes joins the ranks of Latin America. Canada had better get busy trying to find markets for our exports in China, or we're going down the tube too.
ReplyDeleteOh well...maybe by the time things get really bad in the US, Canada will have turned into the Punjab of the north, and what is happening in the US will be the least of our worries. It is already beginning in BC:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2009/12/07/bc-highway-van-crash-inquest.html
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2009/12/04/bc-veterinarian-bhullar-inquiry.html
Apparently, during the 19th Century, there was a wave of German settlement in Mexico, and some of the German *oompah* music, in modified form, eventually became part of rural Mexican folk culture.
ReplyDeleteYes indeed. See Ronstadt, Linda.
How did you think mariachi bands got those darned accordions?
How did you think mariachi bands got those darned accordions?
ReplyDeleteThey are actually an Aztec invention -- called the Tlacopoltimilco, originally fashioned from armadillo skins and agave fiber.
Like Santana and Los Lobos?
ReplyDeletethese examples prove the point (lack of mestizo contributions to american music) because they are both oldtime boomer bands from a generation ago.
whatever. the point is mestizos hardly produce any world beaters in any field not just music.
portugal used to be a great power in this world. then third world miscegenation took them out of the top tier global trendsetter nations and that's just the way it goes.
btw kudos to director ridley scott for showing the pre-moorish white (roman) iberian peninsula genetics in the film 'gladiator'. hopefully that movie got some of the clueless audience making the connection to modern day california events: before the moorish invasion the geography known as iberia was once a first world white world.
the same changes are happening in north america today. the darkening of america is coinciding with the curtain coming down on our glorious age.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5VfcCLIvjU
ReplyDeleteMana is a pretty cool Mexican rock band. They had lots of good stuff in the 90s.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY6hsTHtrFo
ReplyDeleteWhat's not to like?
One endearing thing about Mexican musical culture--much of it anyway--is that it's all-embracing and for the entire family. It brings back memories of the old world where people at gatherings played the kind of music everyone understood and could dance to--from grannies to toddlers(like in the wedding scene in The Godfather). There is little in the way of conceit, 'statement', or 'attitude' as with much modern pop music where rap is supposed to be FOR blackness and AGAINST whiteness or where punk is supposed for be FOR working class angst and AGAINST respectable values, and etc. Mexican music has a kind of circus atmosphere and welcomes all. It's for old and young, skinny and fatty, good dancers and bad dancers, etc and etc. Just drink and party and ole and hola.
That said, everything in moderation. Some degree of Mexican stuff is endearing, which is why Americans like to vacation in Mexico for week or two and then return. But, TOO MUCH of that stuff is like having burritos for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Mexico caught a lot of European immigrants during the 1890-1910 period when it was run by a Francophile secular liberal dictator, Porfirio Diaz, who was close with and similar in many ways to Teddy Roosevelt. It has one of the fastest economic growth rates in the world, and much of Mexico City's old slums were leveled to rebuilt to look like Paris, along with many other massive public works like railroads, hospitals, and schools.
ReplyDeleteEuropean immigration was strongly encouraged during this period, especially French, but they ending up getting plenty of Spanish, Irish, Germans, and Italians too.
By around 1910 Mexico was at its whitest, but the Mexican Revolution destroyed the economy, and many new arrivals fled. Others married into with Mexico's old white upper class, who regained control of the country after 10 years of civil war against populist mestizo and indian armies.
Yes, exactly---P.O.C. is completely correct.
ReplyDeleteRKU - No he's not. He's thinking about the European-descended Spaniards in his high IQ demographic, not the Meso-Americans bussing tables at the cafe' where he goes for lunch. For people like you and POC, Meso-Americans bussing tables and operating leaf blowers don't even exist. Invisible. Completely off the radar.
Boy are y'all gonna be surprised when some pan-Hispanic nationalist demagogue gets their kids registered to vote.
Well, at least the mess is finally getting some mainstream attention. Better late than never.
