Culture Matters In Politics, Education...And Everything Else, Too

[roo_ster]

Culture matters. 

It is the most significant reason why transplanting liberal democracy has failed in the majority of places the West has tried to plant it.  It is the most significant reason why we have persistent minority enclaves that are poor, anarchic, and violent.

Below is just one small example.

One thing to keep in mind is that the US-born sons and daughters of the teeming masses of illegal immigrants, by law (if not COTUS) US citizens, are assimilating not to the American culture of middle-class prosperity, but to a large extent, to what is described below.

September 12, 2007
What we don't talk about in education debates

Had a good lunch with a friend today. He mentioned at one point that he's been volunteering for a while as a mentor to minority students in a poor part of the city He's a white man with a family living in comfortable circumstances, and wanted to give something back to kids who don't have the same opportunities as his kids have.

The story he told was pretty depressing. He said working as a mentor to these poor black kids has been frustrating. I'm going to paraphrase our long conversation, but the gist of it was this: these kids share our planet, but they live in completely different worlds. The key to what my friend sees is that material poverty isn't the primary cause of their suffering. It's culture.

N. told me that the children he's been working with live in a situation of more or less anarchy. One year they're living with their grandmother. The next they're living with their mother and her boyfriend du jour. There's no stability in their lives. Their father has children by three different women.

The kids come from a culture that apparently has little concept of time, structure and personal accountability. He said that if the kids agree to go do something he's arranged with them, maybe only one time out of three will they actually turn up. This is a constant problem, and defeats any attempt he makes to establish a stable relationship with them. Last year he paid for them to go to camp. The day before they were set to leave, he called their grandmother to see if they were ready. "Oh no," she said, "they went with their daddy this week." The thing is, said my friend, in the world they live in, this is normal. He said that it's very difficult keeping in touch with the kids he mentors, because so many people in their world fail to pay their phone bills on time that they're constantly having their phones turned on and off.

I could tell this whole conversation grieved my friend, who has a big heart for these kids. He went on to say that the academic situation for kids like them is horrible. Their school district is one of the worst in DISD. Leaving aside problems with the teachers, there's really only so much any school, no matter how excellent the teaching staff and how expensively outfitted the building, can do when the children have no support from their parents (or actually, parent singular -- if that).

N. said he once went to a high school football game in the district, and took his two sons. Big mistake. He said that you'd have thought it was a big college game, given the turnout. At two o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, scores of these parents were sitting in the parking lot getting drunk and smoking pot. When the game started, they were in the stands cursing the referees. Like I said, no order, internally or externally.

"Where do these kids get their moral sense?" I asked. N. said, "What moral sense? I'm telling you, the kinds of things you and I take as given, these kids know nothing about."

I hope I'm conveying to you how troubled N. was by what he was telling me. There was not the least sense of superiority in his tone or his words. There was nothing but concern, and a sense of helplessness. I told him that in our editorial board discussions of public education, many of us seem to think that if we only pour more money into the system, fiddle with the testing and carry out other procedural fixes, somehow we'll turn the situation around for the kids in these impoverished, low-performing districts. My view is, from talking to teachers about the role parenting and culture plays in the mental lives of their students, that this is naive.

N. shook his head. "Money is not going to do much for these kids," he sighed, adding that the culture these kids come from is so self-sabotaging it beggars belief.

I think the reason N. feels so down about it, and so powerless, is that there really is only so much outsiders can do. We -- meaning middle-class and upper-class people of all ethnicities, who live in stable environments, who were taught by our parents the kind of values that led us our previous generations of our families out of poverty -- don't want to leave children who didn't ask to grow up this way to the mercies of the selfish adults who refuse their duty to care for their own kids. But what realistically can be done? I really want to know.

You might remember my story some time ago about a black pastor -- a guy whose name lots of Dallasites would recognize -- who moved in from out of town and took over a church in south Dallas. The pastor and his wife started an afterschool program so the kids from the church could have a safe place to go study and hang out after classes, to stay out of trouble. They were startled to see that the children would show up at their house ... and all fall asleep. Come to find out that the kids were living in home environments of such chaos -- absent fathers, their mothers staying up till all hours partying with their boyfriends, etc. -- that they literally weren't getting enough rest. That's how profound are the problems these poor children face. That's how massive are the barriers that irresponsible adults put in front of their children's path out of poverty.

