My friend Jim wrote an inspiring essay about immigration. The nucleus of his thesis (in my own humble opinion) is very close to my personal belief that people drive the world to wealth. I don’t think I could have said it any better. It’s not just America benefitting from immigration. South Korea and to some extent Western Europe have benefitted from the influx.
I do think immigrants should learn English. I also think Americans should learn at least one other language. Spanish serves well in most of the US, but I think we’d better start learning Mandarin, because the Chinese seem to be catching on to this whole market economy thing, allowing their citizens to drive them to wealth as well. And I certainly have grave reservations about the nature of much of the Middle Eastern immigration into Europe, although I did meet many who adjusted well to Germany.
Thanks, Chris.
I’m keeping my blog over at http://jim.casablog.com/ now, though. That essay is superseded by a slightly edited version that removes some of that extraneous first paragraph. My writer friends thought the galaxy far far way reference was distracting.
Anyway, it’s here now:
http://jim.casablog.com/2006/04/28/my-fellow-americans/
I have meant to write a follow up on it a little bit. Under intense scrutiny by some of my smart friends, I see that “UNLIMITED” immigration might have some drawbacks, or at least an immigration rate that exceeds our ability to acculturate them (not necessarily assimilate). Living as I do in the quasi third world, I can easily see how a critical mass of like minded immigrants can wind up in the same barrio or ghetto that they left, that they tried to get away from, and doom them to more of the same.