I know, I know. My participation is long overdue. After all, I did write a book about it, and more recently (2003), an
op-ed on a the growing census numbers. The huge demos last March caught me by surprise -- I was in Spain and, frankly, had not been closely following the politics of what I had called the
Hispanic Nation. I don't want to just give an opinion; this question is too important for pundits. Rather, I want to come up with some hypotheses, and maybe even a proposal, that will help us understand and deal with all the conflicting issues. Big job. A job for a sociologist.
Here are some things I've been reading to get back up on it, in rough order of interest:
• Nina Bernstein,100 Years in the Back Door, Out the Front, NYT Week in Review; also, click on Bernstein's link to see her other articles on the issue -- serious reporting.
• E. J. Dionne Jr., Divisive In Any Language (washingtonpost.com)
• Alicia A. Caldwell, Security plan worries N.M. town officials (AP, boston.com)
• Shikha Dalmia, No Free Ride (Knight Ridder, Tom Paine)
• Sandi Burtseva, Yes, We Know They're Illegal (Tom Paine)
1 comment:
Thanks, Douglas. I think you're right, that none of the proposed reforms will stem the flow of immigrants as much as the conservatives would like. But more importantly, none addresses the many conflicting issues in a coherent way, which really requires collaboration on both sides of the border. Roger Lowenstein's article in yesterday's NYT Magazine, The Immigration Equation, is a useful summary of some of those conflicts, but just from the U.S. point of view. We have to work out better solutions with the Mexicans & other sending nations to get an orderly, humane & economically tenable system going.
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