Again from the Atlanta Urinal and Constipation is this article on immigration.
Immigrant numbers hit all-time highThat's all that border enforcement going on.
Washington —- Nearly one in five people living in the United States speaks a language at home other than English, according to newly released census data that illustrate the wide-ranging effects of immigration.
Whole lot of assimilatin' going on here.
The estimates, from 2006, show the number of immigrants nationwide reached an all-time high of 37.5 million that year, affecting incomes and education levels in many cities across the country. But the effects have not been uniform.
I wonder how many of those immigrants are illegal? And why are some doing better than others?
In most states, immigrants have added to the number of those lacking a high school diploma, with almost half of those from Latin America falling into that category.
Bingo! And I'll bet most of them from Latin America are here illegally.
However, at the other end of the education spectrum, Asian immigrants are raising average education levels in many states, with nearly half of them holding at least a bachelor's degree.
Those are the kind of immigrants we want. Those with education and skills. I'll also bet that most of those immigrants speak English.
"There is no one-size-fits-all policy that you could apply for all immigrant groups," said Mark Mather of the Population Reference Bureau. "I think most of the attention has been on low-skilled workers coming from Mexico. But we have 10 million immigrants from Asia, a number that's growing."
The low-skilled workers from Mexico are illegal. The Asians are prolly not. Plus, the Asians assimilate. On a side note, I wonder if that includes all of the Chinese girls the single 40ish women in this country are adopting? I know two women in the Atlanhta area who have adoped Chinese girls.
In the 28-county Atlanta metro area, the number of Spanish speakers grew by 53 percent from 2000 to 2006. Spanish speakers now total 8.5 percent of the metro area's population, up from 6.9 percent in 2000.
One out of every twelve people in Atlanta are Hispanic and the numbers are growing. Once again, I ask, how many of those are here illegally?
The Asian numbers are growing as well.
The metro area's Asian-language-speaking population has also grown in the past six years, going from 2.3 percent of the total in 2000 to 2.8 percent in 2006.
There are about 33,000 people in metro Atlanta who speak Vietnamese, about 31,000 who speak Korean and about 27,000 who speak Chinese, the census data show.The rest speak a smattering of Japanese, Khmer, Hmong, Thai, Laotian, Tagalog and other Asian and Pacific languages.
They better start working on their English skills and they prolly will.
The data come from the American Community Survey, an annual survey of 3 million households that has replaced the Census Bureau's long-form questionnaire from the once-a-decade census. It does not distinguish between illegal immigrants and those who are in the United States legally.
Of course it doesn't. That wouldn't be politically correct now would it?
About 48 percent of Asian immigrants held at least a bachelor's degree, compared with about 11 percent of immigrants from Latin America. Among people born in the United States, about 27 percent were college graduates."Driving this are people coming from China and India," Mather said. "They are either coming with a bachelor's degree, or they are coming with visas and getting degrees once they arrive."
While the Latinos are cutting our lawns and cleaning our houses.
At the other end of the spectrum, 47 percent of adult immigrants from Latin America lacked a high school diploma, compared with 16 percent of Asian immigrants and 13 percent of people born in the United States.Those numbers are fueling overall increases in the number of high school dropouts in four states: Nevada, Arizona, Colorado and Texas, said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.
Go figger.
"It used to be the poor Southern states that had low levels of education and income. Now it is the high-immigration states, as well," Frey said. "But that isn't to say that the second or third generation won't do better, because they will. There is upward mobility."
As long as they learn English. But why bother? We give them translators, bilingual education, and ballots in Spanish. They have their radio stations and television stations. Why bother to learn English?
So you think I'm a racist and I hate Hispanics. Wrong burrito breath. My problem is with those who are in this country illegally. My problem is with those who won't learn English and expect us to learn Spanish or provide them with translators. The biggest impediment to any immigrant to this country is lack of English. Catering to non-English speaking immigrants with bilingual education is not helping them, it is hindering them.
If I were to move to another country, my first task would be to learn the language. We have people who have lived here for years who cannot speak English and refuse to learn it. That is a recipe for failure.
Posted by denny at September 12, 2007 01:16 PMI'm confused. One in eight are Hispanic, but the percentage of Spanish speakers is 8.5%? So, decimally speaking, .125 are Hispanic but .085 speak Spanish? Like you said, no problem if they are here legally and assimilate - but how do people doing these studies determine who's Hispanic and who speaks Spanish? I don't think there's any sense in labeling them as Hispanic if they've fully assimilated. It seems unnecessarily divisive.
Posted by: Peggy U on September 12, 2007 02:59 PMThis should brighten your day a little, Denny. I recently ran into a woman I met at an adult ESL/Civics class (class was designed to help them learn English and to prepare them to take the citizenship exam). Her English has improved a lot since I last talked with her. Her oldest son has graduated from high school, and her daughter will soon. The kids, of course, speak fluent English. The woman started a house cleaning business and now has two employees. Her family is hoping to buy a house within the next year. OTOH, she is from Costa Rica, and they may have a generally different attitude toward assimilation than many Mexicans(?). From what I've read of Costa Rica, it has its differences from the rest of Latin America, because it wasn't as closely tied to Spain during its early years. It has a fairly high literacy rate.