ReplyDelete"Many Mexicans arrive dirt poor and ignorant like illiterate Southern Italians and dimwit Poles who arrived long ago
ReplyDeleteActually a lot of the Italians and Poles who arrived in the 19th century were literate. A lot of the Italians, like my great grandfather, were talented craftsmen who never planned to stay in the US until WWI intervened. My great grandmother - an Italian immigrant - read Dante for pleasure. How many Mexican immigrants can read Don Quixote? Or care to?"
http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=29542
In the interview above, Steven Malanga made a critical point about the difference between modern immigration and early 20th century immigration. In the early 20th century, our economy was based less of formal education (i.e. graduating from high school, going to college, etc.) and more on trade skills. Those immigrants, despite lacking a formal education, had exceptional trade skills, which made it easy for them to move up the economic latter. By contrast, success in today's America depends on formal education, and today's immigrants (especially the Latin Americans) are drastically behind their native-born peers. This is a recipe for disaster.
RKU:
ReplyDeleteYou are probably correct about that
and not only as to German music.
I attended a very impressive music/dance performance (a regular tourist and local attraction) put on by pros and semipros at the university at Guadalajara. (I'm no afficionado of such stuff but was
under female duress to accompany--for which I'm thankful--it was truly great!).
It was explained for the audience that the invading U.S. Army had a great influence on Mexican musis--particularly the Irish recent immigrants. In fact, many Mexicans attribute the term "gringo" to the words to the music words "green, green grass" sung by the Irish troops.
I'm going to need a lot more Jewish perspective on this issue before I decide just what is what.
ReplyDeleteHere are two jewish descendants of immigrants to the US arguing about what's best for the struggling descendants of jewish immigrants in israel.
Your average "fifth generation Mexican-Americans" are basically Raquel Welch's grandchildren...hence not defined as "Mexican-Americans."
ReplyDeleteRaquel Welch (b. Tejada) was the daughter of an aeronautical engineer - from Bolivia, not Mexico; her American mother was the daughter of an architect and a founding member of the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards.
A bit different from the ancestry of the average Mexican migrating to the US, right?
RE: musical contributions.
- Tito Puento is American-born, of Puerto Rican ancestry. Not a good example of Mestizo influence.
- Carlos Santana is a much better example, as he is indeed Mexican-born and has been (and in some ways remains) very influential as a musician. However, his musical roots are mostly a combination of blues and rock with Latin influences that owe much more to Cuban and Puerto Rican musical styles than to Mexican ones.
- I'd count Linda Ronstadt as a legitimate example, as her father was a (German-surnamed) Mexican and she absorbed the musical influence of mariachi music. Her mariachi-style recordings (Canciones de mi Padre etc) are actually pretty good.
- The earlier commenter who mentioned German influence on Mexican music is spot on. I have recognized 'German' songs in mariachi performances on more than one occasion. (one example I happen to remember occurs in the movie El Mariachi (1992) where the main character has to play a song to prove that he's a musician not a gangster).
"We are far from unusual.'
ReplyDeleteName a single positive, notable Sicilian descendant. Hard to make a list.
Sicilians don't achieve much. They've just mixed completely.
I'll say this much. If Mexicans were Muslims hostile to Jews and Zionism, and if US were on the path to becoming 50% Hispanic-Muslim, we would have a closed borders policy right now. The Jewish community simply would not allow it. The liberal Jewish elite pushes immigration because the influx of Mexicans is seen as undermining WASP power--liberal Jewish elite plays divide-and-rule among the gentiles. It all comes down to 'Is it good for the Jews?'
ReplyDeleteBut, suppose most Mexicans were Muslim and pro-Palestinian. Jews would find some clever excuse--constitution, rule of law, national security, etc--to call for end of immigration(at least illegal immigration)right this moment!!! And since Jews control the media, academia, schools, and government, they would get what they want.
Jewish allegiance to the US constitution is never consistent. When it comes to undermining Christianity or white power, Jews invoke the constitution as the truth and nothing but the truth. Jews seek to de-Christianize schools and force Christian groups to accept gays in the name of 'separation of church and state'. Jews insist we must follow the letter of the constitution at all times.