What can be done to rescue those children? Anybody have any ideas?

[The Rabbi]

Culture matters. 

It is the most significant reason why transplanting liberal democracy has failed in the majority of places the West has tried to plant it.  It is the most significant reason why we have persistent minority enclaves that are poor, anarchic, and violent.

Below is just one small example.

One thing to keep in mind is that the US-born sons and daughters of the teeming masses of illegal immigrants, by law (if not COTUS) US citizens, are assimilating not to the American culture of middle-class prosperity, but to a large extent, to what is described below.

Bull-hockey.

The story is very true, borne out by lots of I have heard, seen, and read.  Of course, I get the same thing with 20-something college-educated people too.  I had one guy who wanted to stop by for a visit.  We agreed Thursday at 10.  He didnt show up until a week or so later, no phone call no nothing.
And btw, Hispanics work their way out of poverty in far greater numbers than Blacks do.

[longeyes]

The Left wanted moral anarchy and they got it.  Unfortunately we did too. 

[roo_ster]

TR:

What you wish to be reality and what is reality are not the same. 

The stats for 1st gen Mexican-Americans tell a tale of dysfunction akin to that of the black underclass.  They are WORSE off than their folks with regard to criminality, children born to unwed mothers, employment, the whole kit & kaboodle of social chaos.  Get that?  How many other groups of immigrants to America had the first generation worse off than their immigrant forebears?

We are living the reality here in DFW.  It is on the streets, in the schools, in the hospitals, and in the county jail. 

[Joe Demko]

I work in a school system similar to that described in the OP.  I think N. may have somewhat of a penchant for dramatic overstatement.  I've been with my district since 1992, through the tidal waves of crack, the "takeover" by the big gangs, the collapse of the local economy, and more killings than I can remember.  I still think N. is a drama queen.  Things are actually better now than they were in, say, 1996.  That didn't just happen on its own.  It was a result of a lot of hard work from a lot of people in the school system and the community.  There is still, obviously, room for improvement.  If it can happen in my community, it can happen anywhere.

[Standing Wolf]

Lyndon Johnson's so-called "Great Society" chickens are coming home to roost.

A surprisingly small number of people seems to have noticed they look a lot like vultures.

[The Rabbi]

TR:

What you wish to be reality and what is reality are not the same. 

The stats for 1st gen Mexican-Americans tell a tale of dysfunction akin to that of the black underclass.  They are WORSE off than their folks with regard to criminality, children born to unwed mothers, employment, the whole kit & kaboodle of social chaos.  Get that?  How many other groups of immigrants to America had the first generation worse off than their immigrant forebears?

We are living the reality here in DFW.  It is on the streets, in the schools, in the hospitals, and in the county jail. 

Please post such stats.

[longeyes]

Take a trip to Los Angeles, Rabbi.  Do a tour of the public schools.  See what you think.  You can find the costs of all the various social welfare programs--and I include public ed in that--available to you on-line.  L.A. is spending a fortune every year to support Mexico-in-America.

[roo_ster]

One correction: the first generation of folks born in the USA are considered "Second Generation."  "First Generation" refers to the foreign-born immigrants.

Will the new second generation experience "downward assimilation?"  Segmented assimilation re-assessed
http://www.soc.ucla.edu/faculty/waldinger/pdf/B6.pdf

Hispanic Family Values?
Runaway illegitimacy is creating a new U.S. underclass.
http://www.city-journal.org/printable.php?id=2086

More to come...

[roo_ster]

What we can determine from 1st, left-hand chart:
1. Uneducated, poor, Mexican immigrants (Gen1) have a higher rate of employment than poor, uneducated native-born white males (~+17% for less-than-HS)
2. The sons of those immigrants (Gen2) regress to having a lower rate of employment than NBWM (~-5%)

[roo_ster]

Long-term joblessness, where positive numbers are bad & negative numbers are good.

Again, regression is shown for Gen2 relative to their immigrant fathers.

[roo_ster]

A Rainbow Underclass?

