“The Hispanic Challenge”

1. “The Hispanic Challenge” Samuel P. Huntington, Foreign Policy, March/April 2004.

2. Key questions • What is the probable impact on this nation of a very large number of immigrants from nations with cultures that are markedly different and with different kinds of governmental systems? • Should those immigrants be embraced as potential producers of enhanced diversity and excitement and wealth, or should they be regarded as highly problematic? • If they are to be incorporated into the American polity and economy, what public policies would aid the process? (“The Hispanic Challenge? What We Know about Latino Immigration,” Strum, p. 1)

3. How does Huntington understand “culture” and US national identity? • Consider this claim: “Contributions from immigrant cultures modified and enriched the Anglo-Protestant culture of the founding settlers. The essentials of that founding culture remained the bedrock of US identity…”

4. “The persistent flow of Hispanic immigrants threatens to divide the US into two peoples, two, cultures and two languages.” • Unlike past immigrant groups, Mexicans and other Latinos have not assimilated into mainstream US culture • forming their own political and linguistic enclaves—from LA to Miami • rejecting the Anglo-Protestant values that built the American dream

5. US/American identity has changed over time • “America was created by 17th and 18th century settlers, who were overwhelmingly white, British, Protestant.” • Initially defined America in terms of race, ethnicity, culture, and religion • In 18th century, had to define America ideologically, to justify independence from their home country, also white, British and Protestant • By late 19th century, the ethnic component was broadened to include Germans, Irish, and Scandinavians; religious identity was redefined from Protestant to Christian • After WWII and assimilation of large numbers of southern and eastern European immigrants, ethnicity virtually disappeared as a defining component of national identity • After Civil Rights movement and Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, race receded as component of identity • “As a result, American identity is now defined in terms of culture and creed”

6. Threats to American national identity • Doctrines of multiculturalism and diversity • Rise of group identities based on race, ethnicity and gender over national identity • Impact of cultural diasporas • Expanding # of immigrants with dual nationalities and dual loyalties • Growing salience of cosmopolitan identities for intellectual, business and political elites • Forces of globalization • create need for smaller and more meaningful “blood and belief” identities

7. What makes current Mexican/Latin American immigration different • Contiguity • Scale • Illegality • Regional Concentration • Persistence • Historical Presence

8. But is Mexican immigration really so different, Mexican culture so alien? • Huntington argues that Mexicans and other Latinos, unlike other immigrant groups, have not assimilated into mainstream US culture • instead forming their own political and linguistic enclaves—from LA to Miami • rejecting the Anglo-Protestant values that built the American dream

9. “Irreconcilable Differences”? • Huntington: “As their numbers increase, [Mexican Americans] become more committed to their own ethnic identity and culture. Sustained numerical expansion promotes cultural consolidation and leads Mexican Americans not to minimize but to glory in the differences between their culture and US culture.” • Is this true? What’s his evidence?

10. Robert Suro calls article “shoddy scholarship” • Suro: “With the exception of the aberrational period between 1924 and 1965, the US has always been a multicultural society…in which there has always been disenfranchised people such as the slave population, Native Americans, and various immigrant groups. What Huntington has not taken into account is the diversity within the Latino immigrant population, not only between US-born and foreign-born but within various nationality populations and across a broad array of other variables as well.” (pp. 26-27) • Suro notes change in how “the poor are demonized” • earlier, as “Welfare Queens” or “cheats” to people with “too great a work ethic,” who’ll work for anything

11. Other notes/criticisms • Mexicans/Latinos already ARE here, the country HAS changed • Nearly half of undocumented population in US (45%) do not enter illegally, but “overstay visas” (Pew Hispanic Ctr, 2006) • Continued immigration is necessary to replace retiring workers, to keep the workforce young