But, when it comes to anti-white affirmative action, Jews bend the rules and say we must follow the 'spirit' of the constitution even if whites are discriminated against on the basis of race or color.
Jews are currently pro-immigration in the 'spirit' of the constitution, but if most Mexicans were anti-Jewish Muslims, Jews would be arguing for the LETTER of the constitution.
When angry Palestinian protests broke out in big cities when Israel attacked Gaza, Martin Peretz of the New Republic wrote an article wondering if open immigration was good for the Jews. It all comes down to 'is it good for the Jews?' If most immigrants can be used against white power, it's good for the Jews. If most or many immigrants are hostile to Jews, it's not good for the Jews. For now, Jews are agreed that the number one priority must be weakening white power and since most immigrants are NOT Muslim, Jews are pro-immigration. We really need to ask, 'Is it good for whites?' and 'Are Jews good for whites?'
> The Washington Post breaks the astonishing news that there's actually a second generation of Latinos in the United States. <
ReplyDeleteWho did imagine was spraying graffiti everywhere?
Poor deprived uneducated pitiable black youth? "White supremacists" and "neo-Nazis"? Evil South African whites, a la the worldview of TV's "Law and Order"?
The mind boggles.
Reply to middletown girl:
ReplyDeleteI commend you on an insightful post. Jews were and are the driving force behind the demographic changes sweeping America since the 1960's.
Well, near as I can tell, Mexicans seem like pretty "average" people...
ReplyDeleteIs it really great to be average?
Probably not. But it ain't so terrible either...
Zach Taylor:
ReplyDeleteWhen Santa Ana surrendered at the battle at San Jacinto, he signed a cession of everything south to the Rio Grande. When, years later, Mexico claimed the Texas border to be further north, at the Nueces, the reneg on the original terms occasioned the U.S.-Mexican War and invasion of Mexico.
On the road from San Antonio to Laredo, the Nueces lies about halfway (about 75 miles from either) and flows to the Gulf at Corpus Christi. At one time, LBJ taught school there.
Sixty years ago, I'd say most (though couldn't give you percentages) of the people south of San Antonio--or at least a very large portion, though from that area and clearly American citizens, either spoke no English or did so only with difficulty (and very many of the "gringo" inhabitants spoke Spanish with some degree of fluenoy. Almost any
place of business took either US or Mexican money (coin or paper) with no hesitation or special treatment.
Name a single positive, notable Sicilian descendant.
ReplyDeleteName one? Chief Justice Antonio Scalia. A list?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sicilian_Americans
"...but if most Mexicans were anti-Jewish Muslims, Jews would be arguing for the LETTER of the constitution."
ReplyDeleteActually, a larger-than-you-may-think number of Mexicans (and Latin Americans in general) hold anti-Semitic attitudes. The Mexicans sometimes refer to themselves as "America's Palestinians."
Why the Jewish elite doesn't see this is beyond me.
A Mexican is Mexican... It does not matter if he is born in Guadalajara, Veracruz, Chicago, or Sacramento...
ReplyDeleteWell, near as I can tell, Mexicans seem like pretty "average" people...
ReplyDeleteIs it really great to be average?
Probably not. But it ain't so terrible either...
That's great. Mexico could adopt that as its official motto: "Average--it ain't so terrible either!"
Or maybe, "At least we're not Africa!"
Surely you can understand the frustration of watching an above-average country making itself average by deliberate policy?
Mexicans AREN'T average, unless average is defined a lot lower than it used to be.
ReplyDelete"Actually, a larger-than-you-may-think number of Mexicans (and Latin Americans in general) hold anti-Semitic attitudes."
ReplyDeleteYep. Check out this article about noted Ashkenazi Islamophobe Joe Lieberman found on a La Raza mouthpiece Website:
http://www.aztlan.net/lieberman_an_ashkenazi_islamophobe.htm
Especially check out the rather interesting cartoon found about halfway down and to the right.
I can't say there's anything inaccurate about the description of Sen. Lieberman in the article, but it still would've been called Anti-Semitic if it were written by a white.
ADL, where R YOOOO!!?!?!??!??
