Since 1980, the Congress of the United States and three Presidents have vastly expanded immigration, mostly from Asia and Latin America. The expansion, having come as a result of policies enacted in 1980, 1986, and 1990, has stimulated a growing movement for immigration restriction. Even if that movement is partly successful, immigration is likely to continue at high levels, and it is important to pay attention to public policies that will help unify immigrants and their children as Americans. A civic unity policy agenda is suggested for the new Clinton administration that will promote civic unity while protecting ethnic diversity.
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References
1.
idem , “Thinking about Immigration and Ethnicity in the United States,” in Immigrants in Two Democracies: French and American Experience, ed. Donald L. Horowitz and Gerard Noiriel (New York: New York University Press, 1992).
2.
2. Lawrence H. Fuchs, “The Reaction of Black Americans to Immigration,” in Immigration Reconsidered, ed. Virginia Yans-McLaughlin (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990).
3.
3. For an account of the interview with Claire Booth Luce, see William Raspberry, “Mrs. Luce: An Awful Interview,”Washington Post, 15 Sept. 1982.
4.
4. William F. Buckley, Jr.'s column in Washington Post, 1 Oct. 1982.
5.
5. Lawrence H. Fuchs, The American Kaleidoscope: Race, Ethnicity, and the Civic Culture (Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press and the University Press of New England, 1991), pp. 365-371.
6.
6. President Reagan is quoted in Fuchs, American Kaleidoscope, p. 367.
7.
See also the National Bureau of Economic Research summary report, Immigration, Trade, and the Labor Market, ed. Richard B. Freeman (Washington, DC: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1988).
8.
8. Frank Morris, statement before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees, and International Law and the House Labor Committee Immigration Task Force, 13 Mar. 1990, reported in Immigration 2000: The Century of the New American Sweatshop (Washington, DC: Federation for American Immigration Reform, 1992), p. 3.
9.
Leon F. Bouvier , Fifty Million Californians? (Washington, DC: Center for Immigration Studies, 1992).
10.
Many scholars continue to reject Borjas's interpretation of the negative economic impacts of immigrants. A recent entry in the debate is Thomas Muller, Immigrants and the American City (New York: New York University Press, 1993).
11.
11. Jack Miles, “Blacks v. Browns: The Struggle for the Bottom Rung,”Atlantic Monthly, p. 41 (Oct. 1992).
12.
See U.S., General Accounting Office, Immigration Reform: Employer Sanctions and the Question of Discrimination, Mar. 1990, p. 4.
13.
13. The number actually admitted is likely to be slightly higher.
14.
14. After extensive hearings and discussions on the subject, 7 members of the 16-member Select Commission actually voted for a change to admit only unmarried brothers and sisters. They were the Attorney General of the United States, Benjamin Civiletti; Father Theodore Hesburgh, Chairman of the Select Commission; Secretary of Labor Ray Marshall; Senators Alan Simpson (R-Wyoming) and Charles Mathias, Jr. (R-Maryland); and Representatives Hamilton Fish, Jr. (R-New York) and Robert McClory (R-Illinois). Except for Civiletti and Marshall, no other Democrat on the commission—the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, all eight members of Congress, and three public members—voted for change. See U.S. Immigration Policy and the National Interest, Appendix I to the Staff Report of the Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy: Summary of Commission Recommendations and the Votes, Supplement to the Final Report (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1981), p. 79.
15.
15. Federation for American Immigration Reform, The 1991 Federation for American Immigration Reform World Refugee Report, (Washington, DC: Federation for American Immigration Reform, 1992).
16.
16. Peter Brimelow, “Time to Rethink Immigration?”National Review, 22 June 1992, pp. 34-35, 44.
17.
17. Account of press conference with President-Elect Bill Clinton, New York Times International Edition, 14 Jan. 1993, p. A-8.
18.
18. For a demonstration of the success that American society still has in acculturating immigrants, see Fuchs, American Kaleidoscope, chap. 18.
19.
19. See Rodolfo De La Garzaet al., Latino Voices: Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban Perspectives on American Politics (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992). De La Garza's data also revealed that most Hispanics do not think of themselves as either Hispanic or Latino. They prefer to be identified, as do immigrants from Europe or Asia, by their country of origin.
20.
On the importance of English to the global economy, see “English: Out to Conquer the World,”U.S. News and World Report, 18 Feb. 1985, pp. 49-57.
21.
21. A recent example of how hard affirmative action programs pit one group against another came when Republican Governor George Voinovich of Ohio decided to award minority set-aside contracts to companies owned by immigrants from India, 19 of which received contracts under the state minority program. African American elected officials immediately protested that the action was illegal because the Asian Indian businessmen did not constitute an economically disadvantaged group. But one of the Indian businessmen countered that the black-owned firms continue to get, in his words, “all the work.” See Gerard Lim, “Asian Indians Recognized as Legitimate Minority in Ohio,”Asian Week, 22 Jan. 1993, p. 3. Another example of bad public policy recommendations is in the report of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in the form of the commission's frequent support of charges of discrimination against Latinos by the authorities in Washington, D.C. The commission called for more Latinos in the District's governing bodies to make up for alleged discrimination against them. But its attempt at some kind of proportional representation did not take into account that many Hispanics are illegal aliens and that most Latinos in the city are recent immigrants with a limited command of English. Its recommendations could lead to discrimination against qualified blacks.
22.
In many jurisdictions, the Republican Party has developed a strategy of heavily packing black voters into inner-city districts, leaving nearby suburban jurisdictions more Republican than when they were racially mixed. Federal courts have not overruled the legislative justification for racial and ethnic gerrymandering, which is that the votes of blacks and Latinos are somehow diluted unless districts are gerrymandered to promote the election of blacks and Latinos. Of course, the main provisions of the Voting Rights Act are superb and should be enforced thoroughly, as they have been. See Linda Greenhouse, “Court Backs Minority Voting Districts,”New York Times, 3 Mar. 1993.
23.
23. For a more detailed analysis of the costs and benefits of affirmative action, see Fuchs, American Kaleidoscope, chaps. 22 and 23.
24.
24. Douglas S. Massey and Nancy A. Denton make that case persuasively in a brilliantly argued book, American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993).
