George Rebane
As we anticipate the horrendous impact of abandoning Title 42 for managing the current tsunami of illegal aliens crossing our southern border, George Mason University economics professor Garett Jones comes out with The Culture Transplant (2022), a major essay on the enduring impact of cultures brought in by Americaβs immigrants. In the book review (here) we read β
β¦ cultural traits can persist for generations after migrants arrive in a new country. Newcomers donβt simply assimilate to their new homes; as the bookβs subtitle puts it, they βmake the economies they move to a lot like the ones they left.β Itβs a thesis that is at once highly provocative and a restatement of common sense: Poorly chosen immigrants can undermine a countryβs success; cultures donβt disappear when people move from place to place.
A point long made in these pages, the presentation of this research underlines the damage, not only possible, but to be anticipated from the hordes of millions of illegals that have been released with no effective controls into all corners of our land. More ominously β
β¦ even after four generations in the U.S., immigrants continue to hold attitudes toward trust that are significantly influenced by their home countries. On a host of other matters, such as family, abortion and the role of government, fourth-generation immigrants on average converge only about 60% of the way to the national norm. βOverall,β Mr. Jones contends, βthat low level of conformity is a bad sign, unless you think most immigrants come from countries with better political attitudes than Americans currently have.β
The bottom line is that immigrants from bad and backward countries donβt leave their cultures behind. They continue to embrace and practice them here, especially when they gather in ethnically homogenous enclaves. The resulting disunity impedes the falsely touted assimilation, and gives lie to the progressivesβ chant that βOur diversity is our strength.β In this shibboleth Jones writes βyouβre hearing the cultural equivalent of second marriages: a triumph of hope over experience.β As demonstrated over the centuries, first and foremost, people like to live with their own kind, no matter where they locate.
In this work Prof Jones has introduced a migration-adjusted SAT (state, agriculture, technology) score which usefully predicts the assimilation attributes of our immigrant ethnicities β e.g. predicts more than 60% of modern day income differences between the groups as derived from their countries of origin. It turns out that the technology component of SAT is the most impactive. Correlating with their home countries –
Technology also seems to be the best long-run predictor of government quality. So the main story seems to be about technological development persisting over time, and of people bringing their technological capabilities to new places.
Continuing to allow uncontrolled entry of millions of illegals portends a cultural and existential disaster for America β βThese concerns are immediate and tangible, not preoccupied with the effect of immigration generations from now. To address some of the more compelling worries, we might start placing greater emphasis on skills, perhaps implementing a points system, as Australia, Canada and the U.K. do, to grade potential immigrants.β
But first and foremost, to implement any of these factors into an immigration policy that sustains America, we have to secure our borders. This is also understood by our neo-Marxist and anti-American elites who will fight tooth and nail to maintain our borders in their current dysfunctional state that promotes, nay invites, the uncontrolled invasion by millions of illegals who will implant their own counter-cultures in this fair land.
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