Mexican immigrants and their offspring: The crucial test case

As noted above, the hypothesis of segmented assimilation tells us that
not all immigrant children are equally at risk. While the offspring of the
large population of middle-class immigrants are slated for a smooth
transition into the mainstream (Portes and Rumbaut 2001, p. 45),
trouble, however, awaits the children of working-class immigrants
The national origins of these children of working-class immigrants are
exceedingly diverse. But Portes and his associates tell us that there is one
crucial case, at once standing out from all others and exemplifying the
theoretical claims that the hypothesis of segmented assimilation seeks to
advance: the Mexicans. As noted in the final concluding chapter of
Legacies:
"Mexican immigrants represent the textbook example of theoretically
anticipated effects of low immigrant human capital combined with
a negative context of reception" (Portes and Rumbaut 2001, p. 277;
emphasis in the original)
Reviewing the books findings, as regards the
offspring of Mexican immigrants, Portes and Rumbaut conclude that the
cumulative results clearly point to a difficult process of adaptation and
to the likelihood of downward assimilation . . . (p. 279) and insist that
these results warrant special attention, given the size of the Mexican
immigrant population and its all but certain continuing growth in future
years. As further pointed out by Lopez and Stanton-Salazar, the authors
of an article on Mexican Americans in the companion volume,
Ethnicities, the Mexican case is of 'unique importance, especially in California
and the southwest, where Mexicans are 'by far the largest minority and
are rapidly becoming the single-largest ethnic group . . . (Lopez and
Stanton-Salazar 2001, pp. 58-9).

[roo_ster]

Hispanic Family Values?
Runaway illegitimacy is creating a new U.S. underclass.
http://www.city-journal.org/printable.php?id=2086

Really to much to post.  I'll post some excerpts, but read the article for the whole tamale.

Unless the life chances of children raised by single mothers suddenly improve, the explosive growth of the U.S. Hispanic population over the next couple of decades does not bode well for American social stability. Hispanic immigrants bring nearThird World levels of fertility to America, coupled with what were once thought to be First World levels of illegitimacy. (In fact, family breakdown is higher in many Hispanic countries than here.) Nearly half of the children born to Hispanic mothers in the U.S. are born out of wedlock, a proportion that has been increasing rapidly with no signs of slowing down. Given what psychologists and sociologists now know about the much higher likelihood of social pathology among those who grow up in single-mother households, the Hispanic baby boom is certain to produce more juvenile delinquents, more school failure, more welfare use, and more teen pregnancy in the future.

But its the fertility surge among unwed Hispanics that should worry policymakers. Hispanic women have the highest unmarried birthrate in the countryover three times that of whites and Asians, and nearly one and a half times that of black women, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Every 1,000 unmarried Hispanic women bore 92 children in 2003 (the latest year for which data exist), compared with 28 children for every 1,000 unmarried white women, 22 for every 1,000 unmarried Asian women, and 66 for every 1,000 unmarried black women. Forty-five percent of all Hispanic births occur outside of marriage, compared with 24 percent of white births and 15 percent of Asian births. Only the percentage of black out-of-wedlock births68 percentexceeds the Hispanic rate. But the black population is not going to triple over the next few decades.

As if the unmarried Hispanic birthrate werent worrisome enough, it is increasing faster than among other groups. It jumped 5 percent from 2002 to 2003, whereas the rate for other unmarried women remained flat. Couple the high and increasing illegitimacy rate of Hispanics with their higher overall fertility rate, and you have a recipe for unstoppable family breakdown.

To grasp the reality behind those numbers, one need only talk to people working on the front lines of family breakdown. Social workers in Southern California, the national epicenter for illegal Hispanic immigrants and their progeny, are in despair over the epidemic of single parenting. Not only has illegitimacy become perfectly acceptable, they say, but so has the resort to welfare and social services to cope with it.

Despite the strong family support, the prevalence of single parenting among Hispanics is producing the inevitable slide into the welfare system...Hispanics now dominate the federal Women, Infants, and Children free food program; Hispanic enrollment grew over 25 percent from 1996 to 2002, while black enrollment dropped 12 percent and white enrollment dropped 6.5 percent.

