Gautam Mukunda wrote:
> Doug
>
> What Dan's saying is pretty much a cliche in political science -
> particularly conservative political science. There are even a couple of
> books comparing the assimilation of Mexican immigrants in California and
> Texas, and Texas is usually considered to be much better.
Better if your goal is the melting pot. If your goal is
multiculturalism, which is at once more complex and interesting IMO,
then I'd guess California is doing better.
I saw one study that stated that 41% of the countries non English
speaking students were in California. This compared with 15% in
Texas. The next closest states had 7%. If true the (educational)
challenge in California is 2.5 times greater than anywhere else.
I'm not sure about the source however perhaps someone else knows
something about them: http://www.elausa.org/issues/bestatus.html
California also has a higher percentage of non-hispanic, non English
speaking immigrants. Finally we have such a large number of
immigrants from other states that at one point, non native
Californians outnumbered natives (I'm not sure that that is still true).
Honestly, I don't think a comparison of the two states is valid or
even relevant.
The Ford
> Foundation is usually blamed for this - it is far more active in California
> and tends to give money to "ethnic" organizations (RAZA is the most often
> named one). Like almost all organizations, the leaders of ethnic ones are
> far more extreme in their beliefs than the people they represent - that's
> why they became interested enough in the organization to get involved in the
> first place. Hispanic elites in California, for example, strongly opposed
> the end of bilingual education and any moves to crack down on illegal
> immigration. Opinion polls convincingly show, however, that the
> Mexican-American population _as a whole_ is in fact quite strongly in favor
> of those policies. The ethnic activist groups are far less activist in
> Texas, however, where the emphasis really does seem to be on creating a
> unitary culture instead of a bunch of separate ones. On this note the
> passage of the referendum ending bilingual education (despite my opposition
> to referendums on general principles) seems to me to be a very hopeful sign
> for the future of assimilation in California.
For those who don't fully understand what "bilingual" education has
become, let me explain a bit. Though the intention was to give non
English speaking students a helping hand, what actually occurred was
that they ended up being educated in their native tongue, getting
very little chance to learn English. This ended up isolating them
in a predominantly English speaking society and thus had the
opposite effect of that intended.
Guatam mentioned that most Hispanics in California opposed bilingual
education. In fact it was opposed by a whopping 84% of them. Most
non-hispanics favored bilingual education at one point, but this was
prior to the ballot initiative that ended it (by a vote of 60-40%).
The initiative served to educate the public on the issue, as
ballot initiatives often do. Personally, I'd like to see some sort
of national initiative system. Imagine if we were able to educate
the public on the "War on Drugs" and make constructive changes in
federal drug laws! The only real losers would be the Drug
producers/smugglers, the Mafia and the prison building industry.
I don't think that programs that are more effective at teaching the
native language to the children of immigrants is detrimental to a
multicultural society. To the contrary, an individual that
functions well in a society is more likely to be able to protect
those facets of his culture that he/she wishes to retain. To me,
multiculturalism doesn't mean cultural enclaves functioning
independently, it means ethnic groups retaining strong ties to their
heritage while functioning effectively in mainstream society. I do
realize that this may differ from other definitions.
Assimilation, on the other hand, is absorption into the main
cultural body, and (in my mind) encourages cultural homogeneity.
while this may be good for peaceful coexistence, it comes at the
expense of diversity.
One of the most interesting things about Jijo to me was its
multiculturalism. Just the idea that races so radically different
from one another could coexist was very cool.
--
Doug
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.zo.com/~brighto
Irreverence is the champion of liberty.
Mark Twain - Notebook, 1888
