|
 bsent
a coherent conservative policy toward the civic assimilation of
immigrants, many conservatives have hit upon a new strategy: wishful
thinking. The civic assimilation of immigrants proceeds successfully
today, they trust, more or less as it did in the past. Don't worry,
"we have been here before," Michael Barone reassures us in The
New Americans, and most reviewers, conservative or no, seem
to be agreeing.
However, two items from the past week's news challenge this rosy
picture.
Item 1. On Monday July 9, the Los Angles Times reported
that for the first time in history, a naturalized American citizen
was elected to office in Mexico, under Mexico's new dual national
law. Andres Bermudez, a former illegal immigrant, a successful vegetable
producer, nicknamed the "Tomato King," was elected Mayor of Jerez,
a city of 40,000 people in Zacatecas, Mexico. Of course, in becoming
an American citizen in the early 1990s, Mayor Bermudez like millions
of immigrants since 1795 took an oath to "absolutely and entirely
renounce all allegiance" to any foreign state.
Pardon me, Mr. Barone but we have not "been there before." Our Sicilian
immigrant relatives did not run for political office in Italy, all
loyalty to which they formally renounced. True, in the past, Italian-Americans
helped America by fighting the Communists in Italy in 1948. Just
as today, Mexican-Americans are helping spread American principles
by assisting the towns of their birth through hometown associations,
as Latin American expert, Robert Leiken, has noted. However, once
an immigrant becomes an American citizen, running for political
office in a foreign country violates both the spirit of civic assimilation
and the principles of our constitutional republic. These violations
did not happen in the past; evidently they do now.
On Tuesday July 10, President Bush welcomed new Americans at a citizenship
ceremony on Ellis Island. In the traditional language of patriotic
assimilation, the president told the newcomers that "a few minutes
ago I was the leader of another country. Now it's my honor to speak
to you as the leader of your country." In other words, the president
explained that with the Oath of Citizenship the immigrants had transferred
allegiance from one country to another, from the land of their birth
to the United States of America.
In contrast, the July 9th Los Angles Times reported that
Andres Bermudez declared himself a "candidate of two nations, the
Jerez that is here (California) and the Jerez that is there (Mexico)."
Conspicuously, neither of the two "nations" he mentioned was the
American nation.
Item 2. On Thursday July 11, the Denver Post quoted
an interview they had held with Juan Hernandez, one of Mexican President
Vincente Fox's chief advisers and the director of the new Presidential
Office for Mexicans Abroad. Hernandez (who is also an American citizen)
told the Post that Mexicans working in America "are going
to keep one foot in Mexico." Moreover, he noted that while they
"should engage politically in their U.S. communities," they "are
not going to assimilate in the sense of dissolving into not being
Mexican." However, one interprets his remarks, it is clear that
there is something new in the air. We have not "been here before,"
either. Italian government officials were not making similar pronouncements
in interviews with American newspapers in 1901.
Clearly, we are living in different times from the glory days of
Ellis Island: Modern communications permit immigrants (now often
called "transnational migrants") to stay in close contact with their
birth nations, and American elites support anti-assimilation policies.
(For a more detailed examination of the differences, and my full
response to Barone, see "It's
Not 1900 Any More," December 2000, American Enterprise Online
Recently, an AEI gathering of conservatives luminaries (Robert Bork,
Francis Fukuyama, Lynne Cheney, Eliot Cohen) examining Walter Berns's
new book Making
Patriots, all agreed (with different degrees of emphasis
to be sure) that the American nation is not only territorial-cultural
(Bork's emphasis), but also (Berns's emphasis) creedal — founded
on principles. If this is true, then civic or patriotic assimilation
(loyalty to the American creed and our constitutional republic)
is even more important than learning English or owning a home. Nevertheless,
the advanced communications and transnational loyalties of the 21st
century make civic assimilation more difficult (understandably enough)
even as newcomers learn English and gain wealth, as the case of
Andres Bermudez illustrates.
What is to be done? How can conservatives appeal to new immigrants
for political support without forfeiting their conservative principles
on citizenship, or wavering in their repudiation of group rights?
The first order of business is to think clearly. Civic assimilation
does not simply happen automatically. For one thing, it demands
a vigorous, officially recognized Americanization effort on the
part of both the government (i.e. administration policy)
and civil society (support from foundations, activists etc.). It
also demands that we regard immigration and Americanization as a
seamless web, and that our policies hold the two indivisible.
We have not yet had a serious discussion within the conservative
movement on the central problem of how to "conserve" our constitutional
regime in the face of a new transnational world. With its advocacy
of multiple, dual, and "post-national" citizenships, this new world
presents an ideological challenge to our liberal democratic nation-state.
Very soon, the administration will decide U.S. policy on amnesty
for illegal immigrants and a possible new "guest worker" program
with Mexico. The 800-pound gorilla in the room is Mexico's dual
national law. New policies could mean millions of new dual citizens,
changing forever the traditional idea of civic assimilation, that
immigrants transfer allegiance from the old country to the American
republic, because the newcomers could also be loyal citizens of
the Mexican republic. Theodore Roosevelt called dual citizenship
a "self-evident absurdity." Michael Barone told a C-SPAN audience
on July 7 not to worry about Mexico's new dual national law. Conservatives
will soon have to decide if they agree with TR or Michael Barone.
|