The consequences of family breakdown are now being passed down from one generation to the next, in an echo of the black underclass. The problems are deeper and wider, says Berry. Now youre getting the second generation of foster care and group home residents. The dysfunction is multigenerational.

From an intellectual standpoint, this is a fascinating social experiment, one that academicians arepredictablynot attuned to. But the consequences will be more than intellectual: they may severely strain the social fabric. Nevertheless, it is an experiment that we seem destined to see to its end. Tisha Roberts, a supervisor at an Orange County, California, institution that assists children in foster care, has given up hope that the illegitimacy rate will taper off. Its going to continue to grow, she says, until we can put birth control in the water.

[The Rabbi]

Take a trip to Los Angeles, Rabbi.  Do a tour of the public schools.  See what you think.  You can find the costs of all the various social welfare programs--and I include public ed in that--available to you on-line.  L.A. is spending a fortune every year to support Mexico-in-America.

What would a trip to LaLa Land accomplish?  It would provide anecdotal evidence, the worst kind.  LA public schools are the pits anyway.  They were before immigration.

[roo_ster]

What these studies/stats point to is assimilation into American under class values, not middle class values.  This is understandable, since recent unskilled immigrants have to settle in the poorest of areas and rub shoulders with those already in those poor areas: America's under class.

Toss in the inertia-inducing magnet of welfare, plus the grievance/balkanizing ideology of multiculturalism, and it is no wonder just which sub-culture is taken as the model.

If all the folks from Mexico & points south were middle-class or upper-class folks, the assimilation pattern would be different and more in line with what we see from developed countries.  We saw something similar to that occur in S Florida during Castro's bid (late 1950s/early 1960s) to rule Cuba.  The educated Cubans were much better able to make the transition.  The second flood from Cuba (Mariel Boatlift, 1980), however, was much more like our current illegal cohort (thank you, Jimmah).

Thing is, the illegal immigrant cohort is largely straight off the farm or out of the barrio.

[The Rabbi]

Two-thirds (65%) of children of recent immigrants 12.1 millionare low-income. 2 For these children the challenges in academic, physical, emotional, and social development usually associated with economic insecurity are likely to be exacerbated by language barriers, the process of migration and acculturation, and restrictions on access to safety net programs.
The South and the West are home to most children of recent immigrants.
Percent of children living with recent immigrant parents, by region, 1993-2003
Percent of children living with recent immigrant parents, by region, 1993-2003

Enlarge

Figure 1: Percent of children living with recent immigrant parents, by region, 1993-2003

    * 35% live in the South, up from 24% a decade ago. 3
    * 34% live in the West, down from 46% a decade ago.

Most children of low-income, recent immigrants have parents who are employed.
Percent of children living with low-income, recent immigrant parents, who are employed, by region, 2003
Percent of children living with low-income, recent immigrant parents, who are employed, by region, 2003

Enlarge

Figure 2: Percent of children living with low-income, recent immigrant parents, who are employed, by region, 2003

    * 62% of children of low-income, recent immigrants have a parent who is employed full-time, year-round, compared to 51% of children of low-income, native-born parents.
    * Parental employment is high across all regions.

    * 71% of children of low-income, recent immigrants live with married parents, compared to 42% of children of low-income, native-born parents.
    * Marriage rates are high across all regions: 68% are married in the Northeast, 71% in the Midwest, 69% in the South, and 73% in the West.

Many children of low-income, recent immigrants have parents who lack a high school degree.
Parental education among children of low-income, recent immigrants, by region, 2003
Parental education among children of low-income, recent immigrants, by region, 2003

Enlarge

Figure 3: Parental education among children of low-income, recent immigrants, by region, 2003

    * 45% of children of low-income, recent immigrants live with parents who do not hold a high school degree, compared to 18% of children of low-income, native-born parents.
    * Children of low-income, recent immigrants in the West are particularly likely to have parents with low education levels. 4

Almost half of children of low-income, recent immigrants are under age 6.

    * 47% of children of low-income, recent immigrants are under 6 years old, compared to 36% of children of low-income, native-born parents.
    * Children of low-income, recent immigrants are likely to be young in every region: 42% are under age 6 in the Northeast, 50% in the Midwest, 50% in the South, and 45% in the West.

