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TO BE AN AMERICAN
CRITICAL AMERICA General Editors: Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic
White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race IAN F. HANEY LÓPEZ
Cultivating Intelligence: Power, Law, and the Politics of Teaching LOUISE HARMON AND DEBORAH W. POST
Privilege Revealed: How Invisible Preference Undermines America STEPHANIE M. WILDMAN with MARGALYNNE ARMSTRONG, ADRIENNE D. DAVIS, AND TRINA GRILLO
Does the Law Morally Bind the Poor? or What Good’s the Constitution When You Can’t Afford a Loaf of Bread? R. GEORGE WRIGHT
Hybrid: Bisexuals, Multiracials, and Other Misfits under American Law RUTH COLKER
Critical Race Feminism: A Reader EDITED BY ADRIEN KATHERINE WING
Immigrants Out! The New Nativism and the Anti-Immigrant Impulse in the United States EDITED BY JUAN F. PEREA
Taxing America EDITED BY KAREN B. BROWN AND MARY LOUISE FELLOWS
Notes of a Racial Caste Baby: Color Blindness and the End of Affirmative Action BRYAN K. FAIR
Please Don’t Wish Me a Merry Christmas: A Critical History of the Separation of Church and State STEPHEN M. FELDMAN
To Be an American: Cultural Pluralism and the Rhetoric of Assimilation BILL ONG HING
TO BE AN AMERICAN
Cultural Pluralism and the Rhetoric of Assimilation
Bill Ong Hing
Copyright © 1997 by New York University
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hing, Bill Ong.
To be an American : cultural pluralism and the rhetoric of
assimilation / Bill Ong Hing.
p. cm. — (Critical America)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 0-8147-3523-1 (acid-free paper)
1. Pluralism (Social sciences)—United States. 2. Immigrants—
United States. 3. Acculturation—United States. 4. United States—
Ethnic relations. I. Title. II. Series.
E184.A1H54 1997
305.8’00973—dc20 96-35678
CIP
New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper,
and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability.
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For my children, Eric, Sharon, and Julianne
Contents
1 A Superior Multicultural Experience
2 A Nation of Immigrants, a History of Nativism
3 Mi Cliente y Amigo Rodolfo Martinez Padilla
4 Searching for the Truth about Immigrants and Jobs
5 How Much Do Immigrants Cost? The Methodology Wars
7 Low-Wage Immigrants and African Americans
8 Beyond the Economic Debate: The Cultural Complaint
9 The Challenge to Cultural Pluralists: Interethnic Group Conflict and Separatism
10 A New Way of Looking at America
Acknowledgments
The countless immigrant clients and families with whom I have worked over the past 25 years provided the primary impetus for the writing of this book. They are inspirational people who have taught me volumes about life. Most have been hard-working, decent, and law-abiding. Relatively few were criminals. I appreciate the opportunities I have had to get to know them; they have made my professional life worthwhile. I have encountered them in a variety of places: law offices, legal clinics, community presentations, the immigration court, and in detention facilities. They do not deserve the negative image that dominates much of today’s media.
I think of my clients often. I thought of them a few years back when I read that the most common name given to newborn boys in Los Angeles County was José. Given what we know about the demographic development in certain parts of the country like California, that fact was enlightening but no surprise. I was quite happy that the parents of all the new Josés born in Los Angeles County sought to record the name as José rather than as Joseph or Joe. Their action was a departure from what I experienced generations earlier.
When I was born in a small, predominantly Mexican