Civic Issues Blog #1 – Hispanic Immigration in the U.S.

Less than 2 years ago, in 2019, a mass shooting took the lives of 23 people and injured 23 others.  On August 3rd of 2019, Patrick Crusius posted a “manifesto” of sorts on the website 8chan, using rhetoric such as “Hispanic invasion”, “Cultural and ethnic replacement”, and “removing the threat”.  This openly violent rhetoric towards Hispanic immigrants is hard not to draw comparisons to Donald Trump’s public rhetoric towards the same group of people.  In fact, in the manifesto, Crusius claims that his views align exactly with Trump’s, but that Trump should not be blamed for the attack.  While I will make a concentrated effort not to make this post a scathing rant on the former Commander-in-chief, it is at the very least worth noting his influential role in inciting and enhancing anti-Hispanic values in this country.  Nevertheless, hours after posting the manifesto, Patrick Crusius walked into a local Walmart in El Paso, Texas, and murdered 23 men, women, and children, and injuring dozens more. Almost exactly one year ago today, Crusius was charged with 90 federal charges, including 22 counts of a hate crime resulting in death

This tragic event is an extreme microcosm of the harsh reality of Hispanic immigration in the United States of America.  Replacement theory, or The Great Replacement, is defined as a white nationalist, far-right conspiracy theory that centers around the idea that the white elite population will be replaced through mass migration, demographic growth, and a decline in white birth rate.  This ideology is rooted in exaggerated immigration statistics and racism, fear, and bigotry.  People who adopt this ideology aren’t all planning on committing acts of terrorism like the tragedy in El Paso, but the idea is more common than you may think.  Scholars say that much support of “building the wall” across the Mexican-American border can be attributed more to the fear of Mexican immigrants rather than halting illegal immigration.

14% of America consists of immigrants.  Of this 14%, or roughly 44.7 million people as of 2018, almost 75% reported themselves as speaking well or very well.  I think that many people with anti-immigration sentiments have a common argument that they’re frustrated that immigrants that come to America should speak English.  Despite the United States famously not having an official national language, many are upset with immigrants coming into this country and spreading their language and their culture.  However, according to this statistic, it seems as though the majority of immigrants speak English well.  One in seven residents in America is an immigrant, and 3 out of 4 of those speak English well or very well.  While these statistics are directed at a more general view of all immigrants from across the world in America, we must consider the fact that Mexican immigrants make up more than 25% of all American immigrants, far outweighing any other nation’s immigrants to the U.S.  In addition, many Latin American countries contribute to the other 75% of immigrants.

Contrary to the popular idea among people that share anti-immigrant sentiments, there’s a clear argument that immigration helps the American economy rather than hurting it.  One in six U.S. workers is an immigrant, making up a massive amount of the total work force in this country.  Furthermore, immigrant-led households contributed a total of 308.6 billion dollars in federal taxes and over 150 billion dollars in state and local taxes as of 2018.  In the same year, it was estimated that American immigrants have roughly 1.2 trillion dollars in collective spending power.  So, as consumers, immigrants add over one trillion dollars to the American economy.

After the terrorist attack in El Paso, many Latinos have come out and said that they’re in fear living in America, with some stating they’re afraid to go outside in some areas.  As the graph below indicates, many Latinos share the belief that their situation as a whole has gotten worse in recent years.  What do you believe contributes to this feeling of unrest among most immigrants?  Do you believe anti-immigrant rhetoric has increased in recent months/years?  Do you think that these feelings will continue to increase in the coming years?  Why/why not? 

Now, I understand that there is a common argument from the other perspective that immigrants, and Mexican immigrants in particular, come to America and “steal” their jobs.  I’m interested to hear more about this argument and I’m all ears for hearing a cohesive and intelligent point being made about this perspective.  It seems difficult for me to hear this argument without it blending together with passionate hate towards immigrants, but I’d like to hear a purely logical reasoning behind this idea.  If anyone reading this has any thoughts they’d like to share about this topic, regardless of whether the thoughts they share are pro/anti immigration, as long as they’re considerate and well thought out, the commentary would be appreciated.

I wanted my Civic Issues Blog this semester to focus on immigration and how utterly ridiculous to me how much hatred immigrants in this country have to deal with.  We’ve all heard that the United States of America is a melting pot, or at least it used to be – A nation founded by immigrants, a nation reaping the benefits of the ingenuity and innovation of its immigrants.  I want to examine further and discuss with whoever is reading this: what are your thoughts on this subject?  Why do you think a nation created by immigrants, a nation with a rich history of many of its ancestors flooding through Ellis Island in the east and Angel Island in the west, is a nation that seems to despise immigrants?  What are your thoughts on the statistics provided in this post?  And what are your thoughts on the excerpts shared about many Latinos’ fear of stepping outside and living in this country?

Works cited:

Charlton, Lauretta. “What Is the Great Replacement?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 6 Aug. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/08/06/us/politics/grand-replacement-explainer.html.