Can you recommend a good book about the immigration 'problem' for Dad Adder?

[Plaid Adder]

My father, who although a Republican is normally a rational and compassionate human being, is reading Pat Buchanan's book on immigration. Worse yet, he appears to be enthralled by it. He found it because he listens to Imus. I would say something here about the folly of taking political advice from a comedian, but then I just read Imperial Life in the Emerald City based on an author interview on The Daily Show, so I have no leg to stand on there.

Anyway, the entire family--including my even more Republican brother--has been on my father's case trying to get him not to start spouting Buchanan's arguments in public and thereby embarrass all of us. At my sister in law's birthday party, he started talking about how the evil Mexicans believe that Texas and California belong to Mexico and are trying to take back Texas and California and turn it into "aselton."

I said, hardly believing my ears, "Are you talking about Aztlan?" He was pleased I'd heard about this conspiracy. I tried to explain to him that Aztlan is a theoretical/ideological construct developed by Chicano/a activists and that there are, so far as I know, no plans afoot to attempt to make it a real place. I also argued that the vast majority of Mexicans who enter Texas and California illegally are not members of the Secret Revolutionary Army of Aztlan, but rather people trying to find jobs that, crappy as they are, will allow them to make more money than they can make at home. He acknowledged this, but kept saying that he likes the book because it has so many "facts" in it. I said, with a guy like Buchanan who has a track record as a racist homophobe, you need to think about the facts he's leaving out.

We had a number of arguments/conversations about this over the course of the visit. He kept harping on the idea that "they're not assimilating." Rather than get into it with him about why insisting that all new immigrant groups remake themselves in the image of white middle class Americans actually impoverishes American culture, I told him that the same things he was repeating from Buchanan's book were said about the Irish, the Poles, the Germans, the Asians, the your ethnic group heres. Then he brought up the language issue. I would never have believed that this kind of "you're not an American if you don't speak English" bullshit would get a hold of a guy like my dad, but apparently fear of Spanish is a more widespread malady than I had assumed. I used to think that the reason that older people often come out with astonishingly frank racist comments was that they were from an earlier era where these things were accepted. Having seen what's happened to my parents in their 60s, I now have a new theory: some people actually get more racist as they get older. Being old means being confused and anxious a lot of the time, and I think that might exacerbate the latent racism that IMHO all white Americans are inculcated with in some way, shape, or form. But I digress.

Anyway. Can someone recommend a book about immigration with "facts" in it that I can send my dad so he doesn't have to rely on Buchanan as his sole source of information? It would help if it were more informational than polemical, as really all I'm trying to do is make sure he gets a more accurate picture of what's really happening.

Thanks in advance,

The Plaid Adder

[stellanoir]

1. Dunno how helpful this will be but

I heard a guy interviewed on the car radio over the past couple months who had written a really amazing article for "The Nation Magazine." I think he was interviewed on WBUR's "Here & Now" show. He was more knowledgeable than ANYONE I had ever heard.

I'll go search both those sites and see if I can dig up the author's name.

Don't know whether or not he's yet written a book.

Good luck in your search and Happy New Year to you and yours.

[Plaid Adder]

2. thanks, Stellanoir

I appreciate the effort.

C ya,

The Plaid Adder

[stellanoir]

3. Shoot

searched both archives and got lots of hits but not the one I for which I was looking.

I'll try to call the radio station tomorrow and see if anyone remembers it. They've been really helpful to me in the past.

This guy made more sense than anyone else I'd heard and was so-o-o well informed.

He spoke of entire Mexican villages being abandoned because there was no work. He said the real remedy would lie in American's investing in Mexican businesses so many would no longer be forced to risk their lives crossing the border.

I meant to listen to the interview again because it was interupted by poor reception but neglected to do so.

Good luck with your search.