Far less charming though is this disgusting piece of anti-free speech propaganda entitled "England did Right in Banning Hate-Mongering US Jew Michael Savage"
http://www.aztlan.net/england_bans_savage.htm
Also, did you know that Islamophobia caused the Fort Hood shooting?
http://www.aztlan.net/fort_hood_shootings.htm
"Actually, a larger-than-you-may-think number of Mexicans (and Latin Americans in general) hold anti-Semitic attitudes."
ReplyDeleteYes, I heard this from Abe Foxman's League of Angry Jews or whatever it's called, but according to such groups, EVERYONE is anti-semitic unless he or she bows down to Jewish power and begs for mercy.
In truth, most Mexicans are indifferent to Jews or Israel. They are not as politically correct nor 'sensitive' about Jewish matters as we are--after all, many Mexicans are uneducated and come from crude communities--, but they have no passionate hostility toward Jews. Hispanic stereotypes of Jews is hardly different from their stereotypes of gringos, Asians, blacks, etc. It's not deep nor personal. Unless a Mexican spends time in a US jail and converts to crazy Islam, he won't be a danger to Jews.
But, Mexicans are considered 'antisemitic' by some people because it's considered wicked to hold any negative opinions of Jews. In other words, no big deal if you say, 'gringo is greedy', 'chino is cheap', 'polacko is stupido', but there's a problem if you 'negro is lazy-o' or 'jewito is dishonesto'.
Jews and blacks--and increasingly gays--cannot be spoken badly of.
In truth, most Mexicans are indifferent to Jews or Israel...But, Mexicans are considered antisemitic' by some people because it's considered wicked to hold any negative opinions of Jews.
ReplyDeleteYep, as usual, Middletown Girl got it exactly right...
Muffy: formal education... trade skills...
ReplyDeleteWhich is precisely the difference between people who lead useless lives and people who lead useful lives.
MT said
ReplyDelete> Mexicans came through the Southwest where the white cowboy types didn't provide much in the way of upward social mobility or progressive learning. <
Blaming Whitey, eh?
Northeasterners really didn't provide much more to the other groups you mentioned, except the general American political structure and the economic opportunity it provided (also available in the Wild West). What high quality educational opportunties were afforded to most slum-dwellers in 1850-80? Those European immigrants did very well nevertheless. And living on the range is at least as good as living in a slum, if not better. So your anticowboyite mislogy should be consigned to the nearest spitoon, or when you articulate it, smile.
re:"I think many Mexicans and PRs who did successfully assimilate to the American mainstream, also ended up intermarrying and losing their identity as Mexicans. I have many friends from college who have a Hispanic parent or grandparent. Perhaps these Mexican descended folks were not tracked in the study."
ReplyDeleteBingo. I feel you hit on something both the left wing multiculturalists as well as the right generally miss: better off (IOW mostly whiter) Latinos tend to integrate into the white community. I myself am a case in point. My parents were immigrants from Ecuador to Canada. So to both the lefty-liberal multicult types and the VDare types, I'm just another second generation Latino in North America right? Maybe technically...but if you to see me, you'd understand that my family is mostly German-Irish-Spanish (that is pure European Spanish) immigrants from Ecuador's white minority. Hence my nick here, "blanco", which is a joke on both the lib-left multiculturalists and the anti-Latino right, both of whom lump all "Latinos" as a race of mulattoes and mestizos. We're not. Many of us look like Christina Aguilera, Desi Arnez, Ricardo Montalbaln, Vicente Fox. Some even look like Alberto Fujimori.
"...not the Meso-Americans bussing tables at the cafe' where he goes for lunch."
ReplyDeleteUmmm, I eat lunch at my desk (and sometimes dinner too). Plus I clean up my own desk. You're right, I did not notice any Hispanic busboys at my law firm. However we do have some Hispanic attorneys, paralegals, and secretaries. I think they'd be pretty offended if I asked them to clean my desk for me.
Blanco,
Yup exactly. And contrary to Reactionary's claims many of my friends' and collegues' hispanic parents and grandparents are not primarily of European descent, although the children look it more or less.