Mexican Immigration and American Identity Essay

Mexican Immigration and American Identity - Essay prototypeAccording to the author, even though other values and principles of non-Protestant immigrants have helped to shape and modified this concept, most Americans yield these basic elements of an Anglo-Protestant culture as the key defining elements of their estateal identity. Yet, the author states that in the last decades of the twentieth century, this culture has been challenged by a context of globalization and ideas of multi heathenishism and diversity. The rise of groups that focus on race, ethnicity, and gender everywhere a more general national identity ar regarded as a threat to the countrys cultural and political integrity.Huntington views immigration from Latin America, especially from Mexico, as the single largest threat to the American identity. This due to a combination of six unique characteristics that differentiate contemporary Mexican immigration from past immigrant flows, being contiguousness ( roomer proxi mity), scale (steadily increasing numbers), illegality (illegal entry and permanence into the country), regional concentration (particularly concentrated in California and the southwestward), diligence (no signs of decline over the years), and historical presence (historical claim to the US territory). The boarder proximity with Mexico in the Southwest region encourages immigration and illegal entry into the U.S., which results in the steady increase of Mexican immigration passim the 20th century. Similarly, it increases the concentration of Mexican immigrants in that area of the country and the illegal characteristics of the flow. Since the conditions creating such immigration (economic conditions of Mexico, boarder proximity, etc) are unlikely to change, the flow is expected to persist. These factors, the author argues, differentiate the Mexican contingent from previous immigrant groups and are likely to hinder the assimilation of Mexicans into the United States culture.One of the authors main arguments defending the poor assimilation of Mexican immigrants into the U.S. society is the persistent use of their native language through successive generations. Huntington admits that statistics on English increase and Spanish preservation are limited and ambiguous. Nevertheless, the author insists that particular characteristics of the flow - scale, persistence and concentration - are likely to encourage the perpetuation of Spanish among successive generations of immigrants. Huntington considers that Spanish retention has a negative touch on the assimilation of the new culture even when proficiency in English is achieved. In addition, bilingualism would hazard earnings and put English-only families in disadvantage within the job market. Finally, the concentration of Mexicans in certain areas read portions of the country into bilingual and bicultural areas, reinforcing Mexican values over the traditional Anglo-Protestant values, which, according to the autho r, threatens the integrity of the nation, possibly dividing the nation into a country of two languages and two cultures. From my point of view, Huntingtons concept of the American identity is limited and excludes a great portion of the nations cultural and ethnic background. The authors