Mexican Immigration, Part 2: The Huntington Thesis
Tuesday, May 9, 2006
by Tom Shuford

In the late twentieth century, developments occurred that, if continued, could change America into a culturally bifurcated Anglo-Hispanic society with two national languages . . . The driving force behind the trend toward cultural bifurcation . . . has been immigration from Latin America and especially from Mexico.

Mexican immigration is leading toward the demographic ' reconquista' of areas Americans took from Mexico by force in the 1830s and 1840s . . . Along with immigration from other Latin American countries, it is advancing Hispanization throughout America and social, linguistic, and economic practices appropriate for an Anglo-Hispanic society. ( WHO ARE WE? The Challenge to America's Identity by Samuel P. Huntington, 2004)

Samuel P. Huntington is a Harvard political scientist best known for Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order (1996), in which he argued that post-Cold War conflict would occur most frequently along cultural and civilizational fault lines rather than between ideological blocks as in the bulk of the twentieth century. (1)

In WHO ARE WE? Huntington applies this cultural/civilizational framework to what he sees as the internal risk to America from heavy, sustained Hispanic, particularly Mexican, immigration. In light of the evidence presented in Mexican Immigration: A Special Challenge, Huntington's thesis seems more than plausible. I will summarize the pertinent chapter, " Mexican Immigration and Hispanization, " in a subsequent column but would first share excerpts from a recent report, " Mexicans migrate to 'their land,' " ( Deseret Morning News , Salt Lake City, April 19, 2006) that inadvertently encapsulates Huntington's analysis:

DAVID TIMMINS, HARVARD-EDUCATED U. S. FOREIGN SERVICE OFFICER, RETIRED: RECONQUISTA IS MEXICAN GOVERNMENT POLICY : Mexicans see the Western U.S. as part of Mexico that was stolen from them 150 years ago. They believe this with all their heart .

WHILE POSTED IN MEXICO, TIMMINS WARNED WASHINGTON: I lived in Mexico 20 years ago, and during that time I reported without much attention being paid in Washington on the evolving Mexican government policy of passively promoting illegal immigration as part of a deliberate and long-range strategy to regain control of the border and mountain states it lost during the Mexican War of 1847-48.

CHILDREN ARE TAUGHT THAT THE U. S. SOUTHWEST IS MEXICO'S : I was visiting the Museum of National History in Mexico City where I observed a class of perhaps 40 10-year-old school kids sitting on the ground in front of a huge mosaic map that was labeled "Mexico Integral," or "Greater Mexico." Their teacher expounded on how the Norteamericanos stole half of Mexico in 1847. The map showed Mexico to include Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, California, most of Idaho, and Oregon and Washington up to the Alaska panhandle.

MEXICO'S OBJECTIVE: DO WHAT AMERICANS DID TO THEM 150 YEARS AGO: Referring to the large numbers of Mexicans streaming into the United States and to the Anglos who once streamed into Texas, California, and the rest of the Southwest: They have an undeclared policy to retake by infiltration what they lost by infiltration.

PART OF THE INFILTRATION POLICY IS TO KEEP EMIGRANTS IN THE U. S., AMERICAN CITIZENS OR NOT, LOYAL TO MEXICAN CULTURE: MUSIC, FOOD, AND ESPECIALLY LANGUAGE: Their object is to not shift the border on the maps but shift the border in people's minds.

WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO THWART MEXICAN INFILTRATION? Denial of all benefits to illegals including the ability to send money home and serious penalties for those who hire illegals: It is only going to corrupt our system if we don't get control of our borders and control of our assimilation process. The notion that all that is needed is enforcement of existing law plus a guest worker program is simplistic beyond description.

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A mong the mostly white Mexican elite, publication of WHO ARE WE? provoked outrage. Samples:

Carlos Monsivais, famed Mexican writer/journalist/sociologist : " It's an idiotic, racist argument . . . "

Jorge Ramos, anchorman for Univision Television, the biggest Spanish-network in the U.S.A.:

Huntington assures us that " Mexicans and other Latinos have not assimilated to the culture of the United States , " that they are "rejecting the values that constructed the American dream " and that this country runs the risk of having " two languages and two cultures." In other words that Latinos, particularly Mexicans, are a menace to American values and cultural integrity. Huntington doesn't understand that Latinos are not only a fundamental element of the United States, but that by the year 2125 we will be the majority in this country.

Ramos confirms Huntington's argument, if unintentionally. For a detailed account on Mexican reaction to WHO ARE WE? see " For Mexico's Elite, It's Open Season On Samuel Huntington, " by Allan Wall, an American citizen living in Mexico. Excerpt:

In Mexico, whites tend to be at the top of the racial spectrum, mestizos in the middle and Indians at the bottom. Notice too, that white Mexican elitists love emigration. After all, emigration removes a large percentage of poor and non-white Mexicans out of Mexico and into the United States, removing pressure on the elite.

It is necessary to know something about the social structure of Mexico to make sense of elite reaction to Huntington's calling them on their game. Americans think of Mexico as a poor country. Indeed, Mexico's Gross National Product per capita is but one fourth that of the United States, but statistics are deceiving. According to the Forbes magazine, Mexico has ten billionaires, one short of Saudi Arabia's eleven. Mexico has the third richest man in the world, the head of the Mexican telecom monopoly, Carlos Slim, worth $30 billion. " See Mexican Number 3! " by Brenda Walker, VDARE.com, Mar. 14, 2006. Excerpt:

The important point is that Mexico is a very wealthy country . . . Yet it works tirelessly to dump its unwanted peasants on the American taxpayer, even though Mexico could well afford to invest in its people and infrastructure.

The phenomenon of Mexican immigration, driven by elites, American and Mexican, should interest all American citizens. It is time to give the Huntington argument a close look. (2) That is the intent of a subsequent column.

Endnotes

1) The Clash of Civilizations , was based on Huntington's extremely influential 1993 essay by that name that appeared in Foreign Affairs magazine. The essay was prophetic as to the West's escalating conflict with radical Islam. Notable excerpts:

It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.

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I slam has " bloody borders. "

2) Huntington's 2004 essay in Foreign Affairs magazine, " The Hispanic Challenge, " is essentially identical to the pertinent chapter in WHO ARE WE? " Mexican Immigration and Hispanization. " Registration at Foreign Affairs is free or, if that is problematic, read the full text (9,000 words) at FreeRepublic.com .

Tom Shuford tomshuford@aol.com is a retired teacher living in Lenoir, North Carolina.