Immigration and Assimilation

Center for Equal Opportunity     The Center for Equal Opportunity promotes the assimilation of immigrants into our society and research on their economic and social impact on the United States.       Back to NCPA Debate Home Page

Immigration is Not About Race by Linda Chavez, President of Center for Equal Opportunity [Excepts from article, for full text is on CEO website follow link on bottom of page.] ----- With the United States admitting high numbers of immigrants, America's ability to accept newcomers will increasingly depend upon finding a pro-assimilation middle-ground between nativists who say that today's immigrants cannot assimilate and multiculturalists who say that they should not. [from CEO website] ----- With Americans increasingly concerned about their own economic future, it's no wonder so many are becoming less generous in their attitudes toward immigrants. A majority of Americans, according to most polls, want to see fewer immigrants admitted. And more than two-thirds believe the immigrants who come here are failing to assimilate into the American melting pot. A book by Forbes senior editor Peter Brimelow called Alien Nation confirms the worst fears about what immigrants are doing to America. According to Brimelow, the United States is in danger of becoming, literally, an alien nation, overrun by millions of brown-skinned immigrants from Latin America and Asia. Brimelow, an immigrant from Great Britain himself, is exercised by what he sees as the racial transformation of the U.S. population. "Race and ethnicity are destiny in American politics," he warns ominously. Indeed, most immigrants today, about 80 percent of the 804,000 immigrants who came in 1984, are from either Asia or Latin America. But Brimelow's presumption that these immigrants will somehow change America (a view shared by most immigration restrictionists) is wrong. First, Asian immigrants are, on average, among the most successful, best educated persons in America, and are moving up socially and educationally at a much faster rate than most European immigrants did in previous eras.... Brimelow's argument, however, is less about the economic impact of the new immigrants than the racial impact. ... Click here for link to Center for Equal Opportunity web site, then click the Immigration button on left column for full text of this article.