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| "Mobile Construction, Trees, 2000" by Nick Cave (Museum of Contemporary Art) |
That's bad. Fewer people means fewer taxpayers and a city in decline.
What's good is when those busloads of Venezuelans started showing up, courtesy of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. A political thumb in Chicago's eye for daring to call itself a "sanctuary city" and welcoming immigrants the way America has — grudgingly — since the Pilgrims landed in 1620.
Sure the new arrivals were a hassle. Finding them temporary shelter at a moment's notice — actually, no notice at all. Getting them food and warm clothes and enrolling their kids in school.
It was expensive, in the same way building a house or putting money in a 401(k) is expensive. An investment in the city's future. Because many of those Venezuelans are going to stick around.
We are at a moment of anti-immigrant frenzy in this country — another anti-immigrant frenzy, as common as dirt in American history, almost like saying "Today is a day ending in a 'Y.'" A good time to take a breath and assess the facts.
Maybe it would help to look around the world. Across the globe is an industrialized nation called Japan. Japan's population in 1994 was 125 million. Today, 30 years later, it is ... still 125 million, having slowly peaked in 2008 and begun to steadily fall. The Japanese Health Ministry projects that by 2060 it will be 86 million.
So ... a good thing? Less crowding? No. A bad thing. Population decline and economic ruin go hand in hand. You can buy a Japanese house for $1 in towns that are emptying out. Let me teach you a Japanese word, "kodokushi." It means "lonely death" and is used to describe individuals who die at home and nobody notices, sometimes for weeks or even months. Cleaning up is a chore.
There are several reasons for this precipitous decline. Japanese couples are getting married later, if at all, and having fewer children. But the stake through the nation's heart is immigration, or lack of it. which.
Japan welcomed 175,000 immigrants in 2022. The United States let in 2.6 million. See a difference? Immigration is saving America. Immigration is why the population of the United States is not declining, and it's also much younger. The median age in the United States is 38.5 years. In Japan, it's 50. Younger is good.
Immigrants are younger, work harder, commit less crime and bring the range of cultural diversity that our nation is so proud of — at least those who don't wet themselves if they hear Spanish spoken in the break room.
That's why some folks prefer to imagine crimes and assign them to immigrants. The whole Haitians-are-eating-pets slur. As astounding as it was to hear that calumny spoken at a presidential debate, the true shock is that even after it was firmly established as a complete lie, vice presidential candidate JD Vance shrugged and kept repeating it. “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do,” he said.
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"Here’s a tissue." --
ReplyDeleteThat's rich!--
"So tell me, how have immigrants hurt you?"--
I can't wait!!--
"Something true, if you can."--
--That'll be the day. A ripping good read today!
I am not a Trump supporter - of course not!- but you don't have to search hard for a story about an immigrant hurting another immigrant. Or an American.
DeleteMy Lord, I knew of an Argentine immigrant who was 40 or 45 and had sex with a 15-year-old girl. To be fair, she had started it.
He was arrested and then acted like he had been the victim. Like America had wronged him. That takes real testicles.
To make this even more ironic, the man was incredibly homophobic. A sex offender judging others for their bedroom activities - now that is rich!
I am embarrassed to say that I feel injured by immigrants . many of my co workers over the last 40 years were born in Mexico . Over the last 25 years Pedro , Lalo, Sergio and Chewy , all of the same family ,have demonstrated traits few of my fellow citizens are capable of exhibiting. doing hard repetitive work for long hours. sacrificing personal space to achieve the American dream. Home ownership, raising families - their children are citizens - staying married, sending their children to university.
ReplyDeleteI am jealous of their work ethic and determination. they've learned English , paid taxes , are active in their community and asked for nothing. Still I feel they have taken something that was not theirs to have from people born here. By working very hard for less , they drove down wages of unskilled Americans that couldn't compete for the resources they accumulated. They were willing to be exploited and thus exploited others. Class and race issues are entwined in this narrative and it angers me that the newest wave of migrants will repeat this cycle. My Mexican friends are resentful of the new arrivals and believe the stories about them. Free money from the government, crime, disease, even the eating of pets.
Those that have gained citizenship speak of voting for trump. In the break room in Spanish . It crushes my soul
Frank
American's, at least the ones who seem to complain the loudest about immigrants, always refuse to do the dirty, hard work, low pay jobs they seem to wax on about jobs taken from Americans.
DeleteMe, me, me me. That's the true modern American story. I want my goods made in the US for the same price of Chinese made goods. I want cheap produce that is grown in the US but for import prices. I want the best schools in the world for free, but i don't want my tax dollars paying for it (or paying for anyone else).
It's a tale old as time itself. Social media has exacerbated it.
