One can argue with many of the details in Huntington’s article, and some of his statistics lack precision or are questionable. But the fundamental trend he describes is partly true, and therefore partly valid: Mexican immigrants are not being assimilated into the American melting pot the way other ethnic groups have been in the past. Whether that is good or bad for the United States is for Americans to decide; it is certainly not desirable or inevitable for Mexico. The future that Huntington fears could condemn Mexicans in the United States to the status of a permanent, separate minority, in perpetual confrontation with the majority. I do not wish that for my compatriots. The most serious defect in Huntington’s theory is that he characterizes this situation as undesirable but offers no solution, thereby allowing his argument to be manipulated by racist or nativist advocates, which Huntington is not.
Ideally, Mexican immigrants would follow the example of the Irish, who started coming to America as early as 1848, and who like other immigrants were slowly integrated. They adopted and respected the mores of their new country–and yet retained the traditions of their home country. The Mexican experience is different: integration is neither automatic nor spontaneous. The language barrier is partly responsible, as is discrimination. Although past waves of immigrants to the United States, including the Irish, Poles, Italians and Jews, were victims of racism and exclusion, the case can be made that Mexicans suffer from a more acute form of bias than those other groups did.
Because Mexican immigration is a new and different situation, the United States must construct a new type of assimilation model for Hispanics. The country needs to legalize Mexican workers and their families, and establish a more direct road to citizenship for those who come after them. Mexico has set some precedents, one of which is allowing dual nationality. Since Vicente Fox took office as president of Mexico in 2000, the country has pushed for an immigration agreement with the United States that would legalize the migratory status of Mexicans already in America, as well as of Mexicans who will arrive in the future, either permanently or temporarily.
But Mexico’s attitude about emigration must also evolve. As Fox has said, we have to abandon condescension and consider our compatriots in the United States as admirable fellow countrymen, as part of the Mexican nation in the cultural and ethnic sense. And we have to continue to support and protect them, and to push for improvements in their conditions. At the same time, Mexico will have to establish an overall distinction between those who come and go, crossing the border regularly, and those who end up staying in the United States. The latter increasingly want to acquire U.S. citizenship, and there is no reason they shouldn’t. This does not make them better or worse Mexicans–it makes them Americans. Those who prefer to come and go should be allowed to do so legally and remain Mexicans. But Mexico should try and strengthen this distinction rather than the distinctive traits of a Mexican minority in the United States. These are the issues Huntington raises, and we must confront them.
