America’s Faustian Bargain with Immigration
This is an article that I have been trying to write for quite some time. I’ve talked about it with friends and I think finally I’m ready to say it. We need to talk about our Faustian bargain with immigration. Immigration is great…or is it? It can be; most people in this country come from immigrants if you go far back enough. Immigration built America, but what have we built? What are we trying to protect now? What does immigration in the 21st century mean to a nation that has found itself part of an ever-larger global village that appears to be so full of unsolvable problems? The same global village that has done a good job of selling products to the United States but without much other benefit. All of that trade around the world has made the US rich and the center of global trade, and yet, the everyday person on the street doesn’t see much benefit from all this participation in the global economy.
The “good” jobs have gone, and the pathways to jobs are seemingly higher than ever before. Where is the benefit for the people of America? Immigrants come to here to make money, but do they add anything of themselves to the nation? Are they just here for the quick and easy cash? Are we content with being a country for whom others come to collect a check and don’t fully participate in our civic life?
Immigration Through the Years
America has an on-again-off again historical love affair with immigration. Immigration is at the same time so valuable but contentious. Immigrants and children of immigrants have done great things in this country but there have been some downsides. This is a problem that has plagued this country since its founding. In the 19th century, immigration was an important part of fueling the new industrial economy. However, this immigration was not always welcomed with open arms.
Chinese immigration became so prevalent that Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. This act was unique because it specifically banned Chinese women from immigrating. Chinese workers had professional restrictions, too, which had them working in laundry restaurants and making the most of their culture through restaurants and other associated businesses. Chinese immigrants were a part of building the transcontinental railroad (from the west side), and the West Coast wouldn’t have been the same without the heavy influence of Asian culture from around the Pacific Rim. Americanized Chinese food is sold in every corner of this country. There’s even a fast food version in the form of Panda Express. What is more American food than delicious food sold through windows?
On the East Coast, when Irish immigration was overwhelming following the Irish potato famine, signs stating, “Irish need not apply,” went up in certain corners of Boston and New York. There is some debate about whether actual signs ever happened, but the discrimination became an accepted reality at the time and in national lore. It is challenging to think that Boston or New York could ever be such places, given the contributions of that community to the fabric of our nation.
This is the push and pull of immigration. It is a part of our country in innumerable ways, yet we have a tortured relationship with and with some good reasons that aren’t all racist or xenophobic, as some might say.
New immigrants do change the culture of a country. America has led the world in assimilating new migrants and adding them to our tapestry. However, when southern European immigrants who were predominantly Catholic arrived in the 1880s and 1890s, the influx of catholicism was new to a country that had been hitherto protestant. It was not always welcomed with open arms. Catholic schools were a result of a contentious debate in New York about the type of prayer and religion taught in schools. When John F. Kennedy was elected president in 1960, it was news that he was the first Catholic president to ever be elected (incidentally, Joe Biden was only the second).
Immigration also suffers from racism as well. White immigrants from similar European cultures have always been preferred over immigrants from countries with darker skin tones. President Trump amplified this in 2017 when he said that he preferred more immigration from nations like Norway rather than from Central America. In the hell site that is Twitter/X, there is often talk about racial differences in IQ and immigrant quality.
The idea of immigrant quality has obviously come up in the recent social media firestorm surrounding the tweets from Vivek Ramaswamy about immigration and the educational attainment of the American workforce.
Ethnically American
The idea of an “ethnic American” is a topic where the ethno-nationalist “America First” mask comes in full display. As I’ve already stated, this is not new. The term “America First” is infamous for being a banner movement in the 1920s that led to the effectual banning of immigrants in 1925. How to deal with immigrants and what they are doing to the culture and fabric of the country is a topic our people have had to return to time and again. There are many upsides to immigration, but there are also downsides, and too often, those are not acknowledged. In a country where the middle class is shrinking and native — born people, regardless of their immigration background, are struggling to find a job or afford a rising cost of living, it is challenging to ask them to continue to be welcoming to newcomers when they feel like they are barely banging on.
Next to that, you have to add in White racial conscious and a view, of many people, that America is for White people (vaguely European) and that everyone is a sort of “honored” guest. The implication is simple, “The food is nice, but don’t forget who runs the place.” This concept pops out on social media in a form that some might consider racist, but (dare I say it) might have some value. The new battle cry, “America is not an economic zone,” gives us a new idea about America. Being American needs to “mean” something beyond just agreeing with freedom, the Constitution, and the flag. “American” (as a concept) isn’t just an idea born of a nation that is an idea, rather, it is an ethnicity or a people-group that is unique and deserves to be protected.
Mixed Immigration
While immigration is a net good for the country, and immigrants (both willing and unwilling) have built our country into what it is today, one cannot help but wonder how American society would be different if we severely curtailed immigration. Indeed, during most of the 20th century (1925–1965 specifically) immigration was severely reduced with a strict quota system being in place for most of that time. During the Holocaust, many Jews, fleeing the Nazis, had a terrible time immigrating because of the country-by-country quota system. To this day, it is still viewed as one of the terrible shames and indirect participation in the Holocaust.
Immigration can be a good thing, but I can’t help but wonder if our society might be more stable with less immigration. Today, our immigration system is not based on quotas (in most cases) but is still a labyrinth of confusing forms, agencies, and requirements. The tech industry has used the H1B visa system to bring in immigrants to do certain programming and engineering jobs at a low cost, and have employees be beholden to the company for the privilege of making less than a native-born American would but more than they would in their country.
Being an immigrant is no easy thing. You have to pull up your entire life, leave your home and all your connections, and travel to a new place you’ve never seen before with an unfamiliar language, culture, and customs. Even for those immigrants who do speak the language, that leg up does not extend to culture, social norms, and connections. It is a hard road, and that is why many immigrants gathered in enclaves. Most major cities have a Chinatown or a little Italy/Poland etc. Those neighborhoods are a legacy of immigrant communities gathering to help each other navigate a new country, language, and way of life.
The Real Issue with Immigration
Immigration is not just a matter of talking about people picking vegetables. Immigrants are at all levels of society, and this is obvious in Silicon Valley. Google Microsoft, and Adobe all sport Indian CEOs. Vice President Kamala Harris is a 1st generation daughter of an Indian immigrant. Japan might have tried to buy America in the 1980s, but Indians just work here.
Who benefits from loose immigration policies? The biggest culprit of course if American corporations. They offer the jobs that immigrants cross oceans to come to work. Immigrants come to the United States for better jobs that pay far more than they do in their home countries. The US economy is the largest in the world, and this attracts anyone who would like a higher wage and can find a way to get here. Students from around the world flood into US universities in the hopes of a quality education and possibly a well-paid American job. Workers coming for other, less glamorous work come here too. Workers in Central America will come up during harvest season to harvest our agricultural bounty. The work is back-breaking and most native workers, infamously, won’t even do those jobs. Immigration at this level is found every from agriculture to hospitality and construction. In many ways, the American economy is hopelessly dependent on these people to keep things clean, being built, fed and moving forward.
It is my view that the immigration problem will never be solved and can never be solved until we can pry America’s corporations away from a steady supply of cheap labor. Do immigrants do jobs that native workers would rather not do? Yes. Can this also be a bad thing for the country? Yes.
This is why immigration is complicated. It is an issue that cannot be boiled down to simple slogans.