When you start giving back more than you make, then you're a true American. When you start investing in projects and programs that will support grand children you will never meet, then you are a true American. When you stand up for someone else who owes you nothing while risking everything, then you are American. The rich, the conservative, the fascist, the right, they are not Americans.
actually, it goes deeper than that. many meat packing jobs moved to iowa and south dakota in the 70s and 80s, partly for more room for a growing. industry and to be closer to the product. initially, they remained union jobs, but at the 1st strike, the packers looked outside their windows and, lo and behold, saw all those mexican farmworkers toiling in the fields for a pittance. they brought them in to break the strikes, paying them far more than they were making in the fields, but way less than the striking workers. there are no union meatpackers anywhere in the country these days, all now working in miserable conditions for crap wages. the same thing has happened in the construction field in housebuilding. these were all jobs that were handed down and available for decades, that while hard, paid good union wages with retirements. the retired union organizer in me understands why that bitterness exists. i also know they should be blaming the vast majority of owners who manipulated the political system to get just this result.
Deletei deplore the immigrant bashing that's going on and i know that donald trump has never and will never do anything for the working class people who are among his supporters. but i also understand where some of that anger comes from better than a lot of folks who grew up in white collar homes and have white collar middle class jobs. i also know that many, many trumpers are actually very well off and haven't been displaced by anyone, but are simply. fueled by racist bile just like the walking mound of dog excrement that is running for. president.
pgw has given a good description of the different factions affected by immigration. I’m having a hard time recalling when a corporate executive was held to account for exploiting undocumented workers and violating federal immigration laws. For an example, see Koch Foods a poultry supplier.
DeleteGreat column today. I think the comparison with Japanese really hits the point. We wouldn’t be the country we are today if the immigrants didn’t come in and do the work that many others refuse to do - the dirty, messy, low- paying work that some feel that they’re too good for. Who repairs your home, tends your year, etc? Thanks for your perspective on this.
ReplyDeleteIn Mexico, you know who does that work? Mexicans. Which is part of the strength of Mexico. It's really a weakness to rely so heavy
DeleteI find it fascinating how so many people seem to want everything yet refuse to "pay" for it.
ReplyDeleteSome years back, our insurance company said that recent storm damage had qualified us for a new roof. We picked a well-reviewed local roofing company who, despite the large and steep roof areas of our house, said that they'd have it done in a day. A massive pile of supplies materialized in our driveway the day before. I tried lifting a pack of shingles. Wow.
ReplyDeleteThat morning, a team of 8-10 men and two women showed up about 8 a.m. and immediately got to work scraping off the old roof. Ladders were set up, and each man took a pack of shingles on his back, walking it up the ladder and then up to the top of the roof, spreading the weight evenly across. As one area was scraped clean, another team started applying the new underlayment and shingles. We had put out coolers of water bottles and Gatorade, which they took up the ladder with them; we never saw anyone taking a break.
Things got quiet at lunchtime, and I peeked out to see how things were going. The women had plugged a compact microwave into an outside outlet on the porch and made hot lunches for all the others, who were sitting in the shade on the lawn. At 1:00 promptly, work resumed.
They did indeed get it all done in a day, expertly. At one point I saw a worker straddling the front peak of our house to finish the very tip, like Leo DiCaprio riding the Titanic. I got his attention and took his photo as he smiled and waved.
Most notably for me, everyone spoke Spanish only. My only-English self had to go through one manager, who traveled among multiple project sites and was reachable mainly by text, but I felt the shortcoming was mine rather than theirs, since their operation seemed to be chugging along just fine either with or without me.
Roofing work has got to be hard and unpleasant, worse than landscaping, and you couldn't pay me enough to do it. Heck, I'd be in the hospital before lunchtime. These folks were willing to show up and do their best. I should learn Spanish.
We lived in the Phoenix area for a while, and same; roofing in 90+ heat, usually singing and laughing. Huge respect to them and for them!
DeleteWe had a similar experience, five years ago.
DeleteAppalachian hill-folks, not Hispanics.
Ten guys in trucks.
Took them two days, not one. but they worked like hell.
The August heat had to be brutal up there.
Like hell.
They were efficient, and it's a fine roof, but they did cut some corners.
Especially around the chimney, and they threw bits and pieces everywhere.
Three years later, i was still finding them in the shrubbery.
What a great piece of work. Could see the scraping, and the new shingles.
Feel the lunch hour in the shade. Hear the language they spoke.
Had five years of Spanish. Don't remember mucho anymore.
So now you know.
Now you know who's the best commenter at EGD.
It ain't me, babe.
Kudos.
We need a 'scared straight' program here whereby every year, you have to take time to pick your own produce, butcher a cow for your bloody burgers, pluck and decapitate the turkey for tg , dispose of your trash and build something with your own hands. We are so terribly spoiled and ungrateful.
ReplyDeleteIn an interview over the weekend, TFG said his deportation plan could be done easily and efficiently by using "serial numbers." Which arm, I wonder.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was growing up in South Bend, IN in the 1970’s, there was a large mural downtown honoring the migrant workers who came to our area every Summer to work in the fields. On a school field trip our teacher showed us the mural and told us how me should respect and be thankful to them.
ReplyDeleteAs the years went by many stayed and became valued members of our city. Today, the descendants of those field workers are our neighbors, friends, and coworkers.
It is surprising that many in our Hispanic community have conservative political views. Or maybe not considering they are mostly Catholic and their heritage is rural Mexico, and have more traditional social views.