It definitely fits the pattern of every other wave of immigration: People come over and get shat on, and after enough of them accumulate and integrate, they veer rightward and co-sign on a restrictionist backlash. A generation or so later, as their descendants gain upward mobility, they liberalize and join the elite, reopening immigration for the next wave to start the cycle all over again.
I wasn't familiar with Huntington's non-academic biographic, but now note his connection to the Democratic Party. Advisor to Hubert Humphrey during the 1968 election, chairman of the party's Foreign Policy Advisory Committee in the mid-70s, and working for Carter at the NSC. His thesis about the "non-integrability" of Hispanic immigrants to the US presumably did not directly and explicitly influence Democratic thinking, but was consistent with the total misunderstanding of immigrants that has increasingly characterized the party. "Assimilation" became a dirty word in progressive ranks, with the notion of preserving the specificity (but also by implication the insularity and non-integration) of immigrant groups gaining traction. In fact, immigrants overwhelmingly do not wish to remain hyphenated Americans, and Democratic rhetoric based on an identity group by identity group model of America has clearly lost a lot of immigrant support. I say this as a lifelong Democrat, but also as the child of immigrants who experienced first hand the challenges, but also the enormous benefits, of integration into broad American society.
In many ways, Huntington's career parallels the abandonment of the New Deal coalition that provided "the vital center" of American politics for a generation. By the Carter Administration, it was in decline. By the Obama administration, it was dead. The rise of identity politics--emphasizing race and gender and ethnicity over class--paralleled the abandonment of the "common man" to the business elites and a neoliberalism that focused on the worst parts of classical liberalism while it ignored the liberal heart. And every step of the way, Huntington cheered. https://substack.com/home/post/p-153029987?source=queue
Agreed. I do think America is great at creating recognition and even fun with St. Patrick's Day parades,San Gennaro festivals, Cinco de Maya celebrations and so on. Have a party, bring some scrummy food to the American table and let's all get along.
Plus ca change. I wonder if Huntington is familiar with the 1881 report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor Statistics which declared that French-Canadians (my ancestors) were "the Chinese of the Eastern States." It was not meant as a compliment. Different century and ethnic group but the same complaints about speaking their native language, being slow to assimilate, planning to work a few years then return to Quebec.
"Will the United States remain a country with a single national language and a core Anglo-Protestant culture?" As though this is, or ever was a good thing?
This is entirely a take on Hispanics wanting comprehensive immigration reform, and the effects of inflation on mixed status families.
A cohort of Hispanics pissed at newer economic migrants who pose as asylum seekers, because the older cohort hasn't been the recipients of status legalization is a statement that speaks for a lack of a path to citizenship... not a denouncement or erosion of cultural or parochial ties from their respective countries of origin.
I think the question for majority of Americans has never been about immigration (discounting the 10% of cranks you will have in every country). Its controlled vs uncontrolled.
On Huntington, yes he underestimated the ability of US to integrate immigrants. It is truly a superpower of US.
I think it was Arlie Hochschild's book in 2016 which had a similar thesis, pitting "older" against "newer". In this case it was conceived as "jumping the line", the idea that "others" were getting unfair benefits through political correctness/DEI/whatever. And it wasn't long-established Mexicans versus recent undocumented immigrants.
My great-grandparents arrived in the US in 1894, and my grandmother was born in Pennsylvania the following year. They gave up and returned to what is now Slovakia sometime after a son was born in Illinois in 1902. According to a researcher in Slovakia, another son was born there in 1903, but his 1945 draft card and 1950 census records show he was also born in Illinois. I think the Slovakia event might be a baptism in late 1903.
All three siblings ended up in the US for their adult lives, although the youngest and his wife both died in Prague.
Huntington needed to spend some time in the "Treaty oh Hidalgo" area - as Latinos say, "We didn't cross the border- the border crossed us." Latinos & Mexicans (former) are as native or even more so than the WASPs in Cambridge. If you were "Born - In East LA," you might not even speak Spanish except for rolling out all the names of streets & municipalities in 5 States...
Our femme de menage is from central America, and when I asked her how we could help in the face of Trump's immigration threats, she said she wasn't afraid: her life was in God's hands. And then she went on to explain how if she could have voted, she'd have voted for Trump, because Biden has messed up the economy & Trump as a businessman would fix it. Moreover, he was a godly man.
Biden went to church every Sunday and helped produce the strongest economy in the world. But the right wing takeover of Spanish media has done its job......trump the rapist, fraudster and felon, who does not attend church, and who has made a career of bankrupting businesses, will become the first convicted felon to ascend to the WH....
