Immigration

Amid all the national debate over immigration, at least one firm consensus has emerged: Newcomers to the United States should learn English because it remains the lingua franca of our civic life. All three remaining presidential contenders say that the ability to speak English should be a requirement of U.S. citizenship. And last year, the immigrant governor of California told a convention of Latino journalists that immigrants should watch only English-language TV so they can understand the language and news… more

If I didn't already prefer Ketel One vodka in my martinis, I might very well call for my own boycott against Absolut.

Not because I agree with the knuckleheads who fear that the Swedish company's advertisement featuring a map of the American Southwest as Mexican territory is fueling ethnic secessionism, but because, in its attempt to lure upper-middle-class consumers in Mexico, the company played on an age-old canard that has historically been used to justify discrimination against Mexican immigrants and… more

Ending birthright citizenship is a placebo, not a solution to illegal immigration.

The debate over immigration is fundamentally about who we are as a nation,who we are not, and who we want to be.

It is thus no surprise that those most afraid of who we are becoming have moved to redraw the rules of inclusion by proposing to do away with birthright citizenship. Such a move is not only legally dubious, it is a threat to American prosperity.

Opponents of birthright citizenship… more

Last February, I found myself in the difficult position of explaining American insecurity to a group of Mexican undergraduates at a college in Matamoros, Mexico, just south of the border at Brownsville, Texas. I was taking questions after delivering a lecture on the long-term prospects of Mexican immigrants being accepted into U.S. society. A neatly dressed young man in the back stood up to ask a pointed question. "How," he said politely in Spanish, "could such a rich and powerful… more

Mexican Americans, Assimilations, and Race (KPCC Radio, Los Angeles)

Mexican Americans have not fully integrated into U.S. society, even by the third and fourth generation, according to a new UCLA study covering 40 years. Although many speak English fluently, prefer American music, and sometimes vote Republican, they continue to live in majority Hispanic neighborhoods and think of themselves as "Mexican" or "Mexican-American." Patt looks at the findings, both encouraging and troubling, and the reasons behind them.

New America Fellow… more

Gregory Rodriguez Interviews with Steven Colbert (The Colbert Report)

New America Foundation's Gregory Rodriguez appeared on The Colbert Report to promote his new book, Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans and Vagabonds.

Video of the interview is posted here:

In the summer of 1995, an Iranian man named Majid Yourdkhani allowed a friend to photocopy pages from “The Satanic Verses,” the Salman Rushdie novel, at the small print shop that he owned in Tehran. Government agents arrested the friend and came looking for Majid, who secretly crossed the border to Turkey and then flew to Canada. In his haste, Majid was forced to leave behind his wife, Masomeh; for months afterward, Iranian government agents phoned her and said things… more

SF Chronicle | Questioning Immigrants' Desire to Assimilate

. . . Two new books diverge from the political approach to the simmering assimilation debate, one looking backward, another looking forward. Los Angeles Times columnist Gregory Rodriguez's provocatively titled "Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans, and Vagabonds: Mexican Immigration and the Future of Race in America" examines Mexican Americans' self-identity through history, from the Aztec conquest to 21st century immigration into the United States. Rodriguez makes a strong argument that the very… more

English-Only Rule on Bus Relaxed; Compromise seen as model for dealing with immigration (Las Vegas Sun)

...To Tomas Jimenez, an Irvine fellow at the New America Foundation who studies immigration and assimilation, the policies, ordinances and laws seen across the nation are “all partially motivated by people who are disgruntled by a change in culture.” ...

How should Californians concerned about immigration vote on Feb. 5? Is tougher enforcement yielding any positive results? What will the immigration debate look like a year from now? Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, and UC San Deigo professor and New America Foundation fellow Tomás Jiménez debate.

For the full series on LATimes.com, please click here.