Posted by: Peggy U on September 12, 2007 03:14 PMPeggy - Fah! I screwed up on my math or my reading. It should be one in twelve. I fixed it. Thanks for pointing that out.
Nice story about the Costa Rican lady.
Posted by: Denny on September 12, 2007 03:23 PMI find it of interest that I don't know a single second-generation immigrant from any country other than Mexico and South America who doesn't speak at least pretty darn good English (more commonly, are natively fluent), but I've met many Hispanics who are second gen and are still functionally illiterate in English.
Posted by: Toren on September 12, 2007 04:04 PMI wonder some times if we could time warp someone who came to this country 100 years ago, and show them the pieces of shit that come and squat in our country and shit on us. what would they say? I wonder who they'd think less of...Them for doing it or us for enabling it?
shameful.
Posted by: patrick on September 12, 2007 04:58 PMMy blogment in "GMAFB" (above) germane.
Posted by: eros total on September 12, 2007 05:08 PMI'm friends with a married couple (one from Australia, one from Canada) who have lived in the US for years, own property, pay taxes, etc., etc., yet have not been able to gain citizenship.
One of my best friends is Chinese. She did her undergrad and grad studies in the US and speaks/writes English fluently. She was going to get deported within a few months of her graduation unless she had a job that "only she" could perform. So, she and her boyfriend got married so she could get a green card.
My boyfriend was born in Spain and then lived in Colombia for several years (he has dual citizenship with those countries). He and his family moved to the US when he was seven. He has two siblings, and all three of them are well-educated. His father is a biochemical engineer and his mom is a psychologist. They all speak perfect English. My boyfriend speaks English with his family at home (except with his mother). They only have green cards and have spent thousands and thousands of dollars PER PERSON trying to gain citizenship.
What is wrong with this picture?
Posted by: AnnaD on September 12, 2007 05:18 PMAnna D: Same is true of our friends who moved here from Canada. They are both well educated. He has done engineering work for Boeing. Their son was born in Canada, and their daughter was born here and is a citizen. The parents are just now achieving citizenship. I know it has been at least 12 years since they have initiated the paperwork. Like your Chinese friend, he has had to prove that there is nobody available who can do his job. Both of them have had to get references out the ying yang and disclose a ton of financial and personal information. I know it has been a real headache for them, but the end is in sight. Should be a party later this year!
Posted by: Peggy U on September 12, 2007 08:42 PMGreat post Denny. As you mentioned I was apparently labled a racist because I have issues with my 9th grade son being the only caucasion in one of his classes here in the heartland. And I do. He has to listen to his classmates speak in Hispanic which he does not understand. Nor should he have to. America=English. Bottom line.
Posted by: Teresa on September 12, 2007 10:06 PMTeresa - You were supposed to go have a catfight with Sally on that thread. Are you gonna let a fellow liberal call you a racist?
Posted by: Denny on September 12, 2007 11:35 PMAw, sorry Denny. Not gonna bite and could really care less what Sally has to say. I admit to being a racist for those that come to America and refuse to learn the language and demand interpreters.
Posted by: Teresa on September 12, 2007 11:46 PM"However, at the other end of the education spectrum, Asian immigrants are raising average education levels in many states, with nearly half of them holding at least a bachelor's degree.
Those are the kind of immigrants we want. Those with education and skills. I'll also bet that most of those immigrants speak English."
Asians may be able to speak english (barely) but not at home and they are sending their kids to school with no english what so ever. It has been my experience that staff meetings in some Silicon Valley companies are held in Mandarin. They are legal, educated, and Not assimilating.
Posted by: steve_in_CA on September 13, 2007 08:33 AMI was in a minor fender bender in July. Went to court and sat there and waited for my case to be called. There were about 30 people in the courtroom. Four, count 'em, FOUR, people were there speaking no English, driving without a license, and it wasn't their first offense.
And this is one county in Virginia; extrapolate that across the country. There is a lot of damage being done by these illegals. We need to get them out.
On another note, one of my ex-bosses adopted a Chinese girl who was 18 months old. Beautiful, sweet girl. My boss was told that she had been only fed mashed fish. She didn't know what vegetables or juices or fruits were. Very sad.
They have a thousands-year-old tradition of getting rid of girl children. I hope that soon it will come back and bite them in the a%# when all those boys can't find wives.
Elizabeth
Imperial Keeper
steve - I'm only going by the Chinese (and other Asians) whom I know and whom I worked with at IBM. Higher education is overly represented by Asians, who have to speak English to compete at the college level. These are the immigrants that we want. These are lso the immigrants who are assimilating.
Elizabeth - The one child policy and the aborting or abandoning of Chinese girs has already led to demographic problems. IIRC there are 50 million more men than women in China.
Posted by: Denny on September 13, 2007 01:12 PMDenny,
Times have changed. I would agree with your experiences at IBM, based on my experiences prior to 1990. That has changed with the recent influx of asians, at least in CA. They do speak English, but not at home. When they do become managers, their departments rapidly become homogenous with their own ethnic make up. As a hiring manager, I was forced, yes FORCED to hire asians that my boss selected. I am no longer employed there.
me no habla
Posted by: vetfromhell on September 13, 2007 08:30 PM