Public benefit use is low among children of low-income, recent immigrants despite need. 5
Public benefits utilization among children of low-income, recent immigrants, by region, 2003
Public benefits utilization among children of low-income, recent immigrants, by region, 2003

Enlarge

Figure 4: Public benefits utilization among children of low-income, recent immigrants, by region, 2003

    * 17% of children of low-income, recent immigrants live in households receiving food stamps, compared to 35% of children of low-income, native-born parents.
    * 7% of children of low-income, recent immigrants live in households receiving TANF, compared to 13% of children of low-income, native-born parents.
    * 34% of children of low-income, recent immigrants are insured by Medicaid or SCHIP, compared to 41% of children of low-income, native-born parents.
    * Children of low-income, recent immigrants are unlikely to utilize public benefits, particularly in the South.

I'd gladly trade our own inner-city dwellers for these recent immigrants.

[roo_ster]

TR:

A trade is not an option.  You'll have both...and the more the recent immigrants and their kids assimilate to the underclass culture (as they have been show to do), the more like our current inner-city dwellers they become.  A regular rainbow of dysfunction.

That is what is occurring in DFW.

[mtnbkr]

TR:

A trade is not an option.  You'll have both...and the more the recent immigrants and their kids assimilate to the underclass culture (as they have been show to do), the more like our current inner-city dwellers they become.  A regular rainbow of dysfunction.

That is what is occurring in DFW.

Happening here in Northern Virginia (actually, happening in the neighborhood next to mine, a mere 100yds away), but since it doesn't jive with what the WSJ or Cato says, it can't be true.

Chris

[K Frame]

Tell Abby to stop spreading terror in Georgetown South and society should recoalesce rather nicely...

[longeyes]

What would a trip to LaLa Land accomplish?  It would provide anecdotal evidence, the worst kind.  LA public schools are the pits anyway.  They were before immigration.

Not anecdotal evidence, empirical evidence.  The kind you don't want.   The future's not very bright when half the kids in LAUSD--75 per cent of whom speak Spanish first--don't graduate from high school.

Property taxes hereabouts, the bulk of which are paid by "Anglos," are rising because the politicians have found ever-increasing budgets for teachers and school construction to be the mother teat.  What they are learning is anyone's guess, but that was never really the point. 

[The Rabbi]

What would a trip to LaLa Land accomplish?  It would provide anecdotal evidence, the worst kind.  LA public schools are the pits anyway.  They were before immigration.

Not anecdotal evidence, empirical evidence.  The kind you don't want.   The future's not very bright when half the kids in LAUSD--75 per cent of whom speak Spanish first--don't graduate from high school.

Property taxes hereabouts, the bulk of which are paid by "Anglos," are rising because the politicians have found ever-increasing budgets for teachers and school construction to be the mother teat.  What they are learning is anyone's guess, but that was never really the point. 

One visit to one place is not empirical evidence.  It is anecdotal.  Like Mtnbkr who thinks viewing the world through his windshield is evidence of anything.
If you're going to excoriate anyone, start with the school system and the unions and political hacks who run it.

[wooderson]

I am shocked, shocked I say, that recent immigrants are not solid, law-abiding, middle-class citizens. Why, the Irish had secured their position in American society inside of one generation of the potato famine, right?


Right?



Huh?

[longeyes]

One visit to one place is not empirical evidence.  It is anecdotal.  Like Mtnbkr who thinks viewing the world through his windshield is evidence of anything.
If you're going to excoriate anyone, start with the school system and the unions and political hacks who run it.

We agree that the school system is part of the problem, a key part.  Education has become the Golden Calf.

But L.A. isn't just "one place," it's Ground Zero for the Great Experiment.  From what I can see it's not working.  There's little real assimilation, and the generation to generation progress we've come to expect isn't happening.  It can't happen when you have "Raza" enclaves, hostility to education, blaming of The Gringo for everything, and a constant influx of new job competitors.

[The Rabbi]

You could visit Boro Park in Brooklyn and extrapolate that Jews will never assmilate either.

[longeyes]

Some won't, but I have high hopes for them.