It definitely fits the pattern of every other wave of immigration: People come over and get shat on, and after enough of them accumulate and integrate, they veer rightward and co-sign on a restrictionist backlash. A generation or so later, as their descendants gain upward mobility, they liberalize and join the elite, reopening immigration for the next wave to start the cycle all over again.
I wasn't familiar with Huntington's non-academic biographic, but now note his connection to the Democratic Party. Advisor to Hubert Humphrey during the 1968 election, chairman of the party's Foreign Policy Advisory Committee in the mid-70s, and working for Carter at the NSC. His thesis about the "non-integrability" of Hispanic immigrants to the US presumably did not directly and explicitly influence Democratic thinking, but was consistent with the total misunderstanding of immigrants that has increasingly characterized the party. "Assimilation" became a dirty word in progressive ranks, with the notion of preserving the specificity (but also by implication the insularity and non-integration) of immigrant groups gaining traction. In fact, immigrants overwhelmingly do not wish to remain hyphenated Americans, and Democratic rhetoric based on an identity group by identity group model of America has clearly lost a lot of immigrant support. I say this as a lifelong Democrat, but also as the child of immigrants who experienced first hand the challenges, but also the enormous benefits, of integration into broad American society.
In many ways, Huntington's career parallels the abandonment of the New Deal coalition that provided "the vital center" of American politics for a generation. By the Carter Administration, it was in decline. By the Obama administration, it was dead. The rise of identity politics--emphasizing race and gender and ethnicity over class--paralleled the abandonment of the "common man" to the business elites and a neoliberalism that focused on the worst parts of classical liberalism while it ignored the liberal heart. And every step of the way, Huntington cheered. https://substack.com/home/post/p-153029987?source=queue
Agreed. I do think America is great at creating recognition and even fun with St. Patrick's Day parades,San Gennaro festivals, Cinco de Maya celebrations and so on. Have a party, bring some scrummy food to the American table and let's all get along.
Plus ca change. I wonder if Huntington is familiar with the 1881 report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor Statistics which declared that French-Canadians (my ancestors) were "the Chinese of the Eastern States." It was not meant as a compliment. Different century and ethnic group but the same complaints about speaking their native language, being slow to assimilate, planning to work a few years then return to Quebec.
"Will the United States remain a country with a single national language and a core Anglo-Protestant culture?" As though this is, or ever was a good thing?
This is an erroneous piece of analysis.
This is entirely a take on Hispanics wanting comprehensive immigration reform, and the effects of inflation on mixed status families.
A cohort of Hispanics pissed at newer economic migrants who pose as asylum seekers, because the older cohort hasn't been the recipients of status legalization is a statement that speaks for a lack of a path to citizenship... not a denouncement or erosion of cultural or parochial ties from their respective countries of origin.
Drezner and Huntingdon: the Clash of Generalisations?
I think the question for majority of Americans has never been about immigration (discounting the 10% of cranks you will have in every country). Its controlled vs uncontrolled.
On Huntington, yes he underestimated the ability of US to integrate immigrants. It is truly a superpower of US.
I think it was Arlie Hochschild's book in 2016 which had a similar thesis, pitting "older" against "newer". In this case it was conceived as "jumping the line", the idea that "others" were getting unfair benefits through political correctness/DEI/whatever. And it wasn't long-established Mexicans versus recent undocumented immigrants.
My great-grandparents arrived in the US in 1894, and my grandmother was born in Pennsylvania the following year. They gave up and returned to what is now Slovakia sometime after a son was born in Illinois in 1902. According to a researcher in Slovakia, another son was born there in 1903, but his 1945 draft card and 1950 census records show he was also born in Illinois. I think the Slovakia event might be a baptism in late 1903.
All three siblings ended up in the US for their adult lives, although the youngest and his wife both died in Prague.
Returns were not limited to Hispanics, for sure.
Huntington needed to spend some time in the "Treaty oh Hidalgo" area - as Latinos say, "We didn't cross the border- the border crossed us." Latinos & Mexicans (former) are as native or even more so than the WASPs in Cambridge. If you were "Born - In East LA," you might not even speak Spanish except for rolling out all the names of streets & municipalities in 5 States...
Our femme de menage is from central America, and when I asked her how we could help in the face of Trump's immigration threats, she said she wasn't afraid: her life was in God's hands. And then she went on to explain how if she could have voted, she'd have voted for Trump, because Biden has messed up the economy & Trump as a businessman would fix it. Moreover, he was a godly man.
Biden went to church every Sunday and helped produce the strongest economy in the world. But the right wing takeover of Spanish media has done its job......trump the rapist, fraudster and felon, who does not attend church, and who has made a career of bankrupting businesses, will become the first convicted felon to ascend to the WH....
The Democrats played into Trump's hands. See https://globalization.substack.com/p/lessons-from-